SHALE PLAY
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
R e p o rt continued from page 1 Heidi Hetzel-Evans, a spokeswoman for Ohio Department of Natural Resources, countered that while she has not read the complete study, there are no current disposal concerns. “Ohio has adequate disposal space for both the instate and out-of-state wastewater we see coming in,” Hetzel-Evans said. Citing interstate commerce laws, she said Ohio cannot turn down out-of-state waste. Hetzel-Evans claims early indications from 2012 statistics show out-of-state wastewater numbers will remain static. “We have seen a small increase in our annual disposal figures, as expected, but we’re steady at about 55 percent of the waste coming from out of state.” Ohio currently has 179 injection wells for disposing brine wastewater, which can include salts, heavy metals, chemicals left over from fracking procedures and low-level radiation. Drilling has already been done at about 6,400 Marcellus shale wells in Pennsylvania, compared to just 200 so far in Ohio. Drilling in Pennsylvania generated approximately 20
million barrels of brine wastewater in 2011, with 7 million of those barrels ending up in Ohio injection wells. Jeffrey Dick, chairman and professor of the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Youngstown State University, last week said ultimately new methods of disposal or treatment will have to be found to get rid of the waste water known as brine. “It’s a small problem now. It’s going to become a much bigger problem,” Dick said during a public presentation last week in Youngstown. Dick pointed to the high increase in the amount of brine now being routinely disposed of in Ohio’s Class II injection wells. “You will reach a point where the bath tub becomes full. We will reach it, and that will become a real problem,” Dick said. “It’s going to come down to a water purification question, I am quite sure of that.” Meanwhile, HetzelEvans explained that the industry is in its exploratory phase in Ohio, making it difficult to know exactly
File Photo
A new report states that Ohio’s injection wells, such as the one shown here near Youngstown, soon may not be able to handle all the drilling waste being produced in the Tri-State region. what to expect. “It’s really difficult to look too far into the future. We are not able to speculate even on production, let alone disposal,” HetzelEvans said. She also pointed to safety improvements made in Ohio’s brine disposal process over the last
year, including increased and unannounced inspections of the wells and seismic monitoring. “Ohio has a scrutinized, effective program. Rules were strengthened this summer and we are satisfied that are using safety standards that protect the envi-
ronment,” Hetzel-Evans said. “Since ODNR has taken over primacy for injection wells, there have been no cases of ground well subsurface contamination. That goes back 30 years since we’ve been running the program.” However, Dick noted that
while the plentiful amounts of water in Ohio has been a benefit for drillers, it may also be leading to overuse. “We are blessed here in Ohio because we have lots of water, but the down side is there is not much incentive to recycling the water,” Dick said.
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