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CLEVELAND — What happened to the Ohio shale boom? Oil and gas companies have given different answers every few months.
1. It’s a Marcellus shale boom. No, wait, it’s a Utica shale boom.
At first, the Ohio shale boom was all about the Marcellus shale, not the Utica. For example, in October 2010, Chris Perry and Larry Wickstrom of the Ohio Geological Survey gave a presentation on Ohio’s shale prospects, called, “The Marcellus Shale Play: Geology, History, and Oil & Gas Potential in Ohio.” The State geologists saw a big future in the Ohio Marcellus formation:
“. . . due to large production increases, a play such as the Marcellus is reshaping our natural gas distribution networks and the way we ultimately may use natural gas.”
Perry and Wickstrom barely noticed the Utica shale.
Before long, everything was reversed and no one mentioned Marcellus shale. Why?
Because nothing was happening in the Marcellus. There are currently only six producing wells in Ohio Marcellus shale, only one of which is a Chesapeake Energy well.
As a sign of how thoroughly the Marcellus vanished, in its report on 2011 natural gas production the Ohio Department of Natural Resources included figures for Utica wells, but didn’t even bother to report on the Marcellus wells.
“No more than a year ago, expectations of shale development in Ohio focused largely on the Marcellus. However, it became clear in 2011 that Marcellus-related drilling is unlikely to happen very far west of the state’s borders with Pennsylvania and West Virginia.”
— “An Analysis of the Economic Potential for Shale Formations in Ohio,” February 29, 2012, study funded by the Shale Coalition, and conducted by Cleveland State University, Ohio State University, and Marietta College.
Meanwhile, the Utica Shale bandwagon started rolling. On July 29, 2011, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon said, “The Utica should emerge as a key driver in the future growth of U.S. energy supplies.” Continue reading Shale boom? What happened?
 Gov. John Kasich YOUNGSTOWN — “Gov. John Kasich, on a visit to the Mahoning Valley today, balked at a proposed charter amendment to ban fracking in Youngstown.
As voters at polling stations across the city cast their vote on the matter, which has been a contentious one among the activists that are pushing for the ban and the businesses afraid that it will turn the oil and gas industry away from Youngstown, Kasich said he hadn’t worried much about the effort or similar proposals across the state.
‘We haven’t seen many efforts like this. People of the state of Ohio overwhelmingly support [the industry],’ Kasich said. ‘It’s an industry that’s been around for 40 or 50 years and there’s just some scattered opposition.’
‘This is a state that is openly embracing this,’ Kasich added. ‘We’ll see what the people of the city do, you know, but I don’t spend any time worrying about this because at the end of the day there’s massive support for the development of oil and gas in the state of Ohio and the jobs that are connected to it — that’s what matters most.’”
— The Vindicator
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 A brine injection well owned by Northstar Disposal Services is seen in Youngstown. YOUNGSTOWN — “Youngstown voters rejected a proposal Tuesday that would have banned hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — within city limits.
The amendment — called a Community Bill of Rights — was defeated by a margin of 14 percent, with 57 percent voting against and 43 percent for.
‘We feel like it’s a sad day for democracy,’ said Susie Beiersdorfer of Frackfree Mahoning Valley, an activist group that spearheaded the effort to get it on the ballot. ‘We put a lot of effort into it, got more than 4,000 signatures. We still believe that a lot of people in this city don’t believe in fracking.’”
— Rachel Morgan, shalereporter.com
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 Robert U. Ayres NEW YORK, NY — “No one is questioning the fact that we have either reached or will soon reach ‘peak oil’; that existing fields are being depleted at the rapid rate of 7 percent a year, and that the search is on for ‘unconventional oil’ as alternative forms of energy are slow to reach critical mass.
There are many kinds of ‘unconventional oil’ – meaning hydrocarbons that are not found in fluid form, but that can be ‘fluidised’ in a straightforward way (unlike coal, for instance). These resources include Venezuelan heavy oil and Canadian tar sands.
But the big change in the last two decades is shale gas and ‘tight oil’ – a liquid, trapped in shale (rock), where it doesn’t flow naturally but can be extracted by horizontal drilling and ‘fracking’. Fracking uses high-pressure water to fracture the shale and then chemicals that reduce the viscosity of the oil trapped in the interstices of the rock and allow it to flow.”
— Robert U. Ayres, Proffesor of Economics and Political Science and Technology Management INSEAD
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CLEVELAND, OH — “There is an ironic juxtaposition at play in Ohio concerning the fundamental right of property owners to control the use of their land.
Ohio land owners, as a group, are of two minds about this right, at least when it comes to land atop shale oil and gas. Many property owners believe they should have the right to use their land as they please — that is, to lease drilling rights to potential shale oil and gas developers, or to have their land included in a drilling unit. After all, it’s their land. They should have the right to make that decision.
But what if they want to exercise their right to control the use of their land in a different way? What if the landowner wants his land not to be used for shale oil and gas development? Would a landowner have the right to make that decision as well?
Actually, not necessarily.”
— Heidi Gorovitz-Robertson, Crain’s Cleveland Business
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HARRISBURG, PA — “More than 70 years ago, a chemical attack was launched against Washington State and Nevada. It poisoned people, animals, everything that grew, breathed air, and drank water. The Marshall Islands were also struck. This formerly pristine Pacific atoll was branded ‘the most contaminated place in the world.’ As their cancers developed, the victims of atomic testing and nuclear weapons development got a name: downwinders. What marked their tragedy was the darkness in which they were kept about what was being done to them. Proof of harm fell to them, not to the U.S. government agencies responsible.
Now, a new generation of downwinders is getting sick as an emerging industry pushes the next wonder technology — in this case, high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Whether they live in Texas, Colorado, or Pennsylvania, their symptoms are the same: rashes, nosebleeds, severe headaches, difficulty breathing, joint pain, intestinal illnesses, memory loss, and more. ‘In my opinion,’ says Yuri Gorby of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, ‘what we see unfolding is a serious health crisis, one that is just beginning.’”
— Ellen Cantarow, TomDispatch
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ALBANY, NY — “A mid-level appeals court on Thursday said local governments in New York can ban hydraulic fracturing and shale-gas drilling within their borders, delivering a major blow to the natural-gas industry and landowners who had sought to have the bans overturned.
The state Appellate Division ruled unanimously in favor of the Tompkins County town of Dryden and the Otsego County town of Middlefield, both of which passed zoning laws that prohibit natural-gas drilling. The rulings upheld decisions last year from a lower court.”
— Jon Campbell, Albany Bureau
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full text of Dryden decision
WCMH: News, Weather, and Sports for Columbus, Ohio
MORROW COUNTY — “Two state lawmakers are proposing a ban on Ohio’s oil and natural gas injection wells until safety and health concerns are satisfied.
The Center for Health, Environment & Justice said that in 2012, Ohio accepted nearly 14 million barrels of oil and natural gas drilling waste.
Nearly 40 local community and environmental groups signed on to back the proposed ban.”
— Rick Reitzel, nbc4i.com
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— Russ Zimmer, CentralOhio.com
 D&L injection well site. YOUNGSTOWN — “D&L Energy Inc. and its affiliate, Petroflow Inc., filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, citing ‘extensively intertwined … business dealings, accounts and finances’ of its officers and business entities, the mounting burden of cleanup and litigation costs, and accusing its former CEO, Ben Lupo, of ‘improperly divert[ing]‘ company funds to other businesses he operates.
By seeking court protection from its creditors, the embattled companies also jeopardized the financial stability of four local businesses that may never be paid more than $2 million owed for cleaning up the brine water and oilfield waste that D&L illegally dumped into a tributary of the Mahoning River.”
— The Business Journal
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NEW YORK, NY — “Efforts by lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to better police the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking,’ have been thwarted for the past 25 years, according to an exposé in the New York Times. Studies by scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on fracking have been repeatedly narrowed in scope by superiors, and important findings have been removed under pressure from the industry. The news comes as the EPA is conducting a broad study of the risks of natural gas drilling with preliminary results scheduled to be delivered next year. Joining us is Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, a firm that tracks environmental spills and releases across the country, based in Ithaca, New York, where fracking is currently taking place.”
— Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!
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 The leases Chesapeake Energy wants to sell are in Stark and Portage counties. OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — “Chesapeake Energy Corp. is trying to sell some of its drilling leases in Stark and Portage counties where the shale 6,000 feet below the surface has been said to be rich in oil.
The Oklahoma City company has listed for sale its drilling rights to more than 94,000 acres in the two counties, including three completed wells, two of which are producing. The company has the lease rights to about 1.3 million acres in Ohio.”
— John Funk, The Plain Dealer
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 A worker stands on top of a storage bin on July 27, 2011, at a drilling operation in Claysville, Pa. The dust is from powder mixed with water for hydraulic fracturing. WASHINGTON D.C. — “When workplace safety expert Eric Esswein got a chance to see fracking in action not too long ago, what he noticed was all the dust.
It was coming off big machines used to haul around huge loads of sand. The sand is a critical part of the hydraulic fracturing method of oil and gas extraction. After workers drill down into rock, they create fractures in that rock by pumping in a mixture of water, chemicals and sand. The sand keeps the cracks propped open so that oil and gas are released.
But sand is basically silica — and breathing in silica is one of the oldest known workplace dangers. Inside the lungs, exposure to the tiny particles has been shown to sometimes lead to serious diseases like silicosis and cancer.
Traditionally, silica exposure has been associated with jobs like mining, manufacturing and construction. But, as Esswein, a researcher with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and other safety experts have started to realize, some workers in the newly burgeoning fracking industry may be at risk, too, because of their exposure to silica dust.”
— Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR
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 A Chesapeake Energy drilling rig rises about 130 feet above a noisy drilling pad that spans five acres in Carroll County OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — “Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Ohio shale wells are producing just a fraction of what they could because the company is waiting for the completion of special plants to process the gases and oils.
In a conference call with analysts Monday, Chief Operating Officer Steven Dixon, acting CEO, said the company has drilled 240 wells in Ohio’s Utica shale but is selling gas and oil from only 54 wells.
The company’s board of directors named Dixon acting CEO Friday. He replaces Aubrey McClendon, the flamboyant founder of the company who was forced out by shareholders.”
— John Funk, The Plain Dealer
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 Donna Carver speaks to the Morrow County Emergency Management Agency MORROW COUNTY — “The Local Emergency Planning Commission got a lesson in a potential hazard to emergency responders when Donna Carver, of Protecting Our Water and Environmental Resources (Morrow County POWER), addressed the group at their March 14 meeting.
Carver, a 30-year Morrow County resident and LPN, has been researching medical and health related issues in Ohio since 1998. In recent years she became interested in hydraulic fracturing and injection wells and the possible health risks to emergency personnel and citizens alike. The issue Carver raises concerns the disposal of brine and waste from horizontal fracking and the right of the public to know what is being transported through and stored in their county.
Carver acknowleged though there are not currently horizontal fracking wells in Morrow County, ‘we do have the flowback waste from other wells, which is so toxic it has to be injected into the ground into injection wells. Trucks carrying this waste travel through the county,’ she said.
The issue of the transport of waste and the public’s right to know what is being moved through the county is POWER’s top concern.”
— Randa Wagner, The Morrow County Sentinel
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 The quake’s cause was hotly debated from the day that it struck Oklahoma PRAGUE, OK — “Scientists have linked the underground injection of oil-drilling wastewater to a magnitude-5.7 earthquake in 2011 that struck the US state of Oklahoma.
Wastewater injection from drilling operations has been linked to seismic events in the past, but these have typically been much smaller quakes.
They also have tended to occur in the first weeks or months of injection.
The study in Geology suggests that “induced seismicity” can occur years after wastewater injection begins.
…The new study adds to an increasing body of evidence that the injection of wastewater is correlated to an increase in seismic events.”
— Jason Palmer, BBC News
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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.
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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.
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