Dear Ashtabula Neighbors:
These questions may be a good basis for issues we can raise in our townships, villages and cities as the drilling rigs start rolling down our roads. Our neighbors in Geauga County provide the following questions for us to ask.
Gail Larson
Rock Creek
Please feel free to ask these questions of all industry reps and encourage
your elected officials to get all the answers to these questions.
To All Concerned Citizens,
Construction on the first Horizontal Hydro-Fracking site in Geauga County
has begun.
It is important for citizens to ask prior to EACH well site approval if
the following concerns have been addressed.
1) Basic protections offered by the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking
Water Act (and a number of other laws) do not apply to Oil and Gas
Drillers due to the “Halliburton Loophole” in the Energy Act of 2005. Do
we know our current state regulations offer adequate protections for our
health or for the protection of our natural resources? Where is the clear
concise list of regulations that the drillers must follow?
Who is making sure these drillers are doing what they are supposed to do?
Who has the manpower to actually do the monitoring?
2) The drill site will have about a 5 acre clear cut pad plus associated
roads. This is a huge area of impervious surface.
Who is checking for the impact on local surface water such as increases in
flooding and erosion? Does the local SWCD have the manpower to do this on
top of all they currently do?
What are the steps to remedy the problem if flooding and or erosion occur?
3) Each time a well is Fracked it requires massive amounts of water. On
the Newcolm Rd. site they estimate 6 million gallons per Frack, for 5
different bores. That is 30 MILLION GALLONS to Frack one site, once.
Where does all that water come from?
What are the remedies if lakes, streams or wells are depleted?
4) Added to all of that water are 4,000 to 7,000 gallons of chemicals. The
oil and gas industry does not have to tell us which chemicals they are
using. We have heard that at least 29 different chemicals used in the
process are toxic, many carcinogenic.
How can citizens be assured that carcinogens or other pollutants will not
show up in their well water – or local stream?
Who will pay for baseline tests to measure any changes in soils and water?
Who will pay for ON GOING tests to measure any changes in soils and water?
5) After the chemical laden water is pumped at high pressure into the
well – a large percentage comes back out to be trucked away.
What happens to the fluid that remains in the ground?
Where does it go?
How do we KNOW it won’t cause trouble in 5, 20 or 50 years?
Do they have means to track it?
6) The Fracking Fluid that comes back out is full of the original
chemicals PLUS other substances found in shale – some of them toxic, some
radioactive such as Radon.
How and where are they disposing of this hazardous material?
Are they monitoring the levels of contaminates?
How are they assuring that the holding tanks or open holding ponds do not
leak?
How do they assure that the holding ponds do not overflow in a heavy rain?
Do they need to placard the trucks to show that they are hauling toxic/
radioactive material?
Who makes that decision?
How is it monitored?
7) Toxic gasses and other pollutants are often known to be released as
water evaporates in holding ponds and holding tanks. How is evaporation
from the Frack water ponds monitored?
8) How do they know that in the within the horizontal foot print of a
possible 2 MILE radius that there are no faults, seams or old wells that
could cause methane or other substances to migrate?
9) Over the life of this site – there will be many thousands of truck
trips. How will the noise and pollution from the trucks be monitored?
How will Truck traffic affect the surrounding neighborhood?
How will normal traffic be maintained in times of peak truck traffic?
How will safety be maintained on the roads?
Who pays for increased manpower if it is needed to handle issues caused by
excess traffic?
What happens if the cost of road repair work exceeds the amount held in
escrow?
10) When the well is in production, other excess gasses often get released
to atmosphere or burned off – what are the monitoring measures?
What are the requirements of the driller to notify the public about
noxious fumes?
11) Will Pipelines and/or Transmission stations be used to move the final
product? If so, where will pipelines and transmission stations be located?
Will the public know this before construction starts?
What kind of clear cut is required along a pipe line?
How much noise is produced by a transmission station?
What gasses can be released at this point?
How are the gasses monitored along the pipeline? At the transmission
stations?
If the gasses cause foul odors, headaches, nausea etc… what recourse does
a home owner have? Is there a way to the track incidents of these
symptoms?
12) If the “highly unlikely” happens and gasses migrate into wells and
houses blow up, (which has happened right here in Geauga County) or people
get sick from toxins released into the air or water, or an earthquake
occurs because of subterranean disruptions, or a truck accident spills
gallons of toxic sludge into the river ….
How is the public notified?
Who pays ALL of the costs of the clean up?
Who pays medical bills of people harmed?
How do you assess damages to livestock?
How do you asses the damage to wildlife?
If Brine blowback or a spill pollutes a farm field – how are damages
assessed?
What happens if neighbors loose their wells and then can’t afford to move
because the properties can’t be sold?
13) We have heard from the Oil and Gas Industries that Fracking is NOT a
new process and that they have been Fracking vertical wells for many years
– implying that the technology is the same. THEN they say that there have
been no examples of problems with Horizontally Fracked wells and use ONLY
the numbers based on the new Horizontal technology – leaving out all
history of problems with vertical wells.
So, which is it?
Is it new technology with an unknown history?
Or is it a new application of an existing technology that has had some
history of failure in the past?
How can the industry reps keep claiming that they have a spotless safety
record when news reports from all over the US have described Blow backs,
wellhead failures, fires, and leaks – why don’t these incidents count?
14) What is the big hurry? The Shale is not going anywhere.
The Gas within the Shale evidently takes a lot of work to release - so it
is not going anywhere.
Natural Gas prices are low right now... so this is not market driven.
It looks as though the big boom is driven by the industry's fear that
regulation will increase.
ASK the companies -If your processes are safe - why do you fear regulation?
Is it that the industry knows that when the public sees the effect of this
drilling, home owners will no longer be willing to lease their land?
Unfortunately, then it could be too late.
It is only responsible for ALL of us to ask these questions prior to
drilling.
The entire community will pay the extended costs of this risky endeavor.
Kathy Flora
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