Under Issue 21: The fracking bill

Arsenic. Hydrochloric acid. Sodium chloride. After being used to “frack” shale deposits for oil, these chemicals are often being pumped back into the ground–into waste injection wells–near Kent, Ohio. And that waste isn’t just from Ohio’s 1,092 wells. Most of it’s from Pennsylvania. Why? Because the state has the authority to regulate where radioactive fracking waste goes and how it gets there. Not only that, but some of those radioactive wells are drilled through underground water reservoirs that supply the city and university with water.

Black gold

Fracking is an oil-drilling process that involves pumping a mixture of water, lubricants, anti-bacterial agents, sand and other chemicals into shale formations miles underground at high pressure. This brine fluid mix “fractures” the rock and allows for the extraction of trapped natural gas, a hydrocarbon. Each well, according to statistics from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, costs roughly $6 to $12 million to drill, and that’s before usable oil is obtained.The chemically laced, radioactive mix that is pumped back above ground is shipped on trucks or trains to disposal wells in barrels.

For every barrel of in-district waste disposed of, the state charges $0.05 per barrel; for every barrel of out-of-district waste injected, the state charges $0.20 per barrel, an application for the Ohio Department of Natural resources lists. A maximum number of barrels permitted to be delivered from a single well is 500,000 barrels. Portage County is home to 20 brine-injection wells and at least two injection disposal wells. Ohio currently has more than 290 brine-injection wells in operation or permitted, but there are currently zero wells of either kind located within city limits.

Class II Brine Injection Wells of Ohio 09152014

FracFocus, a national hydraulic fracking chemical registry organization, monitors the chemicals used by drillers in Ohio and acts to ensure that companies follow the mandatory state disclosure laws established by the ODNR. The state utilizes the Class II injection wells, which are used for holding fracking waste, storage of certain kinds of oil, as well as general drilling for crude oil or natural gas. Despite what the ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources has said about the safety precautions for injection wells required by law, however, local environmental rights groups fear that these chemicals could leak into the surrounding soil and water systems.

“Five percent of the wells being drilled develop cracks or shrinkage in the cement, or scale in the casings. And I sort of say, well, five percent. What does that mean? It doesn’t sound like its every well,” said Gwen Fischer, a founding member of Concerned Citizen Ohio, at a community fracking information session in September 2014. Fischer is a supporter of the Kent Environmental Rights Group, an advocacy organization that is behind a bill on the November ballot that would attempt to regulate the oil and gas industry in the city of Kent limits, including control of waste injection and fracking wells.

“I tried to look up a comparison: How about airline crashes?” Fischer said. “It turns out that if we had one percent of all domestic flights crash, we would have over 200 a day. Now would we think that was acceptable? I don’t think so. So, is 5 percent of these oil wells that are being drilled without any problem, or leakage that are potentially going into our aquifers?”

November decisions

Issue 21 on the November 2014 ballot, is also known as the community bill of rights. A proposed amendment to the city charter, the bill guarantees the rights to clean air and water, and freedom from toxic trespass. these rights would extend to the entirety of the city limits, which includes students living on Kent State University’s Kent campus.

KERG collaborated with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit law firm based near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which specializes in community-based environmental rights issues, to write the bill.

Oil and gas industries in Ohio are currently regulated under Ohio Senate Bill 315. Signed by Gov. Kasich in June 2012, SB 315 established that companies disclose the chemicals being used, designed regulated injection well structures, mandated that companies test water sources in proximity to the fracking wells, and issues permits for drilling and injecting. The law also allows for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to provide oversight for possible earthquake activity that could result from drilling, and gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to monitor watershed and aquifer purification standards.

If Issue 21, the proposed amendment to the city charter labeled as a community bill of rights, passes on Nov. 4, Kent city law director James Silver said that vehicles powered by gasoline would have to be banned. That includes cars, lawn mowers and the trucks used to transport the brine injection waste. Heating for homes would have to be shut off because it would pollute the air, a mandate of the clean air provision in the proposed amendment.

Written for the City of Kent but based on existing bills of rights in Mansfield, Youngstown, and Broadview Heights, the proposed amendment specifically targets the hydrocarbon industry, said Tish O’Dell, the CELDF Ohio community organizer. Georgia Foster, a member of KERG who was active in gathering the necessary petition signatures to place the proposed amendment before a vote from city council, said the bill is written exactly the way that Kent residents want to to be.

“The bill was also written broadly enough so that it could apply to other forms of chemical spills or environmental dangers that might occur in the future,” Foster said. “The group wants to be proactive and not reactive.”

Watering holes

According to the EPA and the Water Resource Division of the ODNR, water used to drill wells on the east side of the State of Ohio is drawn from the Portage Lakes System. The City of Kent draws its water from an aquifer which is part of the Cuyahoga River Watershed region.

”One of the things that concerns Kent citizens, and KERG in particular, is that Kent city and the university gets its water supply from wells that are drilled directly through and into the Plum Creek Reservoir. One of the current injection wells that currently accepts dump waste from fracking wells in Pennsylvania goes right through the Plum Creek aquifer, just south of I-76–the same place where we get our water from,” Foster said. “We’d like to enact this Bill of Rights before something bad happens. We’d like to be a little proactive about it, because it’s something that will protect us.”

Because these disposal wells are often drilled below the bedrock of aquifers, deep underground, the wells are encased in both steel pipe and cement. Both the ODNR and the EPA have enacted strict regulations for maintaining and operating waste water injection wells, including having a geological survey completed and secure piping and cement containment structures to be created at the site. Most injection wells have an emergency overflow area as well.

However, corporations can still drill wells wherever the potential for oil is, including within most city limits. Obtaining a permit for these wells is the same process for obtaining a permit for a well in a rural area. Issue 21, if voted into law, would circumvent that system, preventing any corporation or individual from obtaining a permit that would allow drilling within city limits. Despite the existing regulations in place, the proposed amendment would be, in Foster’s words, proactive in preventing any possible environmental problems from occurring.

The City of Kent waste water reclamation facility treats all water from the city sewage system at its facility near franklin Mills Riveredge Park.

Fischer said that not only does the city handle the water reclamation and, because the water is supplied through the aquifer, there are safeguards to cleanse all water of toxic chemicals before it is supplied to the city. Recalling a time when the facility would allow for tours, she said they would tell visitors that the water coming into the facility was 99 percent pure water, despite it being raw sewage.

“The brine waste water is also 99 percent pure water,” Fischer said. “But would you drink it?”