Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Where Are All the Fracking Brine Injection Sites In Ohio

Update 1/29/2018 - the map has been removed from the Internet.

The map I am going to link to at the end of this post, dated January 2012, shows all of the brine injection wells in Ohio, as of that date.

Forty-three of Ohio's eighty-eight counties host brine injection sites, with brine injected to different depths in different counties. Here, on this site, the counties are in alphabetical order for your convenience in finding your own county, or you can hit Ctrl+f and type the name of your county into the little search box that pops up, and it should take you right to it.

While the map is dated January 2012, it is possible it was only recently made available online, as I have done many, many, and very frequent Internet searches for this information and this is the first I have found anything.

The map is color-coded to show what level or depth the brine is injected to in the earth's crust. (Check the map's key for more details on that.)

Some of the dots are piled on top of one another, making it hard to see without zooming, but here is a basic rundown of how many injection wells can be found in each county. The counties with brine injection wells are highlighted to make it easier to spot them. The wells shown crossing county lines are not accurately represented here because I did not know which county gets to - or has to - claim each of those.

  1. Adams: None
  2. Allen: None
  3. Ashland: None
  4. Ashtabula: Twelve
  5. Athens: Seven (Three appear to overlap Vinton and Meigs county lines)
  6. Auglaize: One
  7. Belmont: Two
  8. Brown: None
  9. Butler: None
  10. Carroll: Four (two appear to overlap into Tuscarawas and Stark county lines)
  11. Champaign: None
  12. Clark: None
  13. Clermont: None
  14. Clinton: None
  15. Columbiana: Five (all of these are on the Stark and Mahoning county lines, making it hard to determine which county actually gets to claim them.
  16. Coshocton: Four (one is on the Knox county line)
  17. Crawford: None
  18. Cuyahoga: None
  19. Darke: None
  20. Defiance: None
  21. Delaware: One
  22. Erie: One
  23. Fairfield: None
  24. Fayette: None
  25. Franklin
  26. Fulton: One
  27. Gallia: Two
  28. Geauga: Four (two are on county line shared with Ashatabula County)
  29. Greene: None
  30. Guernsey: Three
  31. Hamilton: None
  32. Hancock: None
  33. Hardin: One (on county line shared with Marion and Wyandot)
  34. Harrison: None
  35. Henry: One
  36. Highland: None
  37. Hocking: Two
  38. Holmes: Five (one on Wayne county line)
  39. Huron: None
  40. Jackson: None
  41. Jefferson: One
  42. Knox: Five (one on Coshocton county line)
  43. Lake: Two (one on edge of Lake Erie)
  44. Lawrence: None
  45. Licking: Two
  46. Logan: None
  47. Lorain: One
  48. Lucas: None
  49. Madison: None
  50. Mahoning: Nine (six are on the Columbiana, Stark, and Trumbull county lines)
  51. Marion: None (But one is on county lines where Marion, Hardin, and Wyandot counties meet)
  52. Medina: One
  53. Meigs: Eleven (one is on the county line between Meigs, Athens, and Vinton)
  54. Mercer: None
  55. Miami: None
  56. Monroe: None
  57. Montgomery: None
  58. Morgan: Ten (two are on the border of Muskingum and Athens counties)
  59. Morrow: Thirteen
  60. Muskingum: Five (one is on the border of Morgan county)
  61. Noble: Four (two are together on the border of Washington county)
  62. Ottawa: None
  63. Paulding: None
  64. Perry: Three
  65. Pickaway: Seven
  66. Pike: None
  67. Portage: Eighteen (five are on the borders of Geauga and Trumbull Counties)
  68. Preble: None
  69. Putnam: None
  70. Richland: One
  71. Ross: None
  72. Sandusky: None
  73. Scioto: None
  74. Seneca: Two
  75. Shelby: None
  76. Stark: Seventeen (five are on the borders of Summit, Mahoning, and Carroll counties)
  77. Summit: One
  78. Trumbull: Nine (four are on the borders of Portage and Mahoning counties)
  79. Tuscarawas: Six (two are on the border of Carrol county.)
  80. Union: None
  81. Van Wert: None
  82. Vinton: Four (all on the border of Athens and Meigs counties)
  83. Warren: None
  84. Washington: Nine
  85. Wayne: Three (one on the border of Holmes)
  86. Williams: None
  87. Wood: One
  88. Wyandot: Two (one on the border of Hardin and Wyandot counties)
This is the link to the map: Class II Brine Injection Wells of Ohio


Posted by LJ at 6:01 PM 0 comments
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Sunday, March 25, 2012

What Is in the Brine Used by Road Crews?

What is that truck spraying on the road? Have you ever been driving down the road behind a truck spraying something and wondered about that? It's just brine, right? Well, it is brine, but it's not your grandmother's pickle-making brine.

Recent controversy over the dangers of fracking brine from natural gas drilling have raised questions about other types of commonly used brines. Oil field completions fluids, or brines, have been in use in the state of Ohio and several other states as road de-icer in winter and to keep dust down in summer since the mid 1980's. Oilfield drilling brine is used in completion operations and when the drill is penetrating the pay zone.

What Is Brine?

The innocuous term brine brings to mind the process for making crispy home-made pickles or a frothy salt-water ocean. Following that reasoning, the term roadway brine implies a relatively harmless salt-water bath, with the salt preventing roadway ice. While the oilfield drilling brine is sometimes salt-based, research shows it is not always the case. Two main classes of corrosive completion fluid, or brine exist; chloride brines and bromides/formates.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources document describing brine use on roadways, for one example, does not distinguish between the two classes of oilfield brine. Oilfield drilling brine is not considered as toxic as hydro-fracture gas drilling brine, but it is corrosive. While the ODNR document originally only mentions oilfield fluid use on roads, a recent ODNR document reveals natural gas brine is also used on roads now.

Contents of Completion Fluid Brine

While there are rules in place for Ohio's road crews to follow to prevent completion fluids from reaching the water supply, heavy precipitation carries the chemicals into drainage ditches that flow into larger water supplies. According to the Sclumberger company's website, an oilfield service provider specializing in well site operation as well as research and engineering facilities, the list of chemical used in oilfield completion brines (these are the less corrosive ones by the way) include:
  • Calcium bromide, which can cause skin irritation, eye irritation, respiratory system irritation, blistering, erythema, exfoliation, ulceration, necrosis, scarring, and mucous membrane irritation.
  • Calcium carbonate is the base material used in calcium antacids, such as Tums and Caltrate. No side effects are normally associated with calcium carbonate, but in unchecked dosages it can lead to rashes, hives, itching, difficulty breathing, tightness in the chest, plus swelling of the mouth, face, lips, and tongue.
  • Calcium chloride can be irritating to veins, can cause severe necrosis and sloughing, contains potentially toxic levels of aluminum, poses a danger of cardiac syncope, can cause fetal harm, diminished reproductive capacity, a tingling sensation, and can cause heat flashes.
  • Carboxymethyl is generally considered "not harmful" but washing eyes immediately with water is recommended in the event of contact. (This is hard to do if the water is the source of the contamination.)
  • Hydroethycellulose is a caustic soda, capable of causing eye and skin burns, respiratory tract burns, and mucous membrane burns. In its pure form, it becomes combustible and slippery when mixed with water. .
  • Cesium acetate is a formate brine that can affect the central nervous system if ingested. It can also cause asthma, respiratory disorders, skin disorders, and is skin irritation.
  • Guar gum is a laxative when consumed by humans, a thickening agent when used in food,  and a binding agent when used in pills and cosmetic creams. 
  • Hydroxypropyl starch is a colorless, odorless thickener derived from natural starch and is used as a stabilizer in brine.
  • Zinc is an essential mineral, commonly found in foods and nutritional supplements. While essential to good health, in excessive or uncontrolled doses, it cam cause physical distress and illness including: nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and headaches.
  • Bromide can also be called methyl bromide or alkyl bromide and is derived from bromide salts. Methyl bromide is toxic and is also used as a pesticide. The problems with it's use, according to the US EPA is, it depletes the stratospheric ozone layer and it targets not only the pest it is used for, but also any living thing coming into contact with the bromide. Methyl bromide exposure can cause central nervous system failure, respiratory system failure, as well as specific and severe deleterious actions on the lungs, eyes, and skin.
  • Iodine salts are commonly used as a nutritional supplement for cattle, but careful dosage requirements are provided on the package along with warnings to keep the product away from children. While iodine is essential to good health, excess iodine can cause inhibited thyroid hormone synthesis, increased TSH stimulation, goiter, thyroiditis, thyroid papillary cancer, burning of the mouth, burning of the throat, a burning sensation in the stomach, fever, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weak pulse, and coma.
Some of these chemicals are corrosive while others are used in everyday medicines, such as antacids. While many of these are commonly found in over-the-counter medicines and nutritional supplements, uncontrolled doses of these chemicals lead to numerous disorders that range from mild, flu-like symptoms to severe medical conditions such as cancer. 
Posted by LJ at 2:06 PM 4 comments
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Friday, March 23, 2012

The First Warning that Fracking Might Cause Earthquakes

It seems as if the idea of a link between earthquakes and hydro-fracture drilling is a new concept, brought on only after recent earthquakes in Ohio and out west. Actually, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a warning over thirty years ago (almost 40 years ago in fact)  that the hydro-fracture drilling method could cause earthquakes.

They Called it Right Before the First Well Was Ever Fracked!

Before the first hydro-fracture drilling test well was even drilled in 1975 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as part of an experiment for geothermal energy production, the GAO reported to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives that the process had the potential to cause earthquakes. (Check the end-note - it mentions the possibility of earlier fracking.)

Two Other Potential Issues the GAO Warned About in the March 6, 1975 Report

Two other issues brought up in the report that might reasonably be expected to come up as use of the process expands (Direct quote from the 1975 GAO document):

  1. "How  long  can  production  from  a  geopressured  zone  be sustained  without  decreases  in  temperature  and  pressure?" 
  2. "How  much  will  the  land  sink  if  large  quantities  of geopressured  fluids  are  removed?" 
Where to Read the Full 1975 GAO Document, if Interested


(Note: According to Wikipedia's Hydraulic_fracture page, which you can trust or not as you choose, the first frac job was done in 1947 in limestone deposits. The document linked above, however, does describe the 1975 drilling experiment as the first.)
Posted by LJ at 10:36 PM 0 comments
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Who Is Watching the Fracking Pipelines?

As if worrying about fracking brine dumping, hydro-fracture drilling risks and earthquakes from dumping the brine, now there is something new to consider and worry about: pipeline risks while transporting the fracked natural gas. 


According to the GAO and as covered by the Wall Street Journal article, Audit: Gas lines tied to fracking lack oversight, about 240,000 miles of gathering pipelines carrying gas and oil to processing plants and larger pipelines are largely unregulated. 


According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), only about 24,000 of the 200,000-240,000 miles of gathering pipelines (equaling about 10-12%) are regulated; and, "While incidents involving gathering pipelines regulated by PHMSA have resulted in millions of dollars in property damage in recent years, comparable statistics for federally unregulated gathering pipelines are unknown."  


Thousands of miles of these gathering pipelines were built in response to the need to transport fracked natural gas, and according to the WSJ article, officials in some states do not even know where the new pipelines are, making it impossible to monitor or regulate them for safety issues. 


More Reading About This from the GAO Documents
Posted by LJ at 8:53 PM 0 comments
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Fracking Industry Word-Play

Now that fracking brine injection has been determined as the source of a series of Ohio earthquakes, some pro-fracking writers and industry professionals have concluded that the true meaning of the results are: that fracking has nothing to do with earthquakes and the two are events, fracking and earthquakes are unrelated. (Sorry about that run-on sentence.)

So, a few points come immediately to mind (feel free to share your thoughts):
  1. If there was no fracking, there would be no brine to inject.
  2. The last I heard, the kind of high pressure (the amount of PSI) used to dump brine into disposal wells (causing earthquakes) is the same high pressure used to originally frack the wells in the first place; so, saying the dumping caused the eartquakes and not the drilling, is just word-play.
  3. The lack of earthquakes at drill sites so far has more to do with luck, if you can call it that, than it has to do with the difference between drilling and dumping. (Another run-on, sorry about that one, too.)
  4. Unrelated to brine injection, but having to do with roadway brine dumping in Ohio and other fracked states, according to one Forbes article, and I guess the EPA, "The U.S. EPA considers the deep injection of brine using Class II disposal wells as the preferred and environmentally safe method for disposal of oilfield fluid wastes."
  5. So, why is this toxic stuff dumped on Ohio and many other states' roadways if the EPA says it should be propelled deep into the earth (and that brings us back to the earthquake thing)?
  6. And, if brine causes earthquakes when injected deep into the earth, which is after all the preferred disposal method, isn't it time to find a way to do this safely - or at least stop doing it until they figure out a safe way instead of a way that is only safe if they throw in enough word-play?
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I'm not against fracking; I know people need jobs, desperately. I'm against companies putting people's lives and health at risk for the sake of a fast buck, or even millions of fast bucks.
Posted by LJ at 6:57 AM 0 comments
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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Surprised Ohio Governor Kasich Responds to His Own Party's Move to Remove Frack Tax from Budget

Governor Kasich appeared to be both surprised and disappointed by his own party's removal of his proposed budget fracking tax.

The proposed fracking tax would have filled the gap from (also proposed) across-the-board income tax cuts for Ohioans.

According to a Columbus Dispatch article, the tax would have accounted for about $500 million in the state's budget by the year 2016.
Posted by LJ at 7:54 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Frack Facts: Free Online Newspaper

Hi Everyone,

Tonight, I just want to point out the new link over on the right side of the page, to the free online newspaper about fracking, Frack Facts.

For your convenience, you can sign up to follow the newspaper to get regular updates sent to your email inbox.
Posted by LJ at 7:29 PM 0 comments
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