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Patriot, Warren Charge State Officials with Disinformation
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Patriot Water Systems LLC and the city of Warren accused state officials Tuesday of interfering with its business by telling Patriot's customers it would cease operations by yesterday and by describing as "dangerous" waters related to Patriot discharged from Warren's wastewater treatment plant.
Patriot, a Warren company that extracts solids from low-salinity brine water used in the hydraulic fracturing process, and the city are in a continuing legal fight with state regulators over Warren's ability to accept wastewater from Patriot. Warren's permit, which has not been renewed by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, expired Tuesday. However, since a new permit has not been issued, Warren can continue to accept waste under the terms of the old permit as Patriot and the city seek higher limits on total dissolved solids than would be allowed under the proposed permit renewal.
Warren and Patriot Water Treatment have requested an adjudicatory hearing with the state EPA to reconsider, and a pre-hearing conference has been scheduled for Feb. 14, Patriot and the city said in a news release issued Monday.
However, April Bott, an attorney representing Patriot and the city, in a letter to the state EPA and Department of Natural Resources yesterday said state officials are spreading disinformation about Patriot and the city. According to the letter, two of Patriot's customers were told by ODNR employees that Patriot would be shut down by the end of January and advised them to send their low-salinity water to injection wells instead.
Mike Settles, EPA spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that until Ohio issues a renewal permit, Warren continues to operate under the expired permit and its terms.
The letter also accuses ODNR and OEPA employees of making statements to the media that "as recently as this week" that discharges to the Mahoning River related to Patriot though Warren's treatment plant may be "dangerous."
"If such activity persists, Patriot and Warren will be forced to immediately invoke all available legal methods to protect their business interests from damage caused by your clients," Bott wrote to ODNR's and OEPA's attorneys.
ODNR spokesman Carlo LoParo said department employees "would not say that." He also said he checked Tuesday with the department's oil and gas division regarding whether someone there was making the statements to Patriot's customers and was told "that was not the case."
In a phone interview Tuesday evening, Andrew Blocksom, Patriot's president, identified ODNR's Tom Tomastik as the individual who informed Patriot's customers that the company would cease operations Tuesday. Tomastik "is in charge of their injection well program for the state," he said.
Patriot and the city also have records from "sworn testimony" that documents Tomastik's concerns about the injection of "light" water into injection wells because of increased pressures and bacteria.
Vince Bevacqua, a Patriot spokesman, forwarded a link to a story on WKSU's website that stated both Ohio EPA and DNR say "discharging the brine into rivers, even after treatment, can be dangerous."
LoParo said the concern was over the "cumulative effect" of the salt water and chemicals from the fracking process -- which he referred to as carcinogens -- from the water Patriot sends to Warren and is subsequently discharged from its treatment plant into the Mahoning River. "The salt water in the wastewater with the carcinogens have a negative cumulative effect on the river, on its plant life and on its animal life," he said.
"I'm not talking about immediate impact but a cumulative impact," he added. He pointed to negative impacts that have been experienced in New York and Pennsylvania.
Blocksom countered that the water Patriot accepts is "very light water" that he says is "distinguished as flow back," as opposed to water that has been injected into a well. Patriot and Warren also have "multiple records requests" asking for any scientific data the state has regarding its water and hasn’t done so, Blocksom said. At a public hearing on Warren's permit renewal the state distributed a flyer indicating it had a water quality study done for 2010-2011, but when asked to produce the study officials said it didn't exist, Blocksom said.
"We're curious as to what data they have that they illegally withheld from us," Blocksom said. Patriot has data from weekly testing it has done on the watershed, he added.
The spokesman also said ODNR encourages companies like Patriot to continue to develop their technology to serve as a recycler of brine water to send it back for reuse.
First and foremost, Blocksom said, Patriot encourages recycling whenever possible, but the reason a customer sends the water to Patriot is the customer can't reuse it. "We're taking water that is clean enough to be reused in the environment, clean it up and send it to Warren, no different than any other industry water," he said.