State reps seek rules on fracking

MANSFIELD -- Two Ohio House members told concerned north central Ohioans they are looking into ways to tighten Ohio's regulation of fracking and injection disposal wells.

State Rep. David Hall, R-Millersburg, chairman of the House natural resources and agriculture committee, and State Rep. Jay Goyal, D-Mansfield, spoke during a four-hour-long "Fracking Forum" held Saturday at the Mansfield-Richland County Public Library.

Goyal said he tries to maintain an open mind about Preferred Fluids Management's proposal to drill two 5,000-foot-deep injection wells for disposal of fracking waste on Mansfield's far north side.

But that facility would produce just two jobs on-site at the injection well, plus possibly six for Ashland Railway, while leaving the community open to the risk of groundwater contamination from waste fluids injected down the wells, Goyal said.

"Frankly, I really see little or no benefit of having an injection well in our community," he said. "Even if it's a 0.1 percent chance of our groundwater being contaminated, it does not make any sense to allow this in our community."

Goyal said he has begun working on proposed legislation requiring that fracking brine gets tested by a third party -- "someone other than the company."

It would require that tracer dyes be added to waste fluids injected into the wells to alert surrounding landowners if fluids escaped toward the surface, endangering their wells.

And it would mandate testing of nearby drinking water supplies to make sure they remain safe, and "some sort of local control into the process" for communities where injection wells have been proposed, he said.

Hall, who chairs the House committee reviewing issues related to fossil fuel extraction from shale, said the earthquakes linked with an injection well built in Youngstown appear to have occurred because that well was drilled "too far, too deep" -- 9,100 feet down into hard granite.

Basement rock varies in depth around Ohio, from around 9,000 in Youngstown to about 12,000 feet near Marietta, he noted.

Legislators will look "at how we can keep industry out of that layer," Hall said. "I would like to see, as we move forward, looking at Class II injection wells and making sure they are drilling so you're not in that formation."

The state also will review maximum pressures drillers are allowed to use in the process, along with volumes which may be injected into rock -- to make sure it's not enough to lubricate layers of rock which are at risk of shifting, causing earthquakes, Hall said.

But the House committee chairman defended the industry's potential for creating an economic boom in areas of Ohio.

While Richland County may not see many local jobs produced by disposal wells, it's a different story with "production" wells in eastern Ohio counties which have thicker layers of Marcellus shale, Hall said.

"Carroll County commissioners would love to talk to you -- because they are seeing an impact," he told listeners.

Hall said he has visited fracking wellhead sites in four states, and is impressed with safety precautions now used.

"This is not the drilling process you're used to from the old days," he said.

An industry spokesman, Mike Chadek of Energy in Depth, said fracking has occurred in Ohio since 1955 -- though it wasn't until 2010 when horizontal drilling was first used to try to extract natural gas and oil from shale formations several thousand feet underground.

"Hydraulic fracturing has been a standard practice in Ohio for about 60 years," he said.

Marcellus shale may be capable of producing 87 billion barrels of oil -- "enough to meet the needs of the entire world for three years," Chadek said.

Speakers were asked what they thought about the fracking technology one Canadian company provides, using propane gel, rather than water, in the fracking process, to extract fossil fuel energy from shale.

"There is no byproduct. There is no (water) disposal issue," the audience member said.

Attorney Eric Miller, a panelist, said it appears technology is becoming available that avoids having to dispose of large quantities of chemical-laced fracking brine in injection wells like those proposed in Mansfield.

"So wouldn't it make sense to have a moratorium and then let the technology advance?" Miller said.

The industry itself could benefit by putting the brakes on production, since natural gas prices currently have fallen to a 10-year low, he argued.

Miller also advocated changing Ohio law to require use of tracer dyes for waste fluids injected back into the ground.

"Industry doesn't want to do it because it costs them. The question is, why doesn't ODNR require it?" he said. "The industry simply is not being held accountable."

Eric Boardman, a Mansfield-area activist, said he is concerned that fracking waste, including harmful chemicals, might eventually migrate great distances away from the Mansfield injection well site, through underground rock, contaminating future water supplies.

"This stuff is going to move out and seek out naturally occurring fault lines. This could be a problem for generations 200, 300 years from now," he said.