Injection Wells in Athens County — Rally on March 18

Athens County Fracking Action Network (www.acfan.org)

COMMUNITY ADVOCATES CALL ON US-EPA
TO TAKE AWAY OHIO’S AUTHORITY OVER INJECTION WELL PROGRAM

Athens community advocates will hold a rally in front of the Athens County Courthouse on  Monday, March 18, at noon calling on US-EPA to investigate Ohio’s management of injection well regulation and to take away Ohio’s authority to regulate the program.

“Ohio Department of Natural Resources is not doing its job,” stated Grace Hall, member of Athens County Fracking Action Network, the event’s sponsor. “ODNR should be protecting Ohioans from carcinogenic, radioactive frack waste. Instead, it allows waste injection wells to operate for years after they have failed serious safety inspections.”

The Trillion-Gallon Loophole: Lax Rules for Drillers that Inject Pollutants Into the Earth

by Abrahm Lustgarten
republished from
ProPublica, Sept. 20, 2012, 12:12 p.m.

Injection Wells
The Hidden Risks of Pumping Waste Underground

The remains of a tanker truck after an explosion ripped through an injection well site in a pasture outside of Rosharon, Texas, on Jan. 13, 2003, killing three workers. The fire occurred as two tanker trucks, including the one above, were unloading thousands of gallons of drilling wastewater. (Photo courtesy of the Chemical Safety Board)

On a cold, overcast afternoon in January 2003, two tanker trucks backed up to an injection well site in a pasture outside Rosharon, Texas. There, under a steel shed, they began to unload thousands of gallons of wastewater for burial deep beneath the earth.

The waste – the byproduct of oil and gas drilling – was described in regulatory documents as a benign mixture of salt and water. But as the liquid rushed from the trucks, it released a billowing vapor of far more volatile materials, including benzene and other flammable hydrocarbons.

Athens County to be Fracked Through the Back Door?

By Bernhard Debatin

It started out quite hopefully for those in Athens County who own land and mineral rights and are not afraid of the potential side-effects of fracking: In November 2011, the West Virginia-based company Cunningham Energy hooked up with local lawyer John Lavelle and set off a fracking frenzy, promising $2500 per leased acre and 12.5% royalties for the oil or gas. On Jan 2, 2012, the Athens News reported that the overall acreage of the initial fracking leases amounted to about 35,000 acres, representing “a total possible initial payout of more than $87 million.”

But the payout did not come. However, now it looks as if fracking is going to come through the back door. What happened?

Kudos to City Council for taking steps against local oil and gas development

By Alyssa Bernstein*

Athens City Council should be applauded for making efforts to protect the Athens wellhead zone (the area of the aquifer supplying our water) from possible contamination due to industrial activities such as unconventional fracking, especially given that no other governmental agency seems to be making such efforts.

The Shale Gas Myth — Part 2: Five Fracking Myths Revisited

A Response to Robert W. Chase’s article “Five Myths About ‘Fracking’” in the Akron Beacon Journal, Jan 26, 2012

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Part 2: Five Fracking Myths Revisited — Illusion and Reality of the Fracking Industry

By Bernhard Debatin

As we have seen in Part 1:  Unquestioned assumptions about Shale Gas Extraction, Robert Chase, who recently appeared on a local WOUB Newswatch show on fracking, starts his professed debunking of fracking myths with an introduction that heavily relies  on the unquestioned and unsubstantiated mythology of “more than 100 years’ worth inexpensive, environmentally attractive energy.”

How bad the situation actually is — overestimated recoverable gas resources, a financial Ponzi scheme, and an environmentally devastating record of the fracking industry — has recently been reported in an in-depth  article by Jeff Goodell, author of Big Coal, that was published in the March 1, 2012, edition of the Rolling Stone. The piece, titled The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom  also uncovers the autocratic rule and political entanglements of Chesapeake CEO A. McClendon, whom Goodell calls an “influential right-wing power broker” like the “Tea Party-financing Koch brothers.” Incidentally, this makes Chesapeake’s $26 million donation to and its acceptance by the Sierra Club even more despicable.

Athens County Commissioners Likely to Vote Fracking Resolution

This coming Thursday, the Athens County Commissioners are likely to vote on a resolution about fracking. The meeting will take place on Feb. 9., 9:30 a.m., in the Athens County Courthouse’s Annex, second floor.

You can express your views in advance by contacting the commissioners: 

• “Lenny Eliason” <leliason@athenscountygovernment.com>
• “Mark Sullivan” <msullivan@athenscountygovernment.com>
• “Larry Payne” <lpayne@athenscountygovernment.com>

Are Fracking Rules Really Better Under The New ORC Law?

A Confirmation and a Correction

By Bernhard Debatin

Correction of our claim made in earlier post "Submit Your Protest Against Relaxation Of Fracking Rules!"

Responding to the letter campaign to ODNR, Heidi Hetzel-Evans of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, stated today that the amendments and changes to the oil and gas regulations in the Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) 1501:9 are a mere “house keeping” exercise to keep up with changes in the law. She also said that “we’re definitely strengthening the rules, not reducing or relaxing them.”

However, while the new oil and gas regulations in the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) 1509 do indeed have some provisions that strengthen regulation, there are many areas where things remain unregulated, or worse, as criticized in this blog, actually loosen or rescind previous rules.

Submit Your Protest Against Relaxation Of Fracking Rules!

Send your letter to to minerals@dnr.state.oh.us by Dec. 23

By Bernhard Debatin

As detailed in the previous post, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is calling for comments on proposed changes to the regulations about fracking. If implemented, the changes will make things considerably easier for the fracking industry without sufficient regard for people’s health, safety, and well-being, and without sufficient protection of the environment.

Here are the four three most serious changes in the draft document for the amendments to the Ohio Administrative Code:

Unconventional disposal (dumping) of wastewater In Wetzel County, WV

1. Wastewater Disposal. Fracking companies no longer need to declare how, where, and with whom they’ll dispose their wastewater. This means that there’s no sufficient oversight by ODNR; there isn’t any closed and monitored chain of accountability between the production of the wastewater and its disposal.

ODNR About To Change Fracking Regulations

Comments to ODNR must be submitted by Dec. 23

By Bernhard Debatin

The ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management is currently requesting comments on proposed changes to the rules and regulations for gas and oil drilling and for wastewater injection. Any comments must be submitted to minerals@dnr.state.oh.us by December 23, 2011.

In Ohio, these rules and regulations are established under Ohio Administrative Code 1501:9. The draft proposal for the revisions can be viewed here, a 105-page long document that shows all changes, amendments, and rescissions.

Following are the most important changes, and a first attempt to interpret their implications. A lot of it is about more “flexibility,” i.e. less oversight and fewer safety precautions. Please note that I am frequently quoting from rescinded language to show what’s no longer required.

Also, please feel free to use the following points in your comments to minerals@dnr.state.oh.us

Cement Casing: The Weak Link of Fracking

By Bernhard Debatin

Recently, the EPA confirmed that “a pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing.” Although the EPA Groundwater Investigation of Nov. 9, 2011, only provided the raw data without interpretation, one can conclude that “the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one — a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) — widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing.” (ProPublica, NOv. 10, 2011).

Moreover, another decisive result of this investigation is that the methane found in the aquifers was “at near-saturation levels (up to 19 mg/L)” and has a “similar isotopic signature to production gas” (EPA Presentation). This defeats the industry’s claim that methane in the groundwater is merely a natural occurrence and not caused by fracking, since methane from shallower layers has a different chemical makeup.