After the 4.0 earthquake that rocked the Valley on New Year's Eve, public interest and concern has continued to grow.
To help get the information out there on the earthquakes and injection wells, Youngstown City Council's Public Utilities Committee organized a public meeting at the Covelli Centre and hundreds were in attendance.
Youngstown 4th Ward Councilman Mike Ray, who chairs the public utilities committee, said he and Mayor Chuck Sammarone started talking about having the meeting a week before the 4.0-magnitude earthquake. He said that event gave the meeting a sense of urgency and they moved it up.
The meeting began with presentations from a panel of experts, including Tom Tomasik from ODNR, Youngstown State University geological and environmental science department chair Dr. Jeffery Dick, Bill Kinney from the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, the Ohio Environmental Council's Jack Shaner, and E. Mac Swinford and Lawrence Wickstrom from the ODNR's division of geological survey.
Tomasik said drilling started in Ohio in the 1860s and by the 1880s, Ohio was the world's leading oil producer. In 1895, 6,147 wells were drilled in Ohio. Between 1979 and 1982, there was an average of 5,100 wells drilled per year. By 2008, that number dropped to 1,087 and in 2010, Ohio had its lowest number of wells drilled with 431.
Tomasik said a natural gas boom in Morrow County in the 1960s led to drilling regulations being put in place in 1965, which is when the Ohio Revised Code created the Division of Oil and Gas under the ODNR. He said prior to 1965, no injection wells were used to dispose of drilling waste and it was instead put in evaporation pits, but most of it went into the groundwater, causing tremendous contamination.
He said that since 1983, evaporation pits no longer are used and injection wells are still the best practice for brine water disposal. In 1985, legislation was passed that required registration, licensing and regular testing for injection wells. Legislation passed on June 30, 2010 increased safety standards for the wells and established fees for injection disposal wells.
Swinford said the Ohio Seismic Network monitors 26 seismometers around the state and Ohio has one of the best seismic networks in the nation. He explained what causes earthquakes and how the westward shift of North America causes stress on the tectonic plates below the surface. He said when the stress points pop off, an earthquake occurs.
He said earthquakes occur all over Ohio and damage from the seismic activity varies place to place, depending on the area's geology.
Swinford said there are more than 250,000 oil and gas wells throughout the state, with 64,000 of them still producing in 66 of Ohio's 88 counties. He explained that 3 to 6 percent of the oil and gas produced has leaked out of shale "traps" below the earth's surface. He said that is where most of the oil and gas has come from for the past 150 years.
However, Swinford said advances in horizontal drilling has allowed tapping into shale formations themselves, allowing drillers to access 90 percent of the available oil and gas.
"This has been a huge paradigm shift because we no longer have to worry about limited resources," Swinford said.
He said to reach the shale formations, drillers drill vertically up to 7,000 feet and then drill horizontally. He said it is "very difficult for quakes to be induced by injection wells" because four conditions must exist for that to happen. One, there must be an existing fault. Second, the fault has to be in near failure state, meaning it is ready to "pop" from stress. Third, the well would have to be drilled close enough to the fault and have a conduit from the fault to the well. Fourth, there would have to be a lot of pressure exerted for the fluid to reach the surface.
Before Dr. Jeffrey Dick's presentation, State Rep. Bob Hagan said he has gotten no answers from anyone who he has sent letters to, including the governor and ODNR.
"Your answers are long-winded, but aren't really getting to the heart of what is causing these quakes," Hagan said.
The audience applauded.
Dr. Dick said known fault structures are responsible for the earthquakes, but drilling can trigger them if the right conditions exist.
"Until we get good seismic evidence, we can't say for certain if the well is causing the quakes," he said.
The presentations were followed by a question and answer session with the public. Anyone with a question was asked to write it on a notecard and questions would randomly be chosen and then answered by the panel and lawmakers.
"I want to know a lot more. I didn't know anything about the radioactive, the tauline, the benzine, and I want to know if I should maybe move further west," said Christina Foltz.
A brine injection well proposal for Hubbard Township brought Hubbard lawmakers to the meeting. After hearing the presentations, they are still against a well in their township.
"They have a lot to prove to us and again, the earthquakes, I think common sense does tell us are caused by this injection well," said Hubbard Mayor John Darko.
"It's sad that it took an earthquake to bring this into focus. As I reiterated earlier, we petitioned the governor back in November to stop the Hubbard well because of its proximity to Hubbard's water source," said Hubbard Township Trustee Fred Hanley.
State lawmakers say they are ready to take action.
"I'm in the process of putting together a bill and we will be dropping a co-sponsorship request hopefully next week," said State Sen. Capri Cafaro, D-Hubbard.
"After listening, I think that we should go after one, restrictions; two, inspections of the wells; three, further evaluation of where you are going to put a well before you put a well. Those things seem like common sense but I think we really have to concentrate on that. And four, different solutions on what we are goiong to do with this water," said State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-Canfield.
