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.

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Fracking Wastes: Toxic & Radioactive Materials

Coast Guard denies granting GreenHunter permission to barge fracking wastes on Ohio River

From an Article by Casey Junkins,  Steubenville Herald-Star, February 5, 2015

Wheeling, WV — U.S. Coast Guard officials said Wednesday they are still reviewing a proposal by GreenHunter Resources to barge natural gas fracking waste on the Ohio River.

Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Chad Saylor said officials have not yet taken final action on GreenHunter’s proposal to ship “shale gas extraction wastewater and has not classified this cargo for shipment.”

“We are committed to ensuring proper research with regards to shale gas extraction waste water maritime transportation before approving any request to transport shale gas extraction waste water,” he added.

Last week during an earnings report conference call with investors, Kirk Trosclair, GreenHunter Resources chief operating officer, stated the company had received approval. Saylor declined to speculate why GreenHunter officials had the impression the Coast Guard granted them final approval for barging.

Last year, Coast Guard spokesman Carlos Diaz said the agency needed to sift through 70,000 comments on the matter, adding officials would take as much time as necessary to read all of them.

In a company statement dated January 26th, Trosclair claimed the Coast Guard gave the company permission to transport frack waste on Ohio River barges. GreenHunter officials have maintained this is the roadblock preventing them from further pursuing their planned porting area in the Warwood section of Wheeling.

“The U.S. Coast Guard approval is a significant win for both GreenHunter Resources and our valued clients,” Trosclair stated January 26th. “Our ability to transport disposal volumes via barge will significantly reduce our costs, improve our margins and allow us to pass along savings to our clients.”

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REMINDER: Public Forum on Drilling Under the Ohio River, Wheeling Jesuit University, Saturday, February 7th, 1:00 PM (See www.FrackCheckWV.net for January 31, 2015 for details).

Wheeling Water Warriors

Big Fracking Waste Water Story of 2013 in Northern WV Panhandle

From the Article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, Dec.  25, 2013

In March, GreenHunter Vice President John Jack stated that officials would build a “first-of-its-kind in the country” frack water recycling plant in Wheeling to meet the growing needs of the Marcellus and Utica shale drilling region. Further, that this project would be built at the former Seidler’s Oil Service on North 28th Street (Warwood), Wheeling, WV.

Even though GreenHunter has permission to build “Phase 1″ of its planned facility at the former Seidler’s Oil Service on North 28th Street, construction has yet to begin. In the yet-to-be-approved “Phase 2,” GreenHunter would also like to place the frack waste on Ohio River barges so that it can be taken down river for disposal in landfills.

As the year closes, those on both sides of the GreenHunter debate wait to see what 2014 will hold for the construction of the $1.7 million facility that is immediately adjacent to the Wheeling Heritage Trail. GreenHunter officials say their process is safe and their provisions to control any potential spills meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency specifications.

During both the June and July meetings, members of the Wheeling Planning Commission declined to consider GreenHunter’s application because they required additional information from the company.

However, in August, commissioners Barry Crow, Thomas McCulloch, Don Atkinson and Russell Jebbia voted to approve the plant, while Commissioner John Clarke voted against it. Commissioner Michael Leo recused himself from voting, citing a conflict of interest. Commissioner James Mauck – serving in the role of chairman due to the absence of regular Chairman Howard Monroe – did not vote, as the chairman normally only votes to break a tie.

Since the August approval, however, GreenHunter has been waiting to get word on whether the Coast Guard will allow barging of the frack waste. No visible construction or demolition has taken place at the site.

Jack said the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection will do a “walk-through” inspection of the plant once it is up and running. However, DEP officials recently said GreenHunter does not need a permit from the agency.

Some Opposition

Along with the protesters the two primary opponents to the GreenHunter facility are Wheeling City Councilwoman Gloria Delbrugge, who lives in and represents Warwood, and Ben Stout, a Wheeling Jesuit University biology professor.

“I don’t think that a facility like this belongs near a residential area. Too many people are too close – and the stuff is way too nasty,” Stout said. “This stuff is hazardous waste.”

Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the brine GreenHunter wants to recycle in Warwood can contain radioactive radium and radon. Though radium, uranium and radon are considered radioactive, Jack said these elements will be minuscule in volume. He also said the company’s workers will wear radiation detectors while on the job.

This is not good enough for warriors Erin Bowers and Kate Marshall.

“There are going to be toxic, radioactive chemicals in that water they are bringing in by truck. What if there is a spill?” Bowers said.

“As a parent of Warwood children, I do not feel the Wheeling Planning Commission planned for my children’s future,” Marshall said. “This is going to hurt residents, hurt property values and hurt our health.”

“I don’t want to drink radiation,” added Peters Run Road resident Mark Eddy.

Ongoing Contention

The U.S. Coast Guard recently accepted public comments regarding whether fracking waste can be shipped on inland waterways by barge, but has yet to make a decision.

Stout took his fight to Charleston, as he testified to the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources. He said arsenic, barium and bromides are some of the potentially hazardous compounds Stout said GreenHunter could be trucking into the site. He also does not believe the DEP will oversee the project.

Jack has said a 40-foot-wide easement that crosses the trail gives the company the right to use the pipeline that runs underneath it to load treated water onto barges for transport, despite that strip of land being zoned residential.

However, Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron maintains GreenHunter will need a zone change to use this pipeline. They believe the area of the Wheeling Heritage Trail, under which the pipeline runs, is zoned for residential use, rather than industrial or commercial use.

Either way, both sides agree GreenHunter will need to present “Phase 2″ to a future planning commission meeting if it is going to barge the frack waste.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that the agency will draft federal standards to regulate the disposal of waste water produced by coal bed methane and shale gas wells.  Jackson said that, “We can protect the health of American families and communities at the same time we ensure access to all of the important resources that make up our energy economy.”

The measures will largely focus on setting federal standards to regulate the treatment of shale gas waste water at municipal water treatment facilities: In states that have allowed municipal plants to accept drilling and fracking wastewater, rivers are showing elevated levels of pollutants.  The city of Wheeling will be paying a $59,000 fine (reduced from $414,000) for breeching state laws on accepting brine water from Marcellus shale natural gas drilling.

The EPA’s announcement comes in response to states’ pleas for federal regulation, concerns about flowback disposal, and President Obama’s plan to have natural gas play critical role in the energy future of the United States.  Read the EPA News Release here…

Many US EPA scientists are alarmed, warning that drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania as well as in West Virginia. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by a US EPA consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law. US EPA studies and a confidential study by the drilling industry have revealed significant dangers from the radioactive material. 

The New York Times has reviewed  more than 30,000 pages of federal, state and company records relating to more than 200 gas wells in Pennsylvania, 40 in West Virginia and 20 public and private wastewater treatment plants. Of more than 179 wells producing wastewater with high levels of radiation, at least 116 reported levels of radium or other radioactive materials 100 times as high as the levels set by federal drinking-water standards. At least 15 wells produced wastewater carrying more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable.  Federal drinking water standards were exceeded by 42 wells for their radium content and 41 for their benzene content. 

This newspaper report was also carried in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. The NY Times has provided an interactive video entitled “Extracting Natural Gas from Rock” and a continuous video clip is  titled ”Natural Gas and Polluted Air“.  An interactive map is also provided that specifies locations where radioactive wasterwater samples have been measured.  And, more detailed information is provided in a spreadsheet titled “Contaminants in Samples From More Than 200 Wells.”

Anadarko, which is drilling extensively on state forest land in Pennsylvania, decided last year to convert all its Marcellus operations into closed-loop systems, eliminating pits and collecting debris in steel containers that are carted to landfills. It also received state permission to dig up the buried cuttings from about a dozen wells it already had drilled. “We want to say we haven’t buried anything here,” said Steve Woelfel, Anadarko’s drilling-operations manager in Appalachia. “It always could be a risk. It could come back to you.”

Anadarko says the closed-loop system is part of a broader “no-spill” strategy aimed at keeping all materials contained during the drilling process. Said Scott Chesebro, Anadarko’s engineering manager for Appalachian operations: “Nothing we bring to the surface touches the ground.”

In some states, operators dispose of drilling debris by plowing it into fields, a practice known as “land-farming.” Other “beneficial uses” include using cuttings on gravel roads or mixing them with asphalt as paving material. Jamie Legenos, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said the state had received no formal requests for “beneficial uses” of drill cuttings.

Natural gas drilling has aroused such ardent opposition (in northeast Pennsylvania) that even disposing of cuttings at approved landfills has raised alarms, forcing landfill operators to assure local officials that all incoming waste is tested for radioactivity and hazardous materials.  See the news article here.