D&L Energy Appeals Commission's Ruling
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – D&L Energy Inc. has appealed to the Franklin County Common Pleas Court in Columbus to rule on the findings of the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission, which last month affirmed an earlier state order revoking the company's operating permits, according to court documents.
D&L attorneys filed the appeal Friday, court documents show.
In February, ODNR's oil and gas division chief revoked D&L's six operating permits after it was discovered that the company's president, Ben Lupo, ordered an employee of a related firm to illegally dump contaminated drilling waste into a storm drain on D&L's property.
The employee, Michael Guesman, was observed illegally discharging the waste on Jan. 31, 2013.
That contamination flowed into portions of the Mahoning River, ODNR said. Lupo and Guesman are charged with one count of violating the U.S. Clean Water Act., and Lupo has since resigned as the company's president.
D&L, now in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, appealed the order to the state's oil and gas commission, but the commission in June upheld ODNR's decision to revoke the permits.
In its findings, the commission said that repeated violations by Lupo, coupled with other lesser forms of misconduct, justified the oil and gas division's decision to revoke the permits. The commission found that the illegal disposal of oilfield waste at the site was "a repeated occurrence, if not a routine practice."
The commission determined that the "aggregate effect of these violations, when combined with the repeated dumping of oilfield waste on D&L property, shows an operator who cannot be trusted to act in compliance of Ohio law."
D&L had six permits to drill and develop injection wells in the region and was denied four new applications.
The commission queried: "was D&L's participation in the illegal dumping on Jan. 31, 2013 so egregious as to justify removing this company from the disposal business? And, the answer is, yes."
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.