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Shipping TOXIC Radioactive Fracking Waste on OHIO River is APPROVED
Ohio is already the toxic dumping ground for fracking waste coming in from PA & WV, and now we'll be getting it from TX & LA too.
Why did our Rethug Governor allow Ohio to be the nation's dumping ground???? Why is our Democratic DC administration allowing it, along with endangering the Ohio River, an already fragile ecosystem & drinking water source for 3 million Americans???
I hate the greed that's running (ruining) our country atm!!!!!!!!!!!!
GreenHunter's Ohio River barge plan wins Coast Guard approval
2/2/15
A $3 million plan by a Texas-based company to ship liquid drilling wastes via barges on the Ohio River is gaining steam.
GreenHunter Resources Inc. said its proposal was quietly approved in the fourth quarter 2014 by the U.S. Coast Guard.
No announcement was made at the time of the federal approval.
A new barge terminal at Portland in Meigs County in southern Ohio will be completed in the next six to nine months to handle the new barge shipments, company officials said.
When complete, the so-called Mills Hunter Facility complex will double the facility’s injection capacity for the drilling liquids from the Utica and Marcellus shales in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The capacity will jump from 14,500 barrels per day to about 30,000 42-gallon barrels per day, company officials said.
Based on those numbers, Mills Hunter would handle and inject about 7.8 million barrels of waste per year. It would be the No. 1 injection site in Ohio by far. That total would represent about 50 percent of the injection volume handled annually in Ohio by its 201 injection wells.
The Mills Hunter site currently has two injection wells and four additional injection wells should be operating by March 31. The barge terminal will be completed later, perhaps in six to nine months, the company said.
The Mills Hunter Facility is open and is currently taking drilling wastes by truck.
The company also intends to spend an additional $2.5 million to $3 million to expand or to develop new waste shipping terminals at New Matamoras in Ohio’s Washington County and Wheeling, W. Va. The facility at Wheeling will cost $1.5 million.
The company’s barge proposal drew more than 60,000 comments with critics worried about the threat that such shipments posed to the Ohio River that is used for drinking water by local communities.
The liquid wastes will be moved from barges on the Ohio River to injection wells for disposal at the Mills Hunter Facility at Portland. The waste is moved by trucks from well sites to the barges.
The new facility will provide GreenHunter with "a huge shot in the arm," said CEO Gary Evans in a teleconference last week.
He called the Coast Guard approval for barge shipments to be "a significant win" for the company and its clients.
GreenHunter remains very optimistic about growth in the Utica and Marcellus shales, despite slowdowns by some drillers due to low prices paid for oil and natural gas.
"It changes the face of the company," said chief operating officer Kirk Trosclair.
Hauling such wastes by barge will reduce transportation costs and truck volumes, he said.
"Our ability to transport disposal volumes via barge will significantly reduce our costs, improve our margins and allow us to pass along savings to our clients," Trosclair said in a company statement....
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/greenhunter-s-ohio-river-barge-plan-wins-coast-guard-approval-1.563615
2/2/15
A $3 million plan by a Texas-based company to ship liquid drilling wastes via barges on the Ohio River is gaining steam.
GreenHunter Resources Inc. said its proposal was quietly approved in the fourth quarter 2014 by the U.S. Coast Guard.
No announcement was made at the time of the federal approval.
A new barge terminal at Portland in Meigs County in southern Ohio will be completed in the next six to nine months to handle the new barge shipments, company officials said.
When complete, the so-called Mills Hunter Facility complex will double the facility’s injection capacity for the drilling liquids from the Utica and Marcellus shales in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The capacity will jump from 14,500 barrels per day to about 30,000 42-gallon barrels per day, company officials said.
Based on those numbers, Mills Hunter would handle and inject about 7.8 million barrels of waste per year. It would be the No. 1 injection site in Ohio by far. That total would represent about 50 percent of the injection volume handled annually in Ohio by its 201 injection wells.
The Mills Hunter site currently has two injection wells and four additional injection wells should be operating by March 31. The barge terminal will be completed later, perhaps in six to nine months, the company said.
The Mills Hunter Facility is open and is currently taking drilling wastes by truck.
The company also intends to spend an additional $2.5 million to $3 million to expand or to develop new waste shipping terminals at New Matamoras in Ohio’s Washington County and Wheeling, W. Va. The facility at Wheeling will cost $1.5 million.
The company’s barge proposal drew more than 60,000 comments with critics worried about the threat that such shipments posed to the Ohio River that is used for drinking water by local communities.
The liquid wastes will be moved from barges on the Ohio River to injection wells for disposal at the Mills Hunter Facility at Portland. The waste is moved by trucks from well sites to the barges.
The new facility will provide GreenHunter with "a huge shot in the arm," said CEO Gary Evans in a teleconference last week.
He called the Coast Guard approval for barge shipments to be "a significant win" for the company and its clients.
GreenHunter remains very optimistic about growth in the Utica and Marcellus shales, despite slowdowns by some drillers due to low prices paid for oil and natural gas.
"It changes the face of the company," said chief operating officer Kirk Trosclair.
Hauling such wastes by barge will reduce transportation costs and truck volumes, he said.
"Our ability to transport disposal volumes via barge will significantly reduce our costs, improve our margins and allow us to pass along savings to our clients," Trosclair said in a company statement....
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/greenhunter-s-ohio-river-barge-plan-wins-coast-guard-approval-1.563615
Xposted in GD
6 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
And Ohio has had millions of gallons of this injected into 240+ injections wells. And now, they're putting some of it right into landfills. Fewer quakes that way.
May 2014
Ohio annually processes thousands of tons of radioactive waste from hydraulic-fracturing, sending it through treatment facilities, injecting it into its old and unused gas wells and dumping it in landfills. Historically, the handling and disposal of that waste was barely regulated, with few requirements for how its potential contamination would be gauged, or how and where it could be transported and stored.
With the business of fracking waste only growing, legislators in 2013 had the chance to decide how best to monitor the state's vast amounts of toxic material, much of it being trucked into Ohio from neighboring states.
But despite calls to require that the waste be rigorously tested for contamination, Gov. John Kasich and the state legislature signed off on measures that require just a fraction of the waste to be subjected to such oversight. The great majority of the byproducts creating during the drilling process – the water and rock unearthed – still do not have to be tested at all.
As well, the legislature, lobbied by the fracking industry, undid the governor's bid to have the testing of the waste done by the state's Department of Health — the agency acknowledged by many to possess the most expertise with radioactive material. The testing is now the responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources, the agency that oversees the permitting and inspection of oil and gas drilling sites, but that has no track record for dealing with radioactive waste.
The legislators acted with little in the way of public debate, and the new regulations they adopted appeared deep inside a 4,000-page state budget bill. As a result, both the measures first proposed by Kasich and those ultimately signed into law have infuriated environmentalists and residents with concerns about the risks of fracking in their state.
A ProPublica review of the legislature's actions shows that just a handful of parties testified before the oversight committees charged with examining the pros and cons of the proposed regulations. And interviews with legislative staffers make clear that the final language of the regulations, including changes that scaled back two measures proposed by the governor, was inserted into the budget bill at the last minute.
And so today, to the surprise of much of the public as well as some elected officials, Ohio's oversight of fracking waste remains much as it had been – limited and controversial.
"It has the potential to leave a toxic legacy that could turn much of Ohio into potential superfund sites," said Alison Auciello of the Food and Water Watch, an environmental advocacy organization....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/fracking-boom-ohio-public-safety_n_5324878.html
Ohio annually processes thousands of tons of radioactive waste from hydraulic-fracturing, sending it through treatment facilities, injecting it into its old and unused gas wells and dumping it in landfills. Historically, the handling and disposal of that waste was barely regulated, with few requirements for how its potential contamination would be gauged, or how and where it could be transported and stored.
With the business of fracking waste only growing, legislators in 2013 had the chance to decide how best to monitor the state's vast amounts of toxic material, much of it being trucked into Ohio from neighboring states.
But despite calls to require that the waste be rigorously tested for contamination, Gov. John Kasich and the state legislature signed off on measures that require just a fraction of the waste to be subjected to such oversight. The great majority of the byproducts creating during the drilling process – the water and rock unearthed – still do not have to be tested at all.
As well, the legislature, lobbied by the fracking industry, undid the governor's bid to have the testing of the waste done by the state's Department of Health — the agency acknowledged by many to possess the most expertise with radioactive material. The testing is now the responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources, the agency that oversees the permitting and inspection of oil and gas drilling sites, but that has no track record for dealing with radioactive waste.
The legislators acted with little in the way of public debate, and the new regulations they adopted appeared deep inside a 4,000-page state budget bill. As a result, both the measures first proposed by Kasich and those ultimately signed into law have infuriated environmentalists and residents with concerns about the risks of fracking in their state.
A ProPublica review of the legislature's actions shows that just a handful of parties testified before the oversight committees charged with examining the pros and cons of the proposed regulations. And interviews with legislative staffers make clear that the final language of the regulations, including changes that scaled back two measures proposed by the governor, was inserted into the budget bill at the last minute.
And so today, to the surprise of much of the public as well as some elected officials, Ohio's oversight of fracking waste remains much as it had been – limited and controversial.
"It has the potential to leave a toxic legacy that could turn much of Ohio into potential superfund sites," said Alison Auciello of the Food and Water Watch, an environmental advocacy organization....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/fracking-boom-ohio-public-safety_n_5324878.html
If the media was doing its job, everyone would know this.
