Bath rescinds vendor regs in favor of more stringent county ones

EVENT in Bath Township

township residents with questions about oil and gas drilling in the township can get some answers at an upcoming program sponsored by the township and the Friends of Yellow Creek. The meeting will take place Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. in the Revere High School Auditorium.

http://www.akron.com/akron-ohio-community-news.asp?aID=14753

Jobs not best benefit of Ohio shale drilling: OSU study

Natural gas drilling in Ohio offers several benefits, but enough new jobs to impact the state's economy isn't one of them, a new economic study released this week by Ohio State University says.

"Although we should not expect natural gas to be a big job creator, there are significant benefits to producing natural gas that are getting lost in the hype of job creation," co-authors Mark Partridge and Amanda Weinstein said.

The two largest benefits of opening up shale drilling in Ohio are the environmental benefits of cleaner gas displacing coal for power generation and lower electricity costs benefiting the state's massive manufacturing economy, the authors said.

Manufacturing accounts for 27% of Ohio's $477 billion economy, according to the state government; oil and gas production accounted for 0.4% in 2010.

The 27-page study examining the economic impact of drilling in the Utica and Marcellus shales in the state faults previous industry-funded studies that predict as many as 200,000 new jobs for the state for using impact models long discarded by academic economists for routinely overestimating job creation numbers.

A September study sponsored by the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program predicted oil and gas investment in Ohio would increase more than 20 times the current $988 million/year and create 205,520 jobs. (OSU professors participated in portions of that study also.)

Partridge and Weinstein said the number of permanent jobs is likely to be a more modest 20,000.

"Previous studies on the economic impacts of natural gas appear to have widely overstated the economic impacts," Partridge and Weinstein wrote. In addition to being funded by industry, "not the best sources of information for economic effects (regardless of the industry)", those studies ignore that oil and gas operations are three times more capital intensive than other industries, resulting in fewer jobs per dollar spent.

Those studies, primarily focused on the Marcellus' impact on Pennsylvania, also have ignored the displacement effects of gas drilling - be it coal miners laid off because power plants burn more gas or tourism workers eliminated because of drilling's effects on the environment - the study said.

Partridge believes Pennsylvania gained 20,000 Marcellus Shale-related development jobs between 2004 and 2010, much fewer than the 100,000 jobs reported in "industry-funded studies."

http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/NaturalGas/6787366

Former Ohioan will discuss fracking

Chris Crews, a former Ohioan living in New York City, will present "Updates from the Fracking Front, New York to Ohio" at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 1 at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church of Bellville, 25 Church St.

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20111221/NEWS01/112210328

Geochemistry scientist on fracking: "The problem is going to get worse, not better"

Until recently, there have not been scientifically grounded independent investigations that seek to fully understand the role of fracking in most groundwater contamination incidents . One exception is the investigation of the groundwater contamination in Bainbridge Township, Ohio, where the state found that one of the contributing factors was: “the frac communicated directly with the well bore and was not confined within the “Clinton” reservoir.” 

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/geochemistry_scientist_on_frac.html

Natural Gas Stocks

The Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian Basin contains extensive natural gas reserves. The Marcellus Shale covers parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. It also covers small portions of Kentucky, and Tennessee, and runs into the southern Ontario region of Canada.

The natural gas in the Marcellus Shale is extracted using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ techniques. I’ve compiled a list of eight companies doing significant business in the Marcellus Shale.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/314994-how-to-benefit-from-these-8-marcellus-shale-natural-gas-stocks

Company	PE Ratio	PEG	EPS	Op.Cash Flow	Cash	Debt	5 Year Expected Annual Earnings Growth
Chesapeake (CHK)	9.3	0.81	1.99	$4.87B	$111M	$11.84B	9.96%
EOG Resources (EOG)	21.52	0.36	3.9	$3.96B	$1.39B	$5.23B	75.99%
Anadarko (APC)	20.84	0.84	-4.38	$5.91B	$3.49B	$13.94B	27.57%
Penn Virginia (PVA)	N/A	-0.76	-2.8	$114.13M	$3.58M	$613M	5%
ExxonMobil (XOM)	9.59	1.07	8.28	$57.65B	$11.02B	$16.76B	8.75%
Range Resources (RRC)	42.1	1.38	-1.63	$528.25M	$51.88M	$1.79B	41.3%
Exco Resources (XCO)	11.12	0.65	0.54	$419.26M	$56.42M	$1.71B	21.67%
EQT Corp. (EQT)	20.13	0.97	3.09	$882M	$334.9M	$2B	25.67%

Josh Mandel questions Sherrod Brown's positions, but only addresses some of his own

Brown, a senator since 2007, has had to walk a fine line as an industrial-state Democrat. He supports the goal of cleaner air but sometimes questions the speed at which it can be had and demands more federal help for Ohio to ease the transition from so-called dirty to green energy. His spokeswoman, Meghan Dubyak, said he rejects "the false choice between having clean air to breathe and a job to support a family."

"He has led the fight to ensure that efforts to reduce pollution create jobs in the U.S., rather than jeopardize them," she said. "Ohio's children and families deserve protection from mercury, arsenic, and other pollutants. We need to be concerned about jobs lost, and lives lost, too."

She said Brown will be "closely following the implementation of this court-ordered rule that is the outgrowth of legislation signed into law by President Bush more than 20 years ago." If it is unworkable, he'll explore remedies to make it more flexible, she said.

Physician groups meantime praised the EPA rule. The co-director of the Asthma Center Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic said the critics' economic claims fail to take into account the high cost of power plant and industrial pollution in terms of poor health, missed work and the need for medical care.

Dr. Sumita B. Khatri, a pulmonary and intensive care specialist at the Clinic, said the EPA rule is "extremely good for Ohio, because ultimately our currency is our people." Numerous studies show that in areas with high particulate-matter levels, "there are more admissions for respiratory diseases, there are more asthma symptoms," she said. "So from a medical standpoint, all the medical societies who work with science and look at peer-reviewed articles -- you can't just publish this if it's junk or if it's activist work -- they subscribe to this scientific fact that there's this association."

Mandel's criticism followed an attack last month in which he said Brown sided with "fringe extremists" and "Washington bureaucrats" who were blocking fracking, or fracturing of shale deep in the earth to extract natural gas, in Ohio. Mandel repeated the claim when issuing his statement Thursday on the EPA mercury rule.

Mandel's fracking comments came after Brown told a radio interviewer that he understood the desire of the Athens, Ohio, mayor, area county commissioners and the president of Ohio University to preserve their water supply's safety. He did not say he objected to fracking. The official who got a delay for more study of fracking in the Wayne National Forest was the local forest supervisor, not a Washington bureaucrat, and her decision affected less than 1 percent of Ohio land where fracking could occur.

PolitiFact Ohio, a fact-checking feature of The Plain Dealer, found Mandel's fracking attack ridiculously false and labeled it "Pants on Fire."

Despite these two recent episodes, Mandel has remained silent on other issues. As debate raged late this week, his campaign would not say whether he supported extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits that had Congress tied in knots. Brown as well as Portman supported a short-term extension to buy more time for a longer-lasting plan, while many House conservatives balked. The two sides reached an agreement late Thursday.

Fracking wastewater leaked onto Ohio roads

--Ohio Department of Transportation officials said a truck hauling wastewater from the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, spilled part of its load Thursday along two state roads in Monroe County, Ohio.

WOODSFIELD, Ohio - A spill of fracking wastewater in Monroe County has residents there concerned about whether officials there are prepared to handle the coming boom, as more and more contractors access shale formations deep underground.

Ohio Department of Transportation officials said a truck hauling wastewater from the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, spilled part of its load Thursday along two state roads in Monroe County, Ohio.

Terrill Wickham, ODOT clerk at the Monroe County garage, said the spill involved about four miles along Ohio 537 and about six miles on Ohio 260 near Marr, and was reported around 7 a.m. to the Ohio State Highway Patrol after a motorist indicated there were some slick areas on at least one of the roads.

"We thought it was going to be much worse than it was," he said. "We were afraid it was oil but it was mostly salt water and a few spots with a muddy slurry."

Wickham said 20 tons of sand was poured over the affected roads to soak up the mixture and provide better traction in some areas that were slick.

He said there were no immediate environmental concerns that he was made aware of.

A supervisor with the Ohio State Highway Patrol was not immediately available on Friday.

Mike and Ruth Partin, who live on Ohio 260 where the spill occurred, said the sand was not enough of a solution.

"The sand is not absorbing this stuff," said Ruth Partin. "It just lays over top of it and it's all still there. Now it's rained and whatever all that was and the contaminants that may have come up with it has run everywhere."

The couple spent the day Friday talking to officials with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, ODOT, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and say they were told an environmental study should be done, although they've seen no sign that it's begun. Half a dozen neighbors she talked to were also "very concerned," Partin said.