Ohio Senate OK of drilling in state parks upsets Mohican residents

Opponents -- which include the Mohican-Loudonville Visitors Bureau, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and other groups -- say the state parks historically have been off-limits to drilling and allowing it would harm vistas and groundwater.

Democratic amendments on where and how drilling would be done failed to gain traction. The party holds 10 seats in the 33-member chamber.

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Incidents where hydraulic fracturing is a suspected cause of drinking water contamination

Ohio: In 2007, there was an explosion of a water well and contamination of at least 22 other drinking water wells in Bainbridge Township after hydraulic fracturing of a nearby natural gas well owned by Ohio Valley Energy Systems. According to the State investigation, one of the contributing factors to this incident is that: “the frac communicated directly with the well bore and was not confined within the “Clinton” reservoir.”

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Transient work force a problem

While there was optimistic discussion of jobs, concerns turned to the impact of hundreds of new workers on community services and what to do about chemical-laced water that drillers pump underground to crack the shale and release natural gas.

Douglas Hill, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, said some counties and municipalities are starting to struggle with an increase in out-of-state workers and specialized legal work accompanying a transient work force. He said some employees are on probation in other states, wanted on other states' warrants or involved in domestic disputes.

"When you come from out of state, you don't have the community support -- the family, the church, the friends -- to keep you out of the system," Hill said.

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Local landowners, others repeat fracking concerns

In other states and increasingly in Ohio, natural gas companies have been offering residents up to several thousand dollars per acre for oil and gas leases. But some who have signed the leases have reported illness due to the chemicals getting into their water supplies. In isolated instances, property owners in other states have reported their tap water catching fire due to chemicals infiltrating their wells.

"If people take what the industry offers when they show up on their doorsteps, they're not getting (a deal), even if (fracking) is something they want to do," Phillips said of the leases. "They're not getting as good a deal, and it's allowing a lot more profit to the company and less to the landowners."

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Saving Money and Lungs: Simple fixes could keep tons of drilling pollution out of the air.

Fort Worth Weekly

WEDNESDAY, 01 JUNE 2011 09:00 GAYLE REAVES

The Downwinders, in a release, called TCEQ’s proposed cuts in drilling-related pollution “modest” — the removal of 14 tons per day of VOC from the 100-plus tons per day now being emitted by gas industry activities. The release quoted TCEQ conclusions that gas industry pollution now accounts for more tons of VOC pollution annually than all the cars and trucks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area combined. But because the industry has grown so fast, the problem was not addressed in previous versions of the air quality plan.

“That’s a little crumb toward reducing VOCs in the shale,” said Schermbeck, who represents Downwinders on the oil and gas subcommittee of the clean-air panel. Jordan chairs the subcommittee.

Sattler’s report, Schermbeck said, makes it clear that those emissions could be reduced by up to 90 tons per day if the industry adopted practices that would quickly pay for themselves. Sattler, an environmental engineer at the University of Texas at Arlington, helped draw up earlier versions of the North Texas clean-air plan.

One of the easiest things for the industry to fix would also be one of the most rewarding in terms of reducing pollution, Schermbeck said. That would be for the state to require the industry to retrofit its equipment to get rid of the valves and other mechanisms that Schermbeck said “intentionally leak natural gas due to the way that they work.” Those valves, he said, are the “largest source of VOCs in the gas field.”

Full Article: http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4801:saving-money-and-lungs&catid=76:metropolis&Itemid=377