Though hydraulic fracturing has yet to make its debut in Athens County, a group of almost 50 people attended a meeting to learn about another potential threat that has already reached the area.
Athens County residents, Ohio University students, and local political leaders gathered in Seigfred Hall Wednesday to hear about injection wells and the disposal of toxic waste from fracking.
The meeting was sponsored by the Athens County Fracking Action Network and the OU Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics.
Frequent questions interrupted the speakers’ presentations on the status, issues and risks of injection wells in Athens County.
Natalie Kruse, an assistant professor of environmental studies, presented on water contamination and the risks from seismic activity — what she called the two biggest environmental issues of injection wells.
“Not all brines are created equal. What the existing wells have been permitted for are for waste from vertical wells, which have much lower volumes injected,” Kruse said. “With horizontal wells, two to 10 million gallons (of brine) are injected at a time.”
Transporting the brine between the fracking and injection sites also poses problems, Kruse said.
“(Brine) truck crashes and spills occur a lot. It’s actually a pretty big potential problem,” Kruse said. “A heavily loaded water truck is not particularly stable.”
Elisa Young, founder of Meigs Citizen Action Now, added that the waste being injected into Ohio land has never been tested and that there are no monitors on the injection wells.
“We’re being affected by fracking waste when fracking isn’t even going on here yet,” Young said.
According to an informational sheet distributed at the meeting, at least one of the four injection wells in Athens County is accepting 16 to 18 truckloads of toxic fracking waste per day from several states.
Young added that, historically, these injection wells have not been completely safe and do not have regular testing of their mechanisms done to ensure they won’t leak.
“There are long histories of violations at these wells and nobody knows about it,” Young said. “If you dump 52,000 barrels in six weeks into a well that’s got a history of leaks and you haven’t done a mechanical integrity test in years, I have a problem with that.”
Teresa Mills, Ohio organizer for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, spoke about the current regulations on injection wells and said that the oil and gas industry is the only industry exempt from reporting what and how many chemicals are being stored on site.
“If everything they are doing was safe, they wouldn’t need exemptions from our environmental laws,” Mills said.
Athens resident and Vinton County landowner, Susan Calhoun, said being informed about this “huge” issue is important.
“It’s dangerous, scary, and overwhelming,” Calhoun said. “I’m thrilled that we have folks that are volunteering to sort this issue out.”
ls114509@ohiou.edu
