ATHENS COUNTY — “An oil and gas well on her property along state Route 144 has methodically pumped out a steady income for her family. Now, the lease, D.T. Atha, Inc., is asking the Oil and Gas Division of ODNR for a permit to convert the well to an injection well. Something Frost said she does not want.
‘It is my land, (pointing skyward) it’s God’s land and I am the steward of this land,’ said Frost.
Her attorney, Mike Hollingsworth, said Frost’s is terminated and he has served the leasee with a notice of termination of their tenancy and she has served them with a notice asking them to vacate the property. ‘The courts don’t allow us to block them off, so they are still here operating,’ Hollingsworth said.”
MEDINA — “The special legislation committee of Medina City Council will meet Dec. 4 to discuss and hear input on the issue of hydraulic fracking within city limits.
…Speakers for the event include: Michelle Aini, of Broadview Heights, who will be discussing the impact of horizontal hydraulic fracking and injection wells, along with the tax impact and mortgage issues resulting from the wells; Tish O’Dell, of Broadview Heights, who will discuss the legal issue of fracking; and Elisa Young, an activist from Meigs county in southern Ohio, who will also speak on injection walls and their impact.
Both O’Dell and Aini are members of Mothers Against Drilling In Our Neighborhoods. The Broadview Heights grassroots organization led a campaign resulting in voters earlier this month passing a charter amendment known as the Community Bill of Rights, preventing drilling within city limits. However, city officials have cautioned that the amendment may not be enforceable and could subject the city to litigation since the state regulates gas and oil drilling. House Bill 278, enacted in 2004, established the Ohio Department of Natural Resources as the sole authority for regulation of gas and oil wells.”
John Fenton, a local farmer, stands next to an Encana Corp. gas well near his home in Pavillion, Wyoming.
KARNES COUNTY, TX — “A year-old Texas law that requires drillers to disclose chemicals they pump underground during hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking,’ was powerless to compel transparency for EXP- F0173-11. The solvent and several other ingredients in the product are considered a trade secret by Superior Well Services, the Nabors subsidiary. That means they’re exempt from disclosure.
Drilling companies in Texas, the biggest oil-and-natural gas producing state, claimed similar exemptions about 19,000 times this year through August, according to their chemical- disclosure reports. Data from the documents were compiled by Pivot Upstream Group, a Houston-based firm that studies the energy industry, and analyzed by Bloomberg News. Nationwide, companies withheld one out of every five chemicals they used in fracking, a separate examination of a broader database shows.
Trade-secret exemptions block information on more than five ingredients for every well in Texas, undermining the statute’s purpose of informing people about chemicals that are hauled through their communities and injected thousands of feet beneath their homes and farms, said Lon Burnam, a Democratic state representative and a co-author of the law.”
— Ben Elgin, Benjamin Haas & Phil Kuntz, Bloomberg News
About 100 people asked to leave Athens ‘open house’ event
Protesters seeking a public hearing from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources gather outside last night’s open house in Athens.
ATHENS — “Inside the building, Richard J. Simmers, chief of ODNR’s Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, defended the open house approach as actually providing a much better opportunity than a traditional public hearing for citizens to get their questions answered. And, he pointed out, just as with a public hearing, ODNR will put all written comments it receives into the public record, and consider them in its permitting decision.
‘What we have done is allow people to ask questions, and we have two dozen people here who are qualified to answer them,’ Simmers said. ‘And the public hearing doesn’t lend itself to that. This allows much more contact, much more opportunity, and you still get to have people on the public record.’
Simmers dismissed the claim that his agency is a paid-for tool of the oil-and-gas industry.
‘Every one of these (agency) people lives right here in Ohio,’ he said. ‘They have the same concerns as the people who are outside. So to say these people have been bought out by the industry is just ridiculous. They are part of this community.’”
WASHINGTON, DC — “Exports of U.S. coal to Canada have declined in recent years as Canada has reduced its coal-fired electric generation.
U.S. coal exports to Canada totaled 3.2 million short tons and represented roughly 5% of the 66.2 million short tons of total U.S. coal exports during the first half of 2012, according to EIA’s Quarterly Coal Report. Further, coal exports to Canada as a share of U.S. total coal exports are expected to reach a record low later this year. The share of U.S. coal exports destined for Canada averaged 41% between 2002 and 2006. This percentage has declined annually since 2007, according to annual U.S. coal exports data.
The decline is largely the result of Canadian initiatives to reduce coal-fired electric generation. In an effort to reduce greenhouse gases, Canadian federal and provincial governments have announced policies to move away from coal-fired generation. Beginning July 1, 2015, the Canadian federal government plans to enforce a strict performance standard for all coal-fired units. The addition of the new regulations will likely encourage utilities to retire aged coal-fired generators and shift to lower- or non-emitting fuels (i.e., natural gas and renewable energy).”
FirstEnergy Corp. Anthony Alexander believes state energy efficiency mandates are too costly for customers and have interfered with normal market development.
CLEVELAND — “Ohio’s energy efficiency standards will remain intact — for now.
FirstEnergy Corp. has abandoned its behind-the-scene lobbying campaign to persuade lawmakers to gut a four-year-old law requiring utilities to help customers use less electricity by switching to energy efficient equipment and lighting.
At least a dozen energy efficiency advocates, environmentalists and other groups have been waging a public battle to stop FirstEnergy’s bid to change the law.”
AKRON — “What troubles Advanced Energy Economy Ohio and, earlier, the Ohio Manufacturers Association, is the timing of the FirstEnergy effort. They see the requirements largely working, producing savings and sparking innovation. They ask: Why rush to shift direction so substantially — without the benefit of legislative hearings or a full airing of concerns and virtues of the policy?
The manufacturers association looked at the call for altering the efficiency requirements and concluded advocates ‘will need to bring much more data and analysis to the table to demonstrate why’ the change should be made. It stressed that ‘a compelling body of evidence exists to support a continued statewide commitment to achieving the energy efficiency targets.’
What should not be compromised is a long-term and vigorous commitment by the state to energy efficiency. It is cost-effective. It is innovative and cleaner. It serves as a hedge against the volatility of energy prices, especially in the realm of natural gas. So, yes, continue the discussion about energy efficiency moving forward — after the lame ducks have limped away.”
CINCINNATI — On Monday, Cincinnati City Manager Milton Dohoney released his 2013 draft city budget.
Unlike previous years, plans to make up a revenue deficit do not include cuts to the Office of Environmental Quality. In fact, the budget lays out plans to semi-automate the city’s solid waste program which are designed to reduce worker’s compensation costs by nearly $1 million a year, further standardize the solid waste function, facilitate cleaner neighborhoods, expand efficiency, and promote higher levels of recycling.
Dohoney proposes to –
Reverse the decision to co-mingle yard waste with trash and offer biweekly curbside pickup from April to December.
Issue standard 95- or 64-gallon garbage carts and restrict set out beyond that limit, unless a special bulky item pick-up is scheduled.
Develop a plan to add side-loading vehicles to the Public Services fleet in the future, which would pave the way toward one day instituting volume-based trash fees.
Expand marketing efforts to achieve higher recycling rates.
Save money by reducing routes.
Franchise commercial waste collection.Comments from the public will be heard during two Budget and Finance Committee hearings:
Dec. 6, 2012 – 6 p.m.
City Hall Council Chambers
801 Plum St., Room 308
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Dec. 10, 2012 – 6 p.m.
Corryville Recreation Center
2823 Eden Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45219
The Cincinnati Green Group, an ad hoc environmental network sent out a call to, “Wear green, speak out and let our council know the environmental community supports these and other efforts to make our city cleaner, greener and smarter.”
– Melissa K. English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action
COLUMBUS — “A battle is emerging over state energy conservation standards that have saved Ohioans $1 billion on their electric bills since 2008.
Ohio’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard requires that Ohio investor-owned utilities cut a cumulative 22 percent of electric consumption through energy efficiency efforts by 2025. The standards were signed into law in 2008 by then Gov. Ted Strickland.
A legislative change proposed by FirstEnergy Corp. would freeze the efficiency levels at what has been achieved through 2012. The proposal has ignited opposition from energy efficiency businesses, a state environmental group and the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.
FirstEnergy spokesman Doug Colafella said the proposal has no sponsor yet and that the utility is only in discussions with legislators and consumer groups. No other state utilities have been mentioned as sponsoring potential changes to the law.”
Anthony Spano, Chair, Youngstown Parks and Recreation Commission
YOUNGSTOWN — “Residents supported the position of the Youngstown Park and Recreation Commission, which again made it clear the city has no intention to lease mineral rights of park land to oil and gas companies.
There will be ‘no drilling or fracking in our parks,’ commission Chairman Anthony Spano said Tuesday night.
Law Director Anthony Farris, representing Mayor Charles Sammarone, added that the mayor ‘has no intention of leasing land in city parks.’”
ATHENS — “Heather Cantino, a member of the Athens County Fracking Action Network, said nearly a hundred residents demanded a public hearing to voice their objections to the proposed D.T. Atha, Inc. disposal well in Rome Township.
An open house, she said, doesn’t give residents an opportunity to have their comments recorded on the record before the state grants a disposal-well permit.
‘It’s a charade,’ Cantino said of the meeting. ‘This outlines how hard they are trying to squelch democracy and free speech.’”
CLEVELAND – Melissa English, Development Director for Ohio Citizen Action has prepared a medical right-to-know factsheet for legislators considering the companion right to know bills in the Ohio legislature, S.B. 379 (Sen. Michael Skindell, Cleveland ) and H.B. 596 (Rep. Robert Hagan, Youngstown). It provides a simple Q&A on the key provisions about the new state law and the proposed revisions.
— Paul Ryder, Assistant Director, Ohio Citizen Action
The most recent map of drilling rigs in Ohio’s Utica Shale play. Triangles designate “oil” rigs at work; circles are “gas” rigs. Map courtesy of the Energy Information Administration, from Baker Hughes rig count data.
WASHINGTON, DC — “Investors are much more pleased to see a company reporting oil rig activity than gas, and that has tilted the labeling of the rigs in oil’s favor.
‘It’s pretty much irrelevant what the rig is designated,’ Larsen said. ‘Nobody is going after dry gas. Of course they’re going to call as many [of them] oil rigs at they can. I hate to say that. But it’s reality.’
…Ohio’s energy development story began in 1885 with oil, when deposits were found in the state’s northwestern corner. The Utica Shale is a different formation. It tilts from shallower depths in central Ohio to deeper ranges along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The geology on the state’s eastern fringe has the right combination of age, depth and pressure to produce wet gas. The less mature oil-bearing sections midstate may not have enough internal pressure to deliver oil effectively and profitably, industry experts say.”
Some landowners, groups worry that drilling for oil and gas will drain Ohio wells, reservoirs
CARROLLTON — “As much as 5 million gallons of water per well are needed to shatter the Utica shale and release the natural gas and oil trapped thousands of feet underground.
It’s a process that’s likely to be repeated in eastern Ohio thousands of times over the next few years, and Carroll County residents will have front-row seats.
The state has issued permits to drill as many as 161 wells in Carroll County. It’s the most-concentrated cluster of such wells on a growing list of permitted well sites that cover 21 counties. If every well is drilled in Carroll County, companies will use as much as 805 million gallons of water to free the oil and gas. Across Ohio, as many as 2,250 Utica wells could be drilled by the end of 2015, according to state estimates.”
TOLEDO — “As Ohio’s anticipated fracking boom emerges, state government must hold the oil and gas industry more accountable for the chemicals it uses in the exploration process. This is not a matter of impeding economic growth, job creation, or energy security, but rather of protecting public health and the environment.
A new report concludes that oil and gas extraction operations across the nation release nearly 130,000 tons of hazardous pollutants a year — more than any industrial sector other than power plants. Yet much of this pollution is not reported under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory, a public right-to-know program.
…Natural gas is so abundant globally that it could supply more energy than coal, nuclear power, and oil combined by 2020, the agency says. The new era of fracking offers Ohio a historic opportunity, but only if drilling and waste disposal are done right. That includes full and timely disclosure of the chemicals used.”
Letters supporting the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act
7,672 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and made personal phone calls urging state legislators to support the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act as of May 14, 2013.
989 neighbors have sent handwritten letters urging AEP to retire its Muskingum River coal plant as of July 15, 2011.
Duke Energy coal plants
Letters to Duke Energy
2,307 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and telewires urging Duke Energy to retire Miami Fort Unit 6 and Beckjord coal plants as of July 15, 2011.
Letters to Kokosing Asphalt
8,709 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Kokosing Asphalt to be a good neighbor as of February 25, 2011.
Rumpke Report
Letters to Rumpke
9,205 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Rumpke to be a good neighbor as of April 15, 2011.
Letters to Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Rob Portman
6,615 members have sent handwritten letters and petitions to Senator Brown urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
3,751 members have petitioned Senator Portman urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
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