With the potential advent of horizontal fracturing in Athens County, the Strategic Advisory Committee on Hydraulic Fracturing has been working diligently through the summer on a set of protective guidelines for any prospective oil and gas companies.
Although not legally binding, the “Best Management Practices” would be more regulatory than Senate Bill 315 in regards to minimizing the environmental impact of horizontal drilling.
“We’ve seen more test wells being drilled, which makes us think (this area) might be worthwhile for oil and gas companies,” committee chair, Al Blazevicius, said.
He added that the companies drilling the test wells are not revealing much information about their findings.
Athens County has been under speculation for a while in regards to its natural gas productivity, which now seems to be more likely.
The companies trying to get people to lease their land have been assuring prospective lessors that they would comply with additional restrictions from the county, Blazevicius said.
The committee can’t force companies to follow the “Best Management Practices”, but hopes that they will do it voluntarily.
At the start of the summer, the committee submitted recommendations for SB 315, which changes portions of the Ohio Revised Code relating to oil and gas drilling, to the county commissioners, which were then forwarded to the Ohio General Assembly.
Late last May, SB 315 was passed, leaving out some of the more protective measures recommended by the committee, including full chemical disclosure of waste substances going into injection wells and banning the use of open pits for produced brine and waste storage.
The committee has also ordered videotaping equipment to record road conditions around the county. Blazevicius says they need to have evidence of the existing conditions of the roads to be able to prove that the increased traffic from drilling operations caused any damage.
“The very first roads we will videotape will be the roads the oil and gas company trucks take to the injection well sites,” Blazevicius said.
The committee has also asked Athens County Prosecutor, Keller Blackburn, to produce a local injection well tax proposal that would help the area benefit economically from the industry. Blackburn has not yet written the proposal, but the committee plans on seeing it at their next meeting Sept. 5.
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