Fracking opponents push for protection

Auburn residents Linda Zmek and Traci Fee said it's time to institute protective measures against gas- and oil-well drilling in the township.

They said they are particularly concerned with drilling into deep shale deposits, where hydraulic fracturing, with water under pressure, is used to create fractures in the rock to release oil and gas deposits.

More companies are drilling down and then horizontally to reach shale deposits, they said, and there are concerns that ground water will be contaminated in the process.

Mrs. Zmek and Ms. Fee are members of the Network for Oil and Gas Accountability and Protection.

Last week, they asked Auburn Trustees to consider a resolution not to allow hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in Auburn.

Mrs. Zmek said they hope Auburn will write a resolution opposing fracturing in drilling. "It would be on our books," she said.

Burton Village has written a moratorium on fracking, she said.

"When you inject in the ground, it has to come up," Mrs. Zmek said.

"The gas and oil companies are not keeping the gas locally," she added. They are shipping it overseas. So why should we allow it?

"Foreign-owned companies are taking our minerals and leaving the earth barren in Ohio with ugly wells, with the good possibility of destroying our aquifer," she said.

Livestock in the West has been damaged, and water coming from taps has caught fire, Mrs. Zmek said. "It's not something we're making up or over-reacting to."

Drillers are pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground which is deadly to everyone's health, Mrs. Zmek said. "The water has to come up somewhere, and when it does, it runs into the streams and lakes and water reservoirs like La Due. And it goes into Lake Erie, which is a source of water for Cleveland," she said.

"They go through deep Marcellus and Utica shale and bore horizontally," Ms. Zmek said. "They could end up two miles away under someone else's property, and million of gallons of water are injected with chemicals. It's a danger to do that. It's not safe. I don't care what they say. They are endangering all of us by even wanting to drill."

The drilling companies force people into agreeing to mandatory pooling, when property owners join to provide the required acreage for a well, Mrs. Zmek said. "They promise you are going to get rich." Then they take whatever gas they can once the lease is signed, she said.

"What would it hurt to place a moratorium on drilling by the township?" Mrs. Zmek said. "If residents know of the pros and cons, no prudent person would want this. I want water to be drinkable for my great-grandchildren," she said.

"We're all doing this on our own money. We don't have money, but the oil and gas companies do," she said.

Mrs. Fee said, "This is horizontal, large-scale drilling, which is new to us. It's the large-scale fracking that we're concerned with. It's a mix of water and chemicals. There's a lot of concern for the air, water and property values."

Protective measures are needed, she said. "We're willing to work with Township Trustees to do something that protects our properties. We're offering to help on this," she said.

"Fracking is a threat to the water aquifer. We're on well water, and, if our water is affected, our homes are worthless," Ms. Fee said.

She also noted that property owners who sign leases for drilling could be in violation of their mortgage agreements.

The bigger concerns involve health, water, air and property values, Ms. Fee said.

"It is a complex issue," she said. "We want to continue to bring awareness to people," Ms. Fee said. "People should understand the magnitude of the risk. People really have to ask questions about the kind of wells being put in."

http://www.chagrinvalleytimes.com/NC/0/4099.html

Wyoming: Environmentalists sue over fracking fluid

Environmentalists are suing the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, saying the regulatory agency hasn't done enough to justify honoring requests by companies to keep the public from reviewing ingredients in hydraulic fracturing fluids.

The groups Powder River Basin Resource Council, Wyoming Outdoor Council, Earthworks and OMB Watch sued in Natrona County District Court on Monday. They allege the commission denied their state open records requests to review fracking fluid ingredients.

Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into oil and gas wells to crack open fissures. Wyoming has required oilfield service companies to disclose to state officials the ingredients in their fracking fluids since 2010.

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Mohican Advocates oppose fracking

MANSFIELD -- The Mohican State Park, Malabar Farm State Park, Mohican Memorial State Forest and Pleasant Hill Lake continue to be threatened with drilling for oil, fracking and commercial logging operations.

The Ohio State Legislature voted in 2011 to make it possible for the state to lease out the state parks and forests for such operations.

"We think that was a terrible mistake and we're going to try to get them to reverse themselves," Eric Miller, a member of the Mohican Advocates, a grassroots group of volunteers working to preserve the state parks, said Saturday at Gorman Nature Center.

About 100 people attended the rally.

Miller said the ''terrible mistake'' is that Ohio has relatively few state parks and they play an important role in the quality of peoples' lives.

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Fracking Controversy Hits Medina County Homes

GRANGER TWP., Ohio — Mark Mangan held a metering device near his backyard well and listened to an alarm go off.

It registered one hundred percent “LEL,” or lower explosive level.

“That means, if we light a match right now,” Mangan said, “it’ll go boom.”

Mark and his wife, Sandy, have no idea how big or small such a possible explosion may be.

But they blame the drilling of two nearby oil and gas wells a few years ago.

“It’s a beautiful spot,” Mark said of his rural home, “but now, I just want to get the hell out of there.”

The two wells in question have since been “fracked” – that is, highly-pressurized chemicals have been injected into the ground to help with the recovery process.

But the Mangans blame the initial drilling for their problems, and say they quickly contacted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) about the issue.

“We thought they were going to be an advocate for the people,” Sandy Mangan said.

ODNR declined to do an on-camera interview, but said in a statement that it had conducted “extensive testing” and has “conclusively determined” that the Mangans’ water problems are “not related to those (oil and gas) wells.”

Sources tell the Fox 8 I-Team that the Ohio Inspector General is looking into the issue.

Officially, Deputy Inspector General Carl Enslen said the office will neither confirm nor deny the existence of any inquiry.

In a report, ODNR indicated that a “drought” may have been a factor.

But a Cleveland State University expert, Dr. Philip DeGroot, said a drought would not cause the sudden drop in water pressure that the Mangans reported that they experienced.

Dr. DeGroot, who was hired by the Mangans and one other family to do a preliminary analysis, said such a drop is normally caused by a more traumatic event such as an earthquake.

“You could cause fracturing where fractures didn’t exist, so something like (an earthquake), something that would be a high-pressure underground activity.”

The Mangans said it wasn’t an earthquake, but oil drilling that caused the problem.

But, in a report, ODNR said it found no evidence of the chemicals used in oil drilling in the drinking well at the Mangans’ home.

And the operator of the oil and gas wells said the Mangans were having water issues before the drilling began.

The Mangans vehemently deny that, and say they don’t know what the future holds.

“We have no idea what we’ve been exposed to,” Mark said.

And they have no idea how much danger may be still lurking in their well.

http://fox8.com/2012/03/26/i-team-fracking-controversy-hits-medina-county-homes/

Gas drilling raises concern over water supply

Drillers hoping to retrieve gas through Utica shale wells in eastern Ohio are drawing water for their operations from ponds and streams or purchasing it from public reservoirs, worrying environmentalists who say it might endanger water supplies for the public and wildlife if there’s not enough water for everyone.

The drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, injects millions of gallons of chemical-laced water into the earth at high pressure to free gas. The geology of eastern Ohio makes it rich in resources such as propane, butane and ethane but short on groundwater for that drilling, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

So drilling operations are finding water where they can. Chesapeake Energy signed an agreement with the city of Steubenville last month to take up to 700,000 gallons of water a day from a city reservoir of water from the Ohio River, at a cost of $5 for every 1,000 gallons.

That brought in about $30,000 for the city after the company took about 6 million gallons during a two-week period in late February and early March.

“It’s a great deal,” city Law Director Gary Repella said. “We’re not spending any money to treat the water, and it’s not going to disrupt our system. We can draw as much as we want.”

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District is considering requests from a dozen companies seeking to draw water from six eastern Ohio reservoirs it controls.

Some environmentalists, fearful of the repercussions of the growing water demand, aren’t sure the conservancy district should allow that.

“There isn’t enough water to go around,” said Lea Harper, a member of the Southeast Ohio Alliance to Save Our Water.

The Muskingum Watershed’s conservation chief said the district would ask the U.S. Geological Survey to help determine how much extra water is in the area but might approve requests for reservoir water in the meantime if there’s no clear threat to wildlife.

Energy companies say they try to make sure they don’t take too much water, and state officials say they believe Ohio has enough water for everyone.

Businesses aren’t required to register with the state if they draw less than 100,000 gallons from water sources, but officials plan to change rules to better track drillers’ water sources, said Bethany McCorkle, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

http://www.cantonrep.com/fracking/x586824940/Gas-drilling-raises-concern-over-water-supply

OU must protect its most valuable resources from fracking effects

By Professor Jim Montgomery

I am a faculty member in the College of Health Sciences and Professions at Ohio University. I am compelled to write to remind the leadership of OU, including the Board of Trustees, of one of the primary missions of the university as it prepares its response to the state regarding fracking on lands owned by the university.

OU, along with the College of Health Sciences and Professions (CHSP) and the Heritage College of Medicine (HCOM), have the express obligation to serve the underrepresented and underserved not just in Athens County but all of southeast Ohio. While Athens County has the highest poverty rate in the state (32.8 percent) much of southeast Ohio is impoverished. And with poverty comes many problems, among them poor health and lack of access and opportunity to resources necessary to develop and sustain healthy living.

Long-term exposure to fracking pollutants has the potential of worsening these individuals’ health problems. Others are also very susceptible to environmental toxins, regardless of poverty status – pregnant women, young children and adolescents.

Ohio University has the responsibility to do all it can to protect the most vulnerable among us. First, to the extent possible, the university must oppose fracking until tighter federal regulations are put in place. To do so would be consistent with the university’s commitment to serve all southeast Ohioans. Second, it must demand that the oil industry implement all of the precautions recommended in the Resolution on Hydraulic Fracturing at Ohio University developed by the Environmental Studies Advisory Board and passed by the Faculty Senate (March 12, 2012). These recommendations would require the industry to implement various measures to minimize the negative effects of fracking on the environment and human health within the university community.

The overwhelming majority of the local opposition to fracking has centered on its potential ill effects on the environment (i.e. contamination of water, air, soil) and local economy. This is for good reason. The emerging science and experiences of numerous communities around the country attest to these negative effects.

By contrast, little has been detailed about the risks to human health. There is good reason for this, too. Few studies have been conducted on the short- and long-term effects of fracking on human health. Big oil has taken full advantage of this circumstance when they claim there are no established links between fracking and human health problems. However, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. There are emerging data showing that fracking is indeed associated with numerous human health problems, including dermatological, endocrine, respiratory, kidney, liver, gastrointestinal, vascular, and neurological (Bamberger & Oswald, 2012; Colburn et al., 2011).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will publish findings later this year and in 2014 detailing both the health and environmental effects of fracking.

Meantime, the epidemiological literature (i.e. the study of disease patterns and the conditions that give rise to disease) provides us ample evidence of the sorts of long-term ill effects on human health we might expect from fracking, especially in children and adolescents who are particularly susceptible to environmental toxins. The science is clear. Well-established links exist between low-level but chronic exposure to environmental toxins and a wide range of childhood physical, neurological, cognitive and behavioral problems.

The National Academy of Sciences (2002) estimated that one in every 200 children suffers from physical, neurological, developmental, learning and/or behavioral disorders caused by exposure to known environmental toxins. A recent study (Trasande & Liu, 2011) reported that environmental childhood diseases cost $76.6 billion or 3.5 percent of U.S. health-care costs in 2008. The authors stated that “the environment has become a major part of childhood disease.”

The developing science focusing on the effects of fracking on human health and the epidemiological literature must not be ignored by OU and the Board of Trustees as they prepare their position statement on fracking. These literatures tell us what to expect in the wake of chronic exposure to toxins from an unregulated hydraulic fracturing technology: an increase in childhood physical, neurological, developmental, learning and/or behavioral disorders.

Also expect staggering financial stress on the health care, social service and educational systems across southeast Ohio as more families seek resources and support systems that already are in short supply. OU, the CHSP and HCOM have an institutional and social responsibility to protect the health of southeast Ohioans, particularly the most vulnerable: those living in poverty, pregnant women, young children and adolescents.

Jim Montgomery is a professor in the College of Health Sciences and Professions at Ohio University

http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-36470-ou-must-protect-its-most-valuable-resources-from-fracking-effects.html

From fracking-heavy region, women bring warnings

On Saturday, two dairy farmers from Pennsylvania shared some real-life horror stories from their experience with natural gas “fracking,” during a presentation in Athens.

Some of the roughly 50 people who came to hear Carol French and Carolyn Knapp, however, said they’re hopeful that a recent state geologist’s report, indicating that Athens County may lie outside the part of the Utica shale that’s expected to most oil and gas development, means this county won’t have to undergo a lot of fracking.

“It’s a tremendous relief; I think it’s a reprieve,” said Nancy Pierce of Guysville.

Natalie Kruse, an Ohio University environmental studies professor, said she was not surprised by the report’s findings.

“It’s nothing new,” Kruse suggested. “We’ve always known that we were less mature.” (The “maturity” of organic carbon intermixed with shale – basically its age, organic composition and how much pressure it’s undergone – largely determines its prospective value.)

Travis Milliken of Athens said he was “pleased” to read about the report, and added that he’s been leery from the beginning about the glowing claims of what a “fracking” boom will do for Athens County and the United States.

“I think this quest for ‘energy independence’ is driven by a lust for money, at the expense of many, many things,” he said. “

Knapp and French, who spoke at OU’s Morton Hall, both signed leases with energy companies to have their land in Bradford County, Pa., drilled for gas using the horizontal hydraulic fracturing method to extract the resource from underground shale beds. Both suggested that signing was a bad decision for them, and warned locals of things they need to think about before leasing.

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