Drilling rules expand ‘fracking’ disclosures

By Spencer Hunt

The Columbus Dispatch Wednesday May 16, 2012 7:37 AM

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Oil and gas drillers would have to disclose more details about the chemicals they use in Utica shale wells under a bill that passed the Ohio Senate yesterday.

Even as lawmakers, drilling regulators and industry officials praised the plan as the toughest in the nation, environmental-advocacy groups said the bill would still allow companies to withhold information about “fracking” chemicals by calling them trade secrets.

“The concern should be what’s best for Ohio and Ohioans, not whether we are better than any other state,” said Trent Dougherty, an attorney with the Ohio Environmental Council.

Supporters said the bill, which passed 27-6, is praiseworthy because it requires companies to report what chemicals they use while drilling through rock layers that contain groundwater.

“That is the most likely to cause environmental damage or to affect someone’s water supply,” Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, said during debate. “We have done a great deal to require disclosure.”

The bill is the latest attempt to revise state oversight of the oil and gas industry in the midst of a shale-drilling boom.

Energy companies and geologists say the Utica shale holds a vast reservoir of oil and gas, one that could help create thousands of new jobs for Ohioans. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources officials estimate that 2,250 wells will be drilled through 2015.

However, environmental groups say that fracking poses a pollution threat to streams and drinking-water supplies. The process injects millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals below ground to fracture the shale and free trapped oil and gas.

While the bill would require drilling companies to identify where they would get the water needed to frack their wells, lawmakers removed or changed several restrictions that had been proposed by Natural Resources officials.

A proposal to increase state fees on fracking wastewater from other states that is shipped to Ohio disposal wells was removed. The fee would have increased from 20 cents to $1 per barrel.

Lawmakers removed a measure that would have required companies to identify trade-secret fracking chemicals to firefighters and “first responders” called to emergencies at drill sites.

The bill instead would provide that information to doctors who are treating people who might be sickened by a chemical. But the bill would bar doctors from sharing that information for any purpose “that is not related to the diagnosis or treatment of an individual.”

Natural Resources officials said they support the bill despite those changes.

“It is a significant step forward in terms of regulating new shale wells in Ohio,” said Carlo LoParo, an agency spokesman.

Some Democrats were critical of the bill before the vote. Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-Canfield, said the bill should have included measures that allow for public notice and comment before the state approves a drilling permit for a new well.