Pa. firm teams with N.M. company on frackwater

MT. JEWETT. — A McKean County waste management firm is teaming up with a New Mexico company to treat wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process used in Marcellus shale drilling.

Casella Waste Systems Inc. and Altela Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., have formed a joint venture to operate a treatment plant at Casella's landfill in Mt. Jewett, about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Frackwater is a brackish, chemically-laced byproduct of drilling that many sewage treatment plants are not equipped to handle.

The Casella-Altela plant will use methane, another byproduct of the drilling process, to fuel boilers that will distill the frackwater.

Altela has used the process to treat brine, which is a byproduct of oil well drilling, in the southwestern United States.