Last fall, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources denied a request from the Athens County commissioners for a public hearing about injecting hydraulic fracturing waste in the area.
Nearly a year later, county officials are at it again.
After a presentation by members of the Athens County Fracking Action Network during the Athens County commissioners meeting Tuesday, the commissioners announced plans to request a public hearing about a pending permit application for a Class II injection well in Troy Township.
While K & H Partners could not be reached for comment, Parkersburg-based K & H Partners, LLC, is applying to drill its second injection well in Athens County, said Mark Bruce, a spokesman for ODNR.
K & H Partners could not be reached for comment.
Before the well can become the seventh of its kind in the county, Bruce said ODNR inspectors and geologists must thoroughly evaluate the application with on-site water evaluations, as well as assessment of the well’s structure and geologic surroundings.
But commissioner Lenny Eliason, a Democrat, said the measures are meaningless without public input, especially since a new injection well provides no direct financial benefit for the county government.
Residents have the right to know how or if the well could affect their water or land, Eliason said.
“We’re going to write a letter and send comments (to ODNR),” Eliason said. “We think it’s important that local people weigh in on injection wells.”
“(There are) questions that need to be answered.”
If Eliason said he would stop wells from coming into the county altogether until more research takes place to accurately determine the environmental effects of disposing of hydraulic fracturing waste.
“Some states want to take injection waste while others do not,” Eliason said. “Clearly, Ohio has made the business decision that they want to do that.”
The pending well will be capable of injecting up to 4,000 barrels of waste each day — or about 61 million gallons annually — Bruce said.
ACFAN member Andrea Reik said that total doubles the capacity of at least one other well in Athens County.
Reik said she’s worried injecting waste will harm local water supply. She said six private drinking water wells are within a half-mile of the pending well site.
“We are injecting these wells with toxic fracking waste (which contains) radioactive elements,” she said. “The amount of chemicals is just incredible and it’s being injected into the ground.”
Still, Bruce said much of the injection liquid is naturally-occurring production brine that’s been in the ground for “hundreds of millions of years.”
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@SamuelHHoward
