Ohio Horizontal Drilling Rules Criticized By Environmental Groups

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Environmental advocates were among dozens of witnesses lining up to testify Monday on a bill laying out Ohio's new regulations for horizontal shale drilling and the use of renewable energy.

The testimony before the House Public Utilities Committee was part of a debate on a wide-ranging energy bill that passed the Ohio Senate last week with support of Republicans and some Democrats.

Concern remains among environmental groups.

The bill requires that well operators disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, a technique that involves the high-pressure injection of water and chemicals into the ground to split rock apart and release natural gas or oil. Environmentalists say details will be scant, however, and reporting will come only after wells have been drilled.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, meanwhile, has criticized the bill for removing the public's ability to appeal state-issued drilling permits.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says the rules are among the toughest in the nation.

Ohio senators passed the new energy bill Tuesday, sending it to the House.

Besides creating the new hydraulic fracturing rules, it adjust Ohio's renewable energy standard to include waste heat such as that generated from factory smokestacks.

Supporters said the bill balances environment, public health and safety, and commerce by expanding chemical disclosure and water testing requirements.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, backs the bill as a responsible compromise between environmental protection and policies friendly to the state's developing shale drilling industry.

It requires well operators to disclose the location they'll draw water from for blasting into the well, as well as the rate and volume at which they'll withdraw it.

The legislation further requires well operators to disclose all chemicals that will come into contact with human water supplies during the drilling operation, though not the specific recipe. Water samples must also be taken at all wells within 1,500 feet of any proposed horizontal well.

But environmental groups say the legislation is riddled with loopholes.

Rick Sahli, an environmental lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said language in the bill allows well operators to report water withdrawal data "to the best of their knowledge," for example.

It retains an Ohio "mandatory pooling" law that gives drillers the opportunity to access oil and gas under a landowners' property against their will, if enough neighbors agree to it to satisfy a state review board.

Sahli said a provision prohibits medical professionals who access proprietary chemical information about the wells from disclosing that information outside of treating individual patients. He said the wording would prevent a doctor from alerting local health departments and first responders.

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Comments

[greenlord]

11:30 AM on 05/22/2012

We can expect this type of abuse after the Legalization of Political Bribery!

[lofanforobama]

01:39 AM on 05/22/2012

The first well drilled should be under the Governor's mansion--as Kasich drinks from the taps.

[greenlord]

11:31 AM on 05/22/2012

The problem is it wont be under his Mansion or his French Riviera Playhouse, or his Bahama Getaway Mansion, or His Hunting Lodge....etc. it will be under our houses.

[lofanforobama]

11:41 AM on 05/22/2012

Yep. He wouldn't have it any other way...

[OldCowboy]

12:12 AM on 05/22/2012

I am so, so glad that I don't live in fracking country. This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions.

[olitenup]

09:20 PM on 05/21/2012

Of course!!! These legislators don't care if they poison everyone and everything...until it hits them personally. Then they will be blaming everyone but themselves.

[greenlord]

11:32 AM on 05/22/2012

Everybody has their Price and in US legislative bodies...Bribery is the Only Game Being Played!

[Telegrammar]

08:19 PM on 05/21/2012

GOP = Greedy Oil Profits

[Telegrammar]

08:15 PM on 05/21/2012

Let's see. Ohioans have already experienced earthquakes caused by fracking. We're accepting fracking waste water, laced with who-knows-what poisonous chemicals, from other states and disposing of it by injecting it and storing it in our own underground wells. If a majority of neighbors give permission for fracking under the land, the other neighbors have no say in what happens under THEIR land. What happens, Governor, when our water wells are contaminated and our tap water catches fire, as it does in parts of neighboring Pennsylvania? Will you just say, "Oops!"

[General Washington]

07:42 PM on 05/21/2012

Now why should Kasich support allowing the public to have a say, especially before the chemicals have been injected into the ground or the drilling goes under your house?

That's just rampant sociamalism...

[plans includingdog]

04:01 PM on 05/21/2012

I believe in the would of consumers all this oil would last a year at best.The poisons may last a century.

[jimme]

03:43 PM on 05/21/2012

Money talks, folks. So the Congressmen whom are bought and paid for will allow the energy companies to do what they want, when they want, where they want, and how they want.
When something goes bad, they'll be long gone and enjoying life on the profits made from destroying the ecology. They'll have to answer to no one.

[Roosevelt Democrat]

03:37 PM on 05/21/2012

"it adjust Ohio's renewable energy standard to include waste heat such as that generated from factory smokestacks."

This is a good idea! We use 350,000 therms per month of natural gas to run our business and could make electricity, about 5 MW, to put back on the grid from the waste heat if there was a mechanism to pay off the equipment.

[idyl]

02:56 PM on 05/21/2012

Why not post a link to the NRDC analysis of the Ohio bill (mentioned in the article)?

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/tcmar/ohio_fracking_bill_does_not_go.html

[Roosevelt Democrat]

03:32 PM on 05/21/2012

Maybe the editorial staff at HP is trying to present itself as a balanced news organization not a propaganda rag?

I'm really surprised they did not furnish the link.

[idyl]

03:37 PM on 05/21/2012

It's helpful, because the NRDC article links to local news coverage (The Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, etc.) of these issues.

[Son of Liberty 1765]

02:18 PM on 05/21/2012

THe Enviro-theologists just don;t want any drilling. There is no limit to the regulatory demands and dissatisfaction they will have. They want to stop drilling, period. This is a game to them, to the rest of us, it is being able to turn on the lights, produce medical breakthroughs and perform our jobs.

[jimme]

03:46 PM on 05/21/2012

What about the grandchildren the pubz always mention ? What will they be stuck with just so you can "turn the lights on" ? Sounds more like selfish greed to me.

[intolleft]

08:49 AM on 05/22/2012

a better future.

[plans includingdog]

03:57 PM on 05/21/2012

If you would accept a decent solution instead of your ignorance the world would be a better place.