Surface water at Preston New Road in June 2017. Photo: Katrina Laurie
The shale gas firm, Cuadrilla, breached its environmental permit twice in the early stages of the operation at its fracking site near Blackpool.
Documents released recently by the Environment Agency show that the company allowed surface water containing silt from its Preston New Road site to reach the tributary of a local brook twice in a week.
The site is supposed to be designed and operated to prevent any contaminated water from the well pad draining into surrounding fields and streams.
But despite guidance, the EA said the company’s surface water management scheme at the time was “found to be inadequate”.
An officer said the scheme “required improvement to prevent surface water containing silt from causing pollution”.
Frack Free Lancashire, which opposes Cuadrilla’s operations, said the incidents raised questions about trust in the company. A spokesperson said:
“If Cuadrilla can breach conditions twice, just a few weeks after starting work at the site, how can they be trusted not to do so again?”
In July 2017, the head of the EA’s onshore oil and gas team, told a meeting in London that permit compliance was crucial to community trust:
“For the industry, compliance with our environmental permits is probably the most single thing they need to do. … This is going to be key to regaining the trust and their social licence in the communities in which they operate.” (DrillOrDrop report)
Protesters, who have filmed the Preston New Road site since work began on 5 January, have reported several occasions when the wellpad appeared to have problems with surface water.
The issue was also raised at the June meeting of the community liaison group for the site. Minutes referred to the site being waterlogged. Cuadrilla’s geologist, Mark Lappin, said the company had addressed the issue of excessive rainwater.
Details of permit breaches
The permit breaches came to light following a site inspection by the Environment Agency (EA) on 2 March 2017, about two months after Cuadrilla started work at Preston New Road.
According to the EA, the first incident occurred on 27 February 2017 when surface water discharged into a tributary of the Carr Bridge Brook.
The EA said this was caused by a surface water management problem:
“A trial dewatering and treatment method for surface water from the well pad following heavy rainfall did not provide sufficient treatment to prevent silt entering this tributary.”
The EA said this method had ceased by the time of the March inspection.
A second discharge happened three days later on 2 March, when EA inspection staff were at the site. The EA said:
“[This] was caused by an escape of surface water from the well pad that contained silt. The silt overwhelmed a low bund around the well pad and escaped into a header drain that collects surface water. A bag filter and straw bales had been used to treat surface water containing silt before discharging to a field drain.”
The EA said there was no deterioration in water quality in samples collected on 27 February or 2 March. But inspectors spotted discolouration of the watercourse on 2 March.
The EA said:
“Despite notification to the operator on the 27th February of surface water containing silt entering a tributary of Carr bridge Brook a similar incident occurred on the 2nd March.”
For both incidents, the EA recorded a breach of the environmental permit condition 2.1.1, which prohibited the company from discharging surface water containing silt into a tributary of the Carr Bridge Brook.
The EA also recorded a breach under Regulation 12(1)(b) of the Environmental Permitting Regulations because Cuadrilla did not have a permit for discharging surface water.
Breaches are rated by how serious an impact they could have on the environment, with C1 being the most serious (major environmental effect) and C4 being the least serious (no potential environmental effect).
The Preston New Road breaches were ranked C3, where they could have a “minor environmental effect”.
The notes on the EA’s Compliance Assessment Report recorded:
“At the time of these incidents the surface water management system was found to be inadequate and required improvement to prevent surface water containing silt from causing pollution.”
The company was instructed to implement a well pad surface management system to protect local watercourses and prevent surface water containing silt from reaching them.
The EA’s Compliance Assessment Report also recorded:
“Since these incidents surface water containing silt has been retained on the well pad and removed from site via tanker while a medium-term solution to treat surface water is developed and tested.
“This solution involves treatment using settlement and ph adjustment in a dedicated treatment system called a silt buster, the treated water is then discharged to ground.”
Guidance
Before the incidents, Cuadrilla had already received advice on silt pollution.
Another Compliance Assessment Report, for an inspection on 30 January 2017, at the end of the first month of operations, recorded:
“Pollution prevention advice was given in relation to the soil stripping prior to the construction of the site contractor’s compound.
“Advice and guidance was provided on good housekeeping around the contractor’s compound to prevent silt pollution”.
The EA instructed Cuadrilla:
“Land drains around the site should be highlighted on the site plan.
“Drainage and/or collection of surface water runoff from the contractor’s compound must be clearly marked on the site plan and included in the method statement. Actions will be reviewed on the next visit”.
Questions over trust
A spokesperson for Frack Free Lancashire said:
“Fortunately these incidents only had a minor environmental effect but such incidents in future, especially now Cuadrilla have started drilling and fracking possible by the end of the year, could have far wider and more serious consequences.
“As we have seen from previous events in Lancashire such as the cryptosporidium outbreak, our water is precious and must be protected at all costs.
“Fracking undoubtedly poses risks to not only our water but also to our air. Rest assured we will be watching their activities closely. The good news is the EA are also watching closely too”.
DrillOrDrop invited Cuadrilla to comment on the breaches. This post will be updated with any response.
Links to documents
Cuadrilla Preston New Road Compliance with Permit Assessment Report 07.04.2017 (pdf)
Preston New Road Compliance with Permit Assessment Report 30.01.17 (pdf)
Categories: Regulation
DRILL OR DROP? 
So Cuadrilla isn’t ‘marking it’s own homework’ afterall and the EA *is* making compliance inspections of its own – despite many people insisting it wouldn’t because of staffing and budget cuts. Fancy that.
Lee – we are talking about 1 site here. Nobody has ever seriously suggested that budget cuts have pared the EA to the point where they can’t manage a visit once in a while to one site. It may well be a different matter if this industry ever gets into production mode in the UK of course
Out of interest how many visits have they made to PNR? Do you know?
Was it the EA who were inspecting that apparent leak from the side of the pad a while back?
When considering suitability for issuing a PEDL, the then DECC focused on financial capacity and technical expertise, and placed particular emphasis on the technical capacity of the would-be operator.
The OGA has the power to issue Revocation notices.
These revoke the petroleum licence of the recipient following a failure to comply with specified petroleum requirements.
The serious failings at Preese Hall and the various planning condition and permit breaches brings into question the ability of Cuadrilla to operate within the conditions attached to their licence.
Coloured water is present on the roadway outside the building site a few hundred metres from my property ie. clay sub soil plus heavy rain equals coloured water, blocked road drains mean it will enter the local brook-where the clay will settle and the water will clear. No sign of EA there. Good job though that the Gold Standards are being applied at PNR. Just hope the EA washed their wheels on the way out.
Simple answer, dig a trench around the site, fill it with gravel and set the level to drain into a “herring-bone” of gravel filter beds. Done it, it works and is relatively cheap but you need sufficient gradient and porous soil-but if it isn’t, just frack it! (Joke.)
Oh, hello refracktion! Why worry about fantasy? As one of the antis economics spokesmen, development is never going to progress, because it is uneconomic. Isn’t it?
I shall keep away from Poole Harbour as it must be full of nasty stuff. (You will find full scale, permanent sites will have somewhat more permanent facilities and structures. Not exactly rocket science, think toilet blocks versus portaloos.)
Oh Hello Martin – yes it is looking unlikely isn’t it? I’m just concerned at the moment though that Cuadrilla don’t seem to be able to follow the simplest of rules – fluid management, understanding what a calendar is for – you know that kind of stuff. It really doesn’t inspire confidence does it?
typical infractions and more at our US sites, like where I live in northeastern Pa… We have over 1,000 DEP (regulatory agency) violations just for my county of 830 sq. miles…and since 2008 and now have over 1300 gas wells and 7 companies working this county; besides the compressor stations to push the gas through the pipelines and process the gas to be market ready…will you have compressor stations.. we have 50 so far just in my county and we have over 30 counties being gas drilled in Pennsylvania alone…they start small and expand like a virus throughout the land; they need to drill ever more gas wells to keep the profits flowing…no end in site…still drilling and expanding since 2008 in my county. and pipelines galore..hopefully, this gas well doesn’t find enough gas to make a profit and they quit early on….
Well worth mentioning this Vera. Good to have your direct observations in the mix. I have raised these points and called the bluff of the ‘experts’ on this site again and again. Most are in la-la land with their avoidance of how progressive drilling for shale gas plays out over time or simply unaware of it, or in denial – suggesting that things will be completely different over here.
Good works from EA. It should they are on top of the game and take these regulations very seriously.
Agree wholehearedly. However, this is one single fracking site. Where will the resources and manpower be to monitor, visit, police and enforce regulations when it is one of hundreds or thousands of wells?
Good that you mentioned calendars refracktion. The dates of these “infractions” are quite interesting. Good to see that the EA is there very early on advising when things are just starting. As it should be. Early checking and good discussion at that stage likely to prevent problems going forward. Good practice-Gold Standard indeed. Much higher standards than the US. No disrespect to our American friends, but suggest a few talk to oil professionals who have worked around the world. Nah, that would not give the result needed, so best to avoid the obvious.
No Martin – when I mentioned calendars I was referring to Cuadrilla’s apparent inability to stick to timings in their planning conditions – drilling beyond time limits, failing to restore sites within agreed timescales – that kind of thing.
Still confusing oil explorations with shale gas developments Martin. You’re off the map as far as these arguments go.
Not confused at all PhilipP. Do you really think the specialist operators who travel the world are so neatly compartmentalised? They are specialists at DRILLING, no badges to say “I just do gas”. SOME may specialise, but many will have a career involving both gas and oil, conventional or not, on shore or off shore.
But, as you have stated, you would rather avoid that sort of expertise and knowledge and refer to spurious references to show fracking is failing in the USA. Even Vera seems to disagree with you on that, together with every petrol station in the UK.
On the contrary Martin. I have never said fracking is failing in the USA, that is something you read into a graph I showed once. The USA is in fact suffering from the success of fracking, commercially speaking, while facing the costs and impacts on health, environment and social divisiveness (as Vera would attest). They, and their environment are likely to be affected by the costs and the damages of those impacts for many, many years to come.
I’d go further and point out that the USA has established the modern template for successful, commercial exploitation of shale gas but with an outstanding issue being that the technical innovations have outpaced the ability for laws and regulations to satisfy the public who are on the receiving end of its impacts. So that ‘success’, commercially speaking, comes with huge qualifications.
This nonsense that everything is going to be different here is the same spiel that has been given to nearly every new place fracking has gone in the States – a point that is stated explicitly in this documentary item (at around 8mins): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg-rfPn7qbw
The ‘drilling specialists’ you mention have almost no interest in what happens downstream from their operations except that their operations get the best possible recovery rates or yields from their target fossil fuel and thereby maximize ROI for their investors. Meanwhile equating high volume horizontal fracking (into solid shale formations) to drawing oil out of a huge reservoir through a ‘big straw’ is like comparing chalk and cheese.