Anti-Fracking Activists Seek U.S. EPA Audit of ODNR
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Community activists across Ohio held simultaneous press events today requesting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conduct a "rigorous" and full audit of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' injection well program.
"We're putting these government agencies on notice," said Susie Beiersdorfer of FrackFree Mahoning Valley, a local group that opposes the oil and gas industry's practice of hydraulic fracturing and its the use of injection wells to dispose of contaminated waste from drilling.
Beiersdorfer is one of about 200 who have signed a letter written by Teresa Mills to U.S. EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman asking that the agency perform an audit that goes much further in depth than any previous investigation.
"We're asking for a full, thorough and thoughtful audit," Beiersdorfer said.
The group held a press conference at the B&O Station pavilion, while other groups held press events in Athens, Columbus and Ravenna.
She emphasized that past audits conducted by the EPA lacked an in-depth examination of the injection well program, which came under scrutiny more than a year ago after a series of earthquakes linked to an injection well in Youngstown struck the Mahoning Valley.
That well, owned by D&L Energy of Youngstown, was shut down, Beiersdorfer said, but it took at least 10 earthquakes before the ODNR acted.
Moreover, the company has a history of violations that date to the 1980s, Beiersdorfer noted, yet was allowed to continue in business.
ODNR finally revoked the company's permits just last month, after an employee of Hardrock Excavating, also owned by D&L owner Ben Lupo, was caught discharging wastewater into a storm drain that led to tributary of the Mahoning River.
Lupo and the employee, Michael Guesman, were indicted earlier this month with one count each of violating the U.S. Clean Water Act. Both pleaded not guilty to the charged.
Ohio was awarded primacy in 2003 to regulate the oil and gas industry within the state. "It's an earned role," Beiersdorfer added. "The state should be looked at once and awhile to make sure it's living up to the primacy obligations."
There are 179 permitted underground injection wells throughout the state, according to ODNR.
Beiersdorfer said the state has failed in its role as a responsible regulatory agency, while the EPA has simply rubber-stamped past audits without any real inquiry into the injection-well, or UIC, program.
"The audit conducted in 2009 was a direct cut-and-paste job from the 2005 audit," Beiersdorfer said.
The letter, dated March 14, requests that the audit proposed be "far more rigorous and meaningful than what your Region's UIC staff has been performing in Ohio."
Mills, who represents the Ohio field office for the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, said in the letter that the previous audits produced few criticisms about the department.
"These superficial audits heaped such excessive, uncritical praise on ODNR’s barely staffed program (less than four full time equivalents) that the audits appeared to have been written by ODNR itself rather than by independent professionals performing a serious oversight function," the letter said.
"We believe that the lack of effective oversight by Region V over ODNR’s UIC program demonstrated by these audits is a substantial contributing factor to ODNR’s inability to deter even the state’s most notorious operators or to garner even minimal public confidence."
Activists are also requesting a public hearing once the audit and investigation is finished so that citizens can voice their opinions on the findings.
"We need to be satisfied as to how this is being regulated," Beiersdorfer said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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