Modern frack well pads may have 12 or more well heads at pressure

From a News Flash by John Lynch, WTRF News 7, Wheeling, on July 11, 2023

(WTRF) – Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced on Tuesday the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management is responding to a natural gas release from a well in Columbiana County.

The incident happened on the Tarka Pad on Fairfield School Road near Columbiana. ODNR is coordinating with local first responders, the operator of the well (Hilcorp Energy Company), Ohio EPA and oil and gas emergency contractors to mitigate the situation.

Hilcorp Energy Company reported that a third-party contractor struck a wellhead on the pad around 9:00 a.m. Tuesday. Emergency shut-down devices for the remaining 12 wells on the pad were activated and all remaining wells and pipelines are shut-in. Hilcorp has secured the services of a well control specialist who is anticipated on site Tuesday evening to begin operations to regain control of the well.

Local emergency management officials instituted a one-mile evacuation zone shortly after the incident occurred and more than 450 people have been safely evacuated. No injuries have been reported.

Ohio EPA is on-scene providing incident support. Officials say baseline air monitoring is occurring and will continue until the situation is under control. Any updates regarding evacuations will be made by local emergency management officials.

ODNR says they will continue to work with all state and local authorities to monitor the situation until the operator regains control of the well. Unless you are ordered to evacuate, stay in your home with the doors and windows closed. If you can close the fresh-air intake of your air conditioning system, do so, according to officials.

>>> If you are experiencing unusual shortness of breath, dizziness, or clumsiness that you believe may be related to this contact a healthcare provider. A claims hotline has been established for those who have been affected by the incident. The number is (877) 872-1288.

OHIO Department of Natural Resources ignores the public health

From an Article by Julie Grant, The Allegheny Front, February 22, 2021

Judy Burger of Belmont County, Ohio stands next to her home, where across the road two frack waste injection wells are being constructed. She fears noise and pollution from constant truck traffic.

Each well drilled using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas production creates tens of millions of gallons of wastewater, called produced water or brine. In Ohio, much of that wastewater is disposed of in underground injection wells, including waste from Pennsylvania and West Virginia. As the number of injection wells grows in Ohio, local communities want some control over where these wells are located.

In Belmont County, Ohio, Judy Burger’s husband is getting ready to retire. After 25 years, their peaceful home near the highway is quickly changing, “I’m a nervous wreck, I’m on blood pressure medicine,” she said. “I have my Venetian blinds closed in my house so I don’t have to look across the street to see the mayhem and the destruction and the coming reality.”

Across the street, OMNI Energy Group of New Jersey has been drilling two frack waste injection wells. Heavy construction equipment has torn up the ground, and some days loud drilling noises remind her of what’s coming.

When the work is done, wastewater from oil and gas operations in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania will be trucked here. According to a state transportation study, 48 trucks will enter and exit the site during peak hours in the morning and afternoon to inject waste into the wells, a salty brine that the US EPA says can be toxic and radioactive.

Burger doesn’t want to live here anymore, and she doubts anyone else would either. “It’s beyond description, how horrible it is to feel like you’re stuck. We were told we have no property value,” she said. “Nobody would buy our property.

“We’ve got the township trustees don’t want it. We’ve got the county commissioners don’t want it. We’ve got the state rep don’t want it. We’ve got the locals that don’t want it,” said Republican State Senator Frank Hoagland, who represents the area. “And I myself put in a letter saying we don’t need it there.”

Hoagland has also gone directly to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the ODNR, which has regulatory authority over the oil and gas industry. “I asked the director of ODNR, I said, ‘So you’ve got everybody saying ‘no’, but you guys are going to authorize it anyways?’ And the director flat out said, ‘if it fits within the ORC [Ohio Revised Code], we have to allow it to happen. We have to give them the permit,’” he recalled.

In an email, the ODNR spokesperson Stephanie O’Grady said basically the same thing. If an applicant can meet the terms and conditions to prevent risks to public health, safety and the environment, she said, “The Chief shall issue the permit.”

In the case of OMNI Energy, local residents wrote letters to the ODNR, according to the agency, with concerns about truck traffic, and idling, the noise, and the proximity to homes and schools.

When the pandemic hit, the ODNR attempted to delay a decision until it could hold a public hearing in person. But OMNI sued to force permit decisions for both wells; a public hearing is not required by law. The Ohio Supreme Court sided with OMNI, requiring the agency to deny or approve the permits. The ODNR approved two permits late last year.

Company and industry supporters say wells are safe, necessary

The drilling sound will subside after construction is completed, according to Chris Gagin, attorney for OMNI Energy. This site is near the Interstate 70 and other major roadways, and the ONDR inspectors found that “the initial drilling activities did not materially increase the surrounding ambient noise levels from the surrounding traffic noise,” Gagin said in an email. “It is literally that loud on a normal basis in that area.”

He said OMNI is setting up the site to reduce the impact of trucks on the community, and the design of the wells will be what he calls “industry leading,” to prevent groundwater contamination and surface leaks.

Ed Mowrer, manager of the Energy Institute at nearby Belmont College, has seen the county benefit from the oil and gas industry. “The eleven new hotels, the fourteen hundred new hotel rooms,” he pointed out. “All the employment, whether it’s an HVAC dealer, and installing those air conditioning units in the hotels, or to the people that receive money through leasing.”

Mowrer understands why nearby residents are concerned about truck traffic, but he said that injection wells are a necessary part of energy development, since the waste it produces has to go someplace. “Disposal wells are a fact of the oil and gas industry,” he said.

Ohio injection wells dispose of more than Ohio gas wells produce

But nearly half of the more than 38 million barrels (1.6 billion gallons) of waste injected in Ohio disposal wells in 2017 came from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the ODNR.

“So somewhere there was a decoupling of what’s generated in Ohio and what Ohio is disposing of, which means that we are more and more taking in a higher percentage of other people’s stuff,” said Ted Auch of the nonprofit Fractracker Alliance.

One reason Ohio takes waste from Pennsylvania: It has many more disposal wells. According to the ODNR, Ohio has 226 wells authorized to inject frack waste. Pennsylvania has 16, according to US EPA, which regulates injection wells in Pennsylvania.

Ohio meanwhile has primacy to regulate injection wells. In 1983, decades before the modern shale industry, the federal government granted the state regulatory authority.

Auch and others concerned about injection wells think it might be time to reconsider Ohio’s primacy. “Primacy is a special thing. You should have to demonstrate all the time that you’re worthy of that as a state, and the state of Ohio has not done that,” Auch said. “The levels of money and labor that they’ve had in that program over time have not kept pace with the amount of activity they’ve been charged with overseeing.”

Still, in 2015, the US EPA found that Ohio was running a “good quality program,” praising the agency for dealing with the potential for earthquakes caused by injection wells, while still recommending stronger enforcement for operators with repeat violations.

In recent years, as more injection wells are permitted, there have been problems. In 2019, brine injected into one well in Washington County migrated into producing oil and gas wells five miles a way. And just this month, an old gas well started spewing brine for days into the environment, killing fish. Brine is suspected to have come from nearby injection wells. According the state, there have been 65 spills of oil and gas related brine in the past three years. Eleven of those happened in Belmont County, where OMNI Energy is building its injection wells.

Senator Hoagland said he does not want Ohio to give up its authority over injection wells to the federal government. “I’d much rather say, ‘Hey, look, if we’ve got the state legislators, the local leadership to include the township leadership saying hell, no, we don’t want this,’ well to me that should be good enough,” he said.

The ODNR could do more to work with local communities on siting decisions, Hoagland said. He and other local leaders are looking at ways to change state law to encourage that.

Stored Underground NGL Fire and Explosion Hazards for Two Counties in OH and Marshall County in WV

From the Concerned Ohio River Residents, January 25, 2021

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is currently considering a permit application to construct the Mountaineer natural gas liquids (NGL) storage facility 2.5 miles from Clarington, OH, along Ohio Route 7 in Salem Township. The facility would store up to 3.25 million barrels of highly flammable, explosive natural gas liquids (NGLs) in underground caverns near dozens of frack wells and adjacent to the Ohio River, posing a significant threat to our region’s public health and natural resources.

Last Thursday, CORR and a coalition of advocacy groups hosted a community meeting on the the Mountaineer facility. We outlined the specific threats posed by the facility’s construction, including groundwater contamination, air pollution, subsidence, and an increase in fracking and fracking waste. Other underground storage facilities have seen serious and even deadly incidents caused by inadequate regulation, including fires, explosions, chemical leaks, earthquakes, and sinkholes.

How can we be sure a similar disaster wouldn’t happen to Mountaineer? Get the facts they won’t tell us:

Click here to view a recording of our Mountaineer Community Meeting.

Concerned about the Mountaineer NGL Storage Facility? You can help make a difference. Submit a public comment to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources today. You can use our draft template to quickly submit a blanket list of comments to ODNR, but we encourage you to add a few sentences about any specific concerns you may have about the facility. Unique comments carry more weight in the permit evaluation process. How would storing explosive natural gas liquids near the Ohio River affect you and your family?

Click here for more information on how to submit public comment.

Get the Facts on the Mountaineer NGL Storage Facility:

Powhatan Salt Company LLC has applied through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for three solution mining well permits to begin creating storage caverns in the Salina salt formation, just 2.5 miles north of Clarington, OH along the Ohio River in Monroe County, so that its sister company, Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC can store natural gas liquids (NGL) next to and potentially beneath the Ohio River.

The Mountaineer NGL storage facility would store natural gas liquids like ethane, propane, and butanes extracted from fracking, supporting the industry proliferation and increasing the massive amount of toxic, radioactive waste it generates. To create these storage caverns, Powhatan Salt Company would inject millions of gallons of fresh water underground at high pressures to carve out salt cavities. Powhatan would withdraw approximately 1,928,000 gallons of fresh water each day from the Ohio River to carve out the first storage cavern. More caverns could be constructed to increase storage capacity, each of which would require approximately 380,200,000 gallons of freshwater.

We believe the existing application materials for these wells do not contain enough information for anyone to evaluate the safety of these operations. The applications do not fully consider the possibility of contaminants migrating to underground sources of drinking water, and they include no real emergency response plan. How will we find out if the caverns leak? What will we do if they leak? Without a doubt, local residents will be the ones to suffer the consequences.

Take action today. Click here to submit your concerns to ODNR.

Contact Us:

CORR’s website: www.concernedohioriverresidents.org

Email: general@concernedohioriverresidents.org

§ Concerned Ohio River Residents P.O. Box 135 Bridgeport, OH 43912

Ohio residents point out water pollution & earthquake problems

From an Article by Julie Grant, The Allegheny Front, October 5, 2018

Much of the wastewater from Pennsylvania’s fracking industry is trucked across the border to Ohio. Last year, Pennsylvania and West Virginia contributed nearly half of the more than a billion gallons of frack waste that were injected into underground wells in Ohio. Residents in at least one county say they’ve had enough.

Michelle Garman used to marvel at the 22-acres of land around her home in Vienna, Ohio, less than 10 miles from the Pennsylvania border.

“I would lean out my back window and say, ‘oh my god, I never dreamed of owning this much land’,” she said.

LISTEN: “Ohio Residents Fed Up with Fracking Wastewater”

You can see and hear the injection well from Michelle Garman’s property, less than 10 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Photo: Julie Grant

She didn’t know much about fracking then, let alone frack waste injection wells.

But she remembers News Years Eve 2011, when a 4.0-magnitude earthquake shook nearby Youngstown, Ohio. Around a dozen smaller quakes followed. The state determined that the quakes were caused by an injection well. And one in New Castle, Pennsylvania was linked to fracking as well. The well believed to have caused the Youngstown quakes has been closed permanently.

“That’s poison they’re pumping into the ground”

But Garman’s view changed in 2013 when an injection well was built on the property next door.

“Where your looking at tanks and cement and fencing, it was trees and deer and turkey. And blue jays…and I never see them anymore,” she said.

Garman describes big trucks carrying chemical-laced wastewater that squeal into the site at all hours. She can hear the pump from her yard. And Garman fears for her family.

“How does it affect our health, my son’s health?” she wondered. “I mean, it is toxic. Plain and simple, that’s poison that they’re pumping into the ground.”

Garman says her concerns didn’t get much response from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), the agency with authority over injection wells. In Ohio, there’s no local control of the oil and gas industry.

And few leaders in her town would criticize the local company, Kleese Development Associates, that built the well next to her property.

Then, in April of 2015, a waste oil spill caused a slew of dead animals and a polluted nearby wetlands. It was caused by another injection well owned by Kleese.

Garman says neighbors contacted her for help.

“People were scared,” she said. “[The were asking], ‘can I drink the water, can I bathe my children in it, can I cook with it?”

The state forced Kleese to shut down the injection well, and it’s still closed. The company could not be reached for comment.

“They don’t want it”

On a recent evening, leaders from townships in Trumbull County gathered at the gazebo in the Brookfield town square. Brookfield Township trustee Gary Lees coached people on how to send letters to their representatives in Columbus asking them to consider legislation that would stop more injection wells in Trumbull County.

Trumbull County already has 17, among the most in the state, and 6 more are in the works. In Hubbard Township, Bobcat LLC has applied to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for an injection well.

Pittsburgh-based Seneca Resources has drilled a new injection well in Brookfield Township, one of five it plans on the site. The company still needs state approval of its surface facility.

State representative Glenn Holmes says people there are fed up. He references a petition against a plan for the five injection wells by Seneca Resources.

“In a community of about 8,000 people, [we have] 5,000 signatures,” he said. “They don’t want it.”

Holmes has proposed two bills in the Ohio House of Representatives meant to rein in injection wells. One, introduced last spring, would divert more than a third of fees Ohio collects from other state’s frack waste disposal to local governments. Last year, fees for this waste brought in more than $650,000. Holmes says counties should get a cut.

“You have the truck traffic, you have the noise, and you also have the stress and the tension,” he said. “‘Is this going to cause an earthquake?’ Is my aquifer or my well going to be polluted because of this?’”

More recently, Holmes introduced another bill to stop ODNR from permitting any more injection wells in Trumbull County, capping the number of injection wells at 23 per county.

Ted Auch doesn’t think that’s a good idea. He works for the non-profit FracTracker Alliance. Auch worries that a cap per county would actually open up more of the state to injection wells, which have more than doubled in the last five years.

Auch said money from fees should be spent on inspectors.

“You can’t have your number of inspectors be static and your number of wells go up, up and away,” he explained. “That means the number of wells per inspector is going up.”

Auch warns that Ohio has become a dumping ground for other state’s fracking wastewater.

The ODNR says it has strong regulations for injection wells, but declined an interview for this story, as did the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

###

Powhatan Point is in the Ohio Valley opposite Marshall County, WV

From a News Report by D.K. Wright, WTRF News 7, February 15, 2018

UPDATE: XTO Energy will be bringing in a well control team from Texas after a “loss of containment” resulting in a gas well fire Thursday morning in Powhatan, OH.

Officials reportedly went door to door to residents and businesses within a two-mile radius suggesting that they evacuate. Evacuations are voluntary at this time, not mandatory. They are using an abundance of caution during this time.

According to Karen Matusic, XTO Public Relations, said that they hate that this happened to the community, but they are appreciative of the community being so welcoming.

Officials are in the process of setting up a claims line for everyone affected. 7News will keep you updated once that number is released. Officials are also setting up hotel rooms for those that need them.

Matusic said that there was no estimated time for residents to be allowed back at their homes.

XTO Energy is working with local county and state law enforcement to secure the roads. At this time, State Route 148 in Powhatan is closed.

ODNR has released a statement about the incident:

“ODNR was notified at 9:38 a.m. of a potential incident on a XTO Energy well pad outside of Powhatan Point in Belmont County. ODNR, OhioEPA, and local authorities are all on scene working to mitigate the situation. The well is currently on fire and the local authorities have evacuated a one-mile radius.”

“A well control company will be onsite soon and will work to get the well under control. At this time, no injuries have been reported and we’ll continue to monitor the situation from onsite.”

State Representative Jack Cera is on the scene, because he wants to make sure all of the people living in the area are being taken care of properly.

In Ohio, 1704 Utica wells have been drilled --- 12 rigs are active none in the Marcellus shale

Number of OH, PA, WV shale well permits continues nosedive

From an Article by Kristy Foster Seachrist, Farm & Dairy, April 14, 2016

SALEM, Ohio — The fallout of low oil and gas prices doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon, as the number of Utica shale permits issued continues to fall.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources issued only 13 permits in March. That number is down from February when ODNR issued 17 permits. Last year, ODNR had issued 38 new drilling permits in March.

Monroe County

Monroe County led Ohio for the highest number of permits issued, at six permits. The permits were all issued to Gulfport Energy Corporation for a well site in Wayne Township. There are now 117 wells producing in Monroe County, and 77 wells either have been drilled or are in the process of being drilled.

Carroll County

In Carroll County, the ODNR issued four new permits. The permits were issued for a well site in Washington Township to be drilled by R E Gas Development. The ODNR report shows there are now 417 producing wells in Carroll County and 40 in some sort of drilling phase.

Belmont County

In Belmont County, the ODNR issued three permits. The permits were issued to the Gulfport Energy Corporation for the same well site in York Township. In Belmont County, there are now 138 producing wells in the county and 104 are in a drilling phase.

Production numbers

Although the number of permits for new wells tapered off in March, the number of producing wells continues to grow. In Belmont and Carroll counties, the number of producing wells increased by four, and the number of producing wells in Harrison County increased by five. In Monroe and Noble counties, producing wells grew by one in each county.

The ODNR reported there are now 2,152 Utica shale wells permitted in Ohio. There are 1,704 wells drilled and 12 rigs are operating in Ohio. In the Marcellus shale, there are 44 wells permitted and there are 29 wells drilled. There are no rigs operating in Ohio’s Marcellus shale.

>>> Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued 128 permits in March. In the immediate circulation area, the PA-DEP issued permits in Butler, Greene and Washington counties.

The PA-DEP issued one permit in Butler, 35 in Greene and eight in Washington County.

In Bradford County, where the Marcellus shale boom began, thePA-DEP issued two permits for shale wells.

Pennsylvania totals

During the first quarter of 2016, there were 413 shale permits issued in Pennsylvania.

The counties with the highest number of permits issued in the first quarter include Butler, with 13 permits; Greene, 101; and Washington, 100. Other counties that received permits during the first quarter include Crawford and Lawrence, which each received one permit. There were two shale permits issued in Beaver and Mercer counties.

Drilling

Besides permit numbers, the number of wells drilled in Pennsylvania also continues to be lower than 2015. There were 288 permits issued during the first quarter of 2015, compared to the 121 wells drilled during the first quarter in 2016.

According to the PA- DEP, there were 51 wells drilled in Washington County and 10 in Greene County. The PA-DEP report also shows that 10 new shale wells were drilled in Susquehanna County, which is located south of Bradford County.

The Pennsylvania DEP reported there were 55 shale wells drilled in March. There were 24 wells drilled in Washington County during March and eight in Greene County.

The report also shows that 10 wells were drilled in Susquehanna County in the past month. Other counties that reported wells being drilled in March include Armstrong, Elk, McKean and Tioga.

>>> West Virginia

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection also shows a slowdown in the oil and gas industry. The only two counties with permits issued in March include Tyler and Ohio.

Tyler County

The WV-DEP issued six new permits in Tyler County for wells to be drilled in the Marcellus shale. Five of the permits were issued to Antero Resources Corporation on three different pieces of property.

Ohio County

In Ohio County, the WV-DEP issued one permit for a well to be drilled in the Marcellus shale. The permit was issued to the SWN Production Company.

> > > > > > > > > > > >

Note: Shale depths vary with location.  The Marcellus shale could be found at 5,000 feet and the Utica an additional 3,000.  Thus Utica wells are more expensive, perhaps $15 million versus $8 million for a Marcellus well.  Costs also depend upon the number of wells on the pad and many other factors.  See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Earthquakes in Mahoning County, OH

Did Fracking Cause All Four Earthquakes in Ohio?

From an Article by Brandon Baker, EcoWatch.com, March 12, 2014

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has ordered Texas-based energy company Hilcorp to halt all fracking operations in Mahoning County after at least four earthquakes shook the area on Monday.

A magnitude 3.0 earthquake at 2:26 a.m. and a magnitude 2.6 at 11:45 a.m. on March 10 were among those reported in Poland Township just south of Youngstown near a fracking site with seven drilling wells, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“It’s an area which (before 2011) had no history of earthquakes,” John Armbruster, a retired Columbia University geology professor, told the Columbus Dispatch. “It looks very, very suspicious.”

Ohio Department of Natural Resources personnel say earthquakes near Youngstown are not related to injection wells, but some have a different opinion.

The ODNR has stressed that the order to suspend drilling was precautionary and that the earthquakes were not related to fracking waste-injection wells which were tied to severe earthquakes near Youngstown in 2011. Armbruster monitored those wells along with Ohio officials.

“We are in the process of analyzing the data,” Mark Bruce, an ODNR spokesman, said in a statement. ”All available information indicates the events are not connected to Class II injection activities.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we notified the only oil and gas operator in the area and ordered them to halt all operations until further assessment can take place.”

However, Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer of Youngstown State University has issued an open letter suggesting that the epicenters of the quakes are even closer to the fracking site than originally reported. “Simply put, the longitude, latitude and depth of the shale well laterals are within a few thousand feet from the epicenters of the earthquakes,” he wrote. He also questions the state and Hilcorp’s swift denial that the temblors are related to the injection wells.

“Reading between the lines both the regulator and company seem to be implying that by, ruling out injection induced seismicity this somehow rules out other forms of human-induced seismicity, such as the fracking that was going on at the same time and same location as the earthquakes,” he wrote.

“I find ODNR’s focus on injection-induced seismicity as a bit ironic, since as recently as 2011 these regulator were avidly denying injection-induced seismicity in Youngstown, even after we suffered eight regional-size earthquakes. Research—known at the time—concluded that the earthquakes were induced by frackwaste disposal wells.”

ODNR has not provided any more information since its halting order earlier this year. Radioactive fracking wastewater has been coming to Ohio for disposal since 2011, when neighboring Pennsylvania ordered oil and gas companies to stop dumping fracking wastewater into the state’s streams and rivers.

In 2012, more than 14 million barrels of toxic waste from oil and gas drilling were injected into the ground in Ohio’s Class II disposal wells, with 8.16 million barrels of waste from other states. Wastewater injection wells pose a series of threats to public health and the environment, including groundwater contamination.

Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for this and related news.