Opponents Blast North Lima Injection Well

NORTH LIMA, Ohio -- Julia Fuhrman Davis, a resident of Beaver Township, billed the session as "North Lima Injection Well Meeting" but the gathering of some 200 township residents Tuesday night was more like a kangaroo court.

Even before Davis called the meeting to order, the list of speakers and agenda implied a presumption of guilt. The oil and gas industry -- D&L Energy Inc. in particular -- has a callous disregard for the environment and is interested only in profits, the speakers would say. 

Her agenda began (the emphases are in the original):

"The Beaver Township injection well on Route 7, named North Star Lucky #4, will soon be receiving hazardous industrial waste waterfrom PA. A by-product of Marcellus/Utica Shale gas fracking, it contains chemicals (that cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems), salt, heavy metals and radioactive materials."

After offering a cursory definition of hydraulic fracturing, more common known as fracking, Davis declared, "I'm concerned, from what I've read, it's hazardous." That assessment included a related technique, brine injection, which is what D&L Energy proposes to use at the well that was the subject of last night's meeting.

In an on-camera interview before the meeting, Davis said she has tried to learn everything she can about fracking and brine injection wells. The green sheet she distributed to the audience listed the sources of her research; all sources she identified are highly skeptical of the oil and gas drilling industry's concern for the environment.

Her sources range from political action groups such as Common Cause to the director of environmental studies at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, Robert Myers, and Anthony Ingraffea, a professor at Cornell University who teaches the engineering of rock fracture mechanics. Ingraffea says that until the United States develops a national energy plan, developing domestic sources of natural gas will not relieve us of our dependence on foreign oil.

Davis quoted Myers as saying, "Responsible drilling is a myth."

She also cited Sandra Steingraber, whom Davis identifies as a "biologist, ecologist, activist and author of Living Downstream." Davis quoted Seingraber as saying, "Natural gas drilling is the biggest environmental issue of our time. Fracking means deliberately introducing carcinogens into our land, water, air."

Anywhere from two million to eight million gallons of water are used to capture the natural gas trapped in the Utica and Marcellus shale plays 8,000 to 9,000 feet below the surface, she informed the audience.

As much as 13 tons of sand is mixed in that water and the drillers are not required to disclose the recipe of chemicals they use. That includes the less than 0.5% of the solution of various chemicals forced into the earth. She takes the drillers claim at face value, pointing out that this one-half percent is still usually 25 gallons of "toxic chemicals."

More than 750 ingredients can be in those 25 gallons, including radioactive materials, Davis said, and said the drilling companies won't divulge the recipes of the fluids they use in fracking.

The second speaker, Susie Biersdorfer, a part-time geology instructor at Youngstown State University, explained the chemicals in the 0.5% mix of the companies recipes are added to prevent the pipe from oxidizing and bacteria from growing and clogging the pipe. While she doesn't think the drillers put radioactive chemicals in the solutions they inject, the materials forced to the surface can contain small amounts of radioactive substances, she clarified. 

What no one said was why the drilling companies succeeded in securing an exemption from disclosing their recipes, to wit, competitive reasons. They don't want their competitors to benefit from their research.

The other speakers -- a candidate for Mahoning County commissioner, Howard Markert; a resident of Beaver Township, Patti Gorcheff, who addressed "parental concerns"; and a minister in the United Church of Christ, the Rev. Jim Deming, who spoke on "environmental justice" -- joined Davis and Biersdorfer and supported steps ranging from a moratorium on drilling to an outright ban.

Also present were state Reps. Bob Hagan, D-60 Youngstown, and Ron Gerberry, D-59 Austintown, and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-33 Canfield. Schiavoni briefly introduced himself at the outset, as did Gerberry, but Hagan led the charge against the drilling industry, which he assailed as polluters and for being overly secretive.

Speaking to brine injection wells and the waste fluids wells in Pennsylvania send to Ohio to be cleansed, Hagan declared, "I'm tired of it being called brine [salt water]. It's toxic chemicals. I'm tired of the secrecy," referring to the ingredients that companies such as Patriot Water Treatment LLC in Warren remove before returning treated water to the Mahoning River.

Hagan also suggested the landowners in Mahoning and Columbiana counties who signed leases with Chesapeake Energy Corp. have received far too little, even if they sold their mineral rights for $5,000 an acre.

By Hagan's calculations, Chesapeake's agreement in December with Total E&P USA, the U.S. subsidiary of a French energy giant that allows Total a 25% stake in a joint venture in the Utica shale for $2.32 billion come to $15,000 per acre for the 79,000 acres involved.

The speakers, and members of the audience who offered comments during the open microphone portion afterward, suggested, hinted, or are convinced that the government -- both state and federal -- have allowed the drilling companies to have their way at the expense of ordinary citizens, that both are oblivious to Davis' declaration, "We have a right to clean water. We have a right to clean air."

The jobs promised are not worth despoiling the environment, Davis, Biersdorfer and Hagan said. And the state representative from Youngstown made it a point to note that 70% of the new jobs go to drillers outside the area, to those in the industry coming here from Oklahoma and Texas.

As to whether the D&L brine injection well on the North Side of Youngstown caused the 4.0 earthquake shortly after 3 p.m. New Year's Eve, both the speakers and the audience are convinced it did. The Geology Division of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says there isn't sufficient information to reach that conclusion as its staff continues to study the matter.

Biersdorfer stated the injection well "induced the earthquake" and applauded ODNR for imposing a moratorium two hours later that covers an area within a five-mile radius.

"Will there be more earthquakes in our area?" she asked rhetorically. "The evidence points to yes."

She cited earthquakes in China and elsewhere she attributed to men building too heavy a structure on "weak rock formations" or drilling done improperly.

Where nearly everyone else complained about their inability to obtain the information they wanted -- alleging secrecy or admitting to not knowing where to look or evaluate the credibility of the sources, Biersdorfer said she has just the opposite problem: too much information coming at her too fast. "My mind is a bit scrambled from all the information," she said.

Gorcheff began her remarks by discussing her frustration at trying to get information from government sources and the drilling companies. She's a high school graduate who never went to college, she said, "But I know when I'm being ignored, patronized or dismissed. ... I've been asking questions" and not getting more than a perfunctory response, if that. That's one reason she, too, is convinced the 4.0 tremor New Year's Eve was caused by D&L operating its brine injection well.

After her investigations, Davis is convinced that the drilling companies are concerned about nothing but "making a profit for their shareholders -- at our expense. I think we're doomed."

The drilling companies' profits, which she described as "high -- I have to say this -- are a symptom of a corrupt government."

A study by Penn State University on natural gas drilling, she said she discovered, "was paid for by the gas industry." That prompted her to declare the industry "can be summarized by three C's: corporation corruption, cancer. So why are we allowing it?"

She called upon the audience to join her at the Beaver Township trustees next meeting next Tuesday.

Occupy Youngstown, Davis reported, paid the rent that allowed her to hold the meeting in the auditorium of the old South Range High School.