Group seeks ounce of fracking prevention

While some have suggested that the much-feared "horizontal fracking" method of drilling for oil and natural gas is unlikely to heavily impact Athens County, some area citizens and activists who met Saturday suggested they'd rather be safe than sorry.

A "regional fracking strategy meeting," held in Ohio University's Morton Hall, attracted about 70 people, including Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl and City Council Member Kent Butler.

State Rep. Debbie Phillips, D-Athens, also put in an appearance, to provide an update on the legislative landscape affecting resource extraction in the state.

Organizer Badger Johnson opened up the meeting by asking if anyone in the room knew someone who had been approached by an oil-and-gas company about possibly leasing rights to drill on their land; five people raised their hands.

Vanessa Pesac is a member of the Network for Oil & Gas Accountability & Protection (NEOGAP), and advocacy group formed about three years ago in Lake County, Ohio, to address drilling issues in that part of the state, but has since broadened its focus.

Pesac told the group that there is "a great movement growing up across the state" to take steps to guard against the dangers of fracking before it happens. This is important for the state, she said, because geological evidence seems to suggest that there may be a great deal of oil trapped in shale beds under Ohio, which improved fracking methods can extract profitably.

"It looks as though there's going to be a lot of oil in Ohio," Pesac said.

Fracking has become a hot environmental topic in recent years, as the oil-and-gas industry has started to go after oil and natural gas in two shale beds, the Marcellus and the Utica, that underlie Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland.

A boom in drilling started in the first three states in 2008, and is beginning to spread into eastern Ohio, with landowners there being offered big money for drilling rights, though little leasing activity has been reported in Athens County as yet. The Marcellus shale doesn't apparently come as far west as Athens County, but the deeper Utica does.

The boom is based largely on the horizontal fracturing ("fracking") technique, in which a company drills down vertically till it hits a promising shale bed, then drills horizontally into the shale. The drillers then inject pressurized liquid (which may contain toxic chemicals) into the shale to force the oil and/or natural gas to the surface.

Concerns about fracking include worries that the toxic liquid may end up contaminating water supplies; this isn't likely to happen underground, as the shale beds are so deep, but some of the liquid must be disposed of after drilling.

Pesac said one of her main concerns is with the "quick, quick pace" of the fracking boom. The technology of horizontal fracking is relatively new, she said, and more safeguards need to be in place to make sure it doesn't have a destructive effect on local communities.

"We're just trying to slow this down," she suggested.

Among the dangers associated with fracking, she said, is possible release of explosive gas such as methane. A house in Bainbridge, Ohio, actually blew up in 2007 because of this, she alleged.

Industry figures, such as Thomas E. Stewart, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, have noted that fracking, at least in its vertical form, has been used in Ohio for decades. Stewart has told The NEWS that there's no known instance of water supplies in the state being polluted by fracking.

No meeting on fracking would be complete, of course, without reference to the documentary film "Gasland," which is one of the biggest drivers of the current concern over fracking's impacts. Organizers at Saturday's meeting, however, said that activists should definitely move beyond just screening the film in their communities.

Elisa Young, an activist from Meigs County, advised the group that before they can organize against fracking, they have to "educate yourself about your community pay attention to the politics of the culture."

Though supporters of the drilling boom will say it creates jobs, Young alleged, they may not be many, and they may not go mainly to local people.

"Few jobs are created by fracking," she claimed. "This is all about migrant work."

Young said that some discussion of the fracking issue so far has centered on educating landowners so they can get the best price for their drilling rights, and get a lease that protects their land. She said, however, that at this point, she thinks the best strategy is simply not to take any deal.

"I would encourage people not to sign a lease at all," she advised. "It's not going to be that profitable for you."