Closure on “Characterization of Marcellus Shale Flowback Water”

Abstract

To the Editor:

After receiving this comment we reviewed our work and discovered an error in our original analysis. During the process of compiling hundreds of thousands of data entries from a variety of sources with different conventions for denoting non-detections, an error was made with a portion of the data in which nondetects were mistakenly interpreted as being detected. The error occurred with a portion of the data collected from the Hayes (2009) GTI report.

We have since carefully rechecked all the data and made all the necessary corrections to our database. All nondetections are now correctly marked and replaced with half of the detection limit. We have revised all of the analysis and made the necessary changes to the reported values in Tables 2–6 as well as in Figures 3–7. In addition, a column was added to Tables 2–6 indicating the number of nondetected samples for each constituent so that parameters with very few or no detected values are identified. We have also modified our priority list of constituents with mean concentrations exceeding drinking water standards to reflect the new values. Constituents that were previously given high priority based on nondetects are no longer identified as high priority. A corrected version of our article appears in this issue (Abualfaraj, 2016).

We apologize for this error and thank the authors for their comment, which prompted us to identify it.

References

Abualfaraj

, Gurian

P.L.

, and Olson

M.S.

(2016). Correction to: Environ. Eng. Sci., 2014; 31(9);514–524. Environ. Eng. Sci. 33, 67.

Hayes

(2009). Sampling and Analysis of Water Streams Associated with the Development of Marcellus Shale Gas. The Marcellus Shale Coalition Report by Gas Technology Institute, Des Plaines, IL.