Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 3:15PM Panelists: Local action needed to rein in fracking
An attorney from an Ohio environmental group and a community activist from Athens County gave a tutorial Tuesday to a Licking County audience on how to gain control of fracking when it arrives.
Nathan Johnson, a lawyer for the Buckeye Forest Council, talked about Ohio laws affecting oil and gas drilling. Al Blazevicius spoke about his efforts to enact regulations on fracking in Athens County, where a good deal of land has been leased for drilling.
There are significant deposits of oil and gas in deep-lying shale in eastern Ohio. The minerals are extracted by forcing a large volume of water, sand and chemicals into cracks in the shale.
Licking County has deposits of oil in the shale layer, said Gary Sitler, a local driller and Granville resident. Industry experts said the area is on the verge of an oil and gas boom and many local property owners have signed leases agreeing to testing and/or drilling on their property.
Tuesday's forum, the second in a series of three sponsored by the Denison University's Office of Sustainabilty, focused on the effect of fracking on the community. About 75 people attended.
Before the panelists spoke, two video clips were shown documenting pollution from shale fracking in Pennsylvania. In one instance, a water well was contaminated; in the other, a pond was polluted by runoff from the pad of a drilling site.
Blazevicius said after persistent efforts, he and other residents were able to convince the Athens County commissioners to work with them to develop stronger state and local regulations on fracking.
One of the areas of regulation they are working on is providing baseline groundwater testing for residents who plan to have drilling done on their property. Baseline water testing provides a sample of groundwater before drilling, which when compared to a test done after drilling will verify whether contamination has occurred.
The state doesn't require such testing, Johnson said. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources website states the chance of groundwater contamination or loss of water because of oil and gas well drilling is small and any impacts are normally within a few hundred feet of the drill site.
Johnson said oil drillers or producers that pollute could be subject to civil and criminal penalties.
Johnson said that in Ohio, the state has most of the power when it comes to regulation of the oil and gas industry, but local governments can exert control over some areas.
He said local communities can impose severance taxes, levy fines on drillers and producers who pollute, and pass ordinances regulating air emissions. Johnson said oil and gas wells may emit VOCs -- chemical compounds, some of which can cause cancer.
Some devices are on the market that capture those chemicals, Johnson said.
"They are 95 percent effective, he said.
Carol Apacki, a Granville resident who is active with Licking County Fracking, an organization trying to raise awareness about the issue, said she would like to see fracking slowed or stopped until it is clear whether it can be done safely.
"We need to hold up until then," she said. "Once drilling starts, it can't be reversed."
She said she wants to build coalition of people who are pro- and anti-fracking who will go to local legislators to work for effective regulation
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