EPA blasts DEQ application for injection well primacy, as Michigan taxpayers pump more money to DEQ

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by Ellis Boal

 

Class II injection Well, Wyles Howard, Holmes County, Ohio, with 181,513 barrels of fracking waste having been processed between Q3-2010 and Q1-2015. Photo courtesy of FracTracker.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rejected a draft application of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to take control of regulation of the state’s oil-gas waste injection wells, Ban Michigan Fracking (BMF) learned recently via an information request to EPA.

The DEQ draft failed to “demonstrate” that its proposal would be “effective … to prevent underground injection which endangers drinking water sources.”

According to a polite cover letter of last January, EPA’s two “fundamental” concerns were that DEQ would provide less protection than EPA and the wording of DEQ’s draft was illogical:

EPA’s first concern is that certain Michigan regulatory provisions limit effective protection of USDWs [underground sources of drinking water]. Of particular concern is Michigan’s definition of “fresh water.” It is narrower in scope than the federal definition of USDWs….

EPA is also concerned about a number of inconsistencies and unclear descriptions in the draft application which prevent a clear understanding of the proposed program and introduce legal or technical ambiguity.

By contrast, for Kentucky this spring EPA approved primacy.

The DEQ drafts

There are about 1300 injection wells for oil and gas operations in Michigan, 900 of which are for waste disposal and the rest for what is called “enhanced recovery.”

These are called “class II” wells. Currently both DEQ and EPA have to sign off on any new class II permit, but DEQ is seeking what is called “primacy”: it would have sole power over decisionmaking and enforcement of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in regard to class II, with but little EPA oversight.

DEQ’s August 2015 draft to EPA was actually a second draft. Previously we reported that in November 2014 DEQ had asserted it was “well equipped” for primacy, and claimed a “record of accomplishment for excellent environmental protection” and “good customer service” to the public. In the same paragraph it misspelled the adjective for “climate”: “climactic.”

A month later in December it held a secret “public hearing,” which is when it gave EPA the first draft.

Our article noted the secret hearing and the 2015 second draft. In 2015 DEQ and EPA were reeling from disclosures they had both dropped the ball in protection of Flint residents from lead in their drinking water.

We outlined the well-known history of failures of all well casings, whether or not they are inspected and regulated rigorously. We also noted DEQ’s separate admission of inadequate regulation of gas storage wells. (Michigan has more active storage fields than any other state.) We cited big protests against injection wells in three Michigan townships, to which one more can now be added in Johnstown Township Barry County in April 2017.

BMF filed objections to the first draft on several grounds, highlighting the DEQ definition of “fresh water,” and noting that for primacy approval DEQ would first have to change its administrative rules. Changing the rules is a lengthy process involving a draft, a public hearing, and approval by the state regulatory office plus two different legislative committees. Rule changes can take a year or more.

 

Class II injection well, Baughman W & Lucas C, Morrow County, Ohio, with 103,360 barrels of fracking waste having been processed between Q3-2010 and Q1-2016. Photo courtesy of FracTracker.

Also commenting on the first draft was petroleum geologist and writer Lee Smith. Among other things Smith questioned that state funding was insufficient without increasing the surveillance fees collected from oil and gas producers. He noted that DEQ was proposing to add only one new position to coordinate the injection program rather than four. Four would be comparable to the EPA-approved primacy program in Ohio.

(The wells pictured in this article are in Ohio. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has its own primacy problems, one being “capture” of the agency by the oil-gas industry and another being an ODNR attack on “eco-left pressure groups.” It named the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Counsel as examples.)

EPA’s blast

According to the cover letter of the EPA rejection in January, the two agencies had exchanged phone and email correspondence and had a meeting in EPA’s Chicago office.

The cover letter was accompanied by two detailed attachments, totaling 77 pages. The attachments mentioned the Michigan attorney general had participated in the conversations about some of the points below. Noting that “public input and hearings have been an area of public interest on Michigan wells during the last 5 years” (the period BMF has existed), the attachments specify several defects and inconsistencies including:

  • Certain “crucial” technical requirements are legally unenforceable, because they are not spelled out in DEQ’s administrative rules or in part 615 (DEQ’s oil-gas statute), but only in the draft application. Examples include requirements for chemical analyses of new brine sources “as they are added,” minimum cement casing conditions, and existence of surface casing. For EPA approval DEQ should have adopted legal requirements for “protecting USDWs from endangerment by injection operations.”
  • The administrative rules’ definition of class II wells does not “does not include wells used for hydraulic fracturing activities where diesel fuels are used,” as it should. Hydraulic fracturing “is a form of enhanced recovery.”
  • The rules require no information about the injection intervals’ confining zones.
  • The draft application language on mechanical integrity is “difficult to follow.”
  • Suspension of well operations in case of a violation and threat to the public would be limited to 21 days in the draft application, even though in EPA’s experience return to compliance by an operator after a violation can take more than 21 days.
  • The draft application uses the terms “fracture gradient” and “fracture pressure” interchangeably “although they are different physical parameters.”
  • “[S]ome Michigan rules may strongly limit input or place a high documentation burden on people in order to petition for a hearing.”

Fewer staff, increased work, more danger

The EPA letter was last January. According to DEQ manager Adam Wygant in April, “Michigan seeking primacy is still in [the] works, there will likely first be some changes to Part 615 Administrative Rules.”

But DEQ has no primacy-related rule changes listed in its regulatory plan for the year ending June 30.

Even if it proposes rule changes for the next year, given Smith’s comments about staff and funding, how could DEQ take on the additional workload? According to Midwest Energy News in April, DEQ says a hiring freeze is in effect for the oil-gas program, staffing levels have dropped 18% from a few years ago, and it expects to cut back on well inspection rates.

DEQ has less money because oil-gas production has been down. Most revenue for oil-gas surveillance comes from a percent DEQ gets of operator production. Hal Fitch, director of DEQ’s oil-gas operations, admitted an ethics issue, Midwest Energy News reports, at least in regard to incentives:

Some would say if (industry) is paying for it then our agency is beholden to the industry — I’d argue that’s not the case — and if we’re dependent on a fee for production then we have an incentive to increase production regardless of impacts

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Reduced staff and funding theoretically should mean reduced permitting. Instead, even without primacy DEQ’s workload is increasing. Plugged wells like producing wells require oversight. As noted above, eventually they leak. Abandoned operations can be dangerous. The fatal gas explosion in a house in Colorado in April was caused by an abandoned pipeline from a nearby well.

Michigan has 35,000 shut wells, and they don’t produce oil, gas, or jobs. The number of shut wells is constantly increasing. The reason for so many wells is the state’s statutory policy, on the books since 1939, requiring DEQ to “foster” the industry “favorably” and “maximize” production. In other words the more wells — and eventually the more abandonment — the better.

(The foster-the-industry policy will evaporate when the initiative campaign of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan succeeds.)

 

Danny Long & Sons SWIW #9 & #12, Stark County, Ohio, with 22,486 barrels of fracking waste having been processed between Q2-2014 and Q1-2016. Photo courtesy of FracTracker.

Reduced inspection rates at the same time as increased workload? Unions used to call this “speed-up.” And it is a recipe for disasters like what happened in Colorado. After decades, the chickens are coming home to roost.

Taxpayers subsidizing the oil-gas industry

Midwest Energy News also reported that Michigan lawmakers recently have been “subsidizing oil and gas development.” Last year they approved a $4 million infusion into the DEQ oil-gas program from the taxpayer-supported general revenue fund. A similar transfer is expected for this year. This is above and beyond the surveillance fee assessed to the industry.

According to the annual regulatory plan, conformance bond amounts for operators haven’t risen in over 20 years, and DEQ is considering an increase.

But a bond increase won’t be enough, particularly if DEQ manages to change its administrative rules to EPA’s satisfaction to get primacy over oil-gas injection. If bonds now and in the past actually were high enough, lawmakers would not be considering a taxpayer subsidy.

Michigan taxpayers should not subsidize a single dime for climate-changing oil-gas production. Nor should matters be made worse by subsidizing the disposal of oil-gas waste here.

Michigan Foia law protects secrecy of permits for gas-oil wells disguised as mineral wells

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by Ellis Boal

On March 16 the Michigan court of appeals rejected an appeal of a FOIA information case brought by landowner Gary Cooley and Ban Michigan Fracking about a supposed “mineral well” in Crawford County. Though not questioning their standing, the court held plaintiffs had not stated a proper claim of right to information.

D4-11, October 6, 2016. Photo: LuAnne Kozma.

Plaintiffs had sought the environmental impact assessment (EIA) and other information about this well drilled in the state forest a mile from Cooley’s property in Beaver Creek Township.

In 2015 Cooley, who opposes gas-oil development in the state forest, refused an offer to lease the gas, oil, and minerals under him. The offer included a signing bonus and a royalty interest.

Typically the requested documents are voluminous, sometimes running to over 100 pages. In particular the EIA has information about water wells, wetlands, surface waters, endangered species, pad facilities, soil erosion, and disposal of fluids and brines at or near the wellhead. These are items of interest to any nearby landowner.

“D4-11”

The applicant for the well was Marathon Oil, which owns nearly 1000 square miles of leases in Michigan under state land. The name of the well is “Beaver Creek D4-11,” or just “D4-11.” In June 2015 Marathon applied for a permit under “part 625,” the state’s law for mineral wells.

The only evidence D4-11 would actually be a mineral well and not a gas-oil well was a non-notarized “x” in a box on page 1 of Marathon’s application form. (This page is the one document which Marathon had to make public.) According to the instructions for that form, the application was supposed to have described in detail the well’s “purpose.”

According to the same page 1, D4-11 was to be a non-exploratory vertical mineral “test well,” and the drill rig would target the “Amherstburg” formation at 4700 feet. (DEQ provides for the possibility of horizontal wellbores and fracking on a different form for mineral wells.)

DEQ granted the permit on an unknown date.

The drill rig had seen service in oil-gas exploration in North Dakota a thousand miles away before coming to D4-11. The nearly-200-foot-tall rig must have cost Marathon millions to transport and operate. Marathon Oil is in the oil-gas business. In September a worker on the rig told a visitor, me, the company hoped to find gas or oil. A blowout preventer was left in place after the rig departed D4-11, a practice required only by the gas-oil rules, not the mineral well rules.

An official DEQ brochure states there are no minerals anywhere in Crawford County.

These and other facts indicated that D4-11 would be a gas-oil well, not a mineral well. Part 625 does not define “mineral.” But in ordinary English minerals are understood to be hard, crystalline, and inorganic, which gas and oil are not. Minerals are extracted by mining but gas and oil are extracted by drilling. And the idea of testing a mineral in a 4700-foot hole is ridiculous.

I published a video and the story of the investigation here.

DEQ rules for gas-oil wells prohibit nuisance noises, but the rules for mineral wells do not.

And unlike for gas-oil wells, FOIA has a confidentiality period lasting 10 years for mineral well data including the permit and EIA. But legally it is the DEQ which has the burden of proof to show the exemption applies.

DEQ answered the FOIA request by denying all information. Relying on the 10-year mineral exemption it refused to say even whether it had actually issued a permit.

Marathon itself was similarly close-mouthed, except by email it did admit there was a permit.

Plaintiffs sued in February 2016. In its responsive motion in May, DEQ finally admitted there was a permit. But it did not provide the date or a copy.

The practice of gas-oil companies which claim mineral well treatment

Later that month I chanced on an article about the work of William Harrison of Western Michigan University, an author of 35 technical papers on Michigan geology

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. I decided to email him, outlining the theory of the FOIA case, and the evidence showing D4-11 is probably a gas-oil exploratory well not a mineral well. I invited him to view our video of the drill rig, said I would drop the case if D4-11 proved to be a legitimate mineral well, and asked him to respond.

He did, the next day, very helpfully:

Wildcat exploratory wells for oil and gas have often been drilled under the State “Mineral well act” so that a company can gain information about the geologic deposits in that area with out releasing the information to the public and hence their competitors.

I do not have any specific knowledge about the Marathon well you mentioned, but the area in Beaver Creek Township is a well-known oil and gas region with an old very large oil field there called the Beaver Creek Field. The Amherstberg formation is a known oil and gas producing zone in other parts of the state and is very likely the target zone they were evaluating.

The naming of the well “Beaver Creek D4-11” is also a very common naming style for oil and gas wells. As far as I know other mineral wells that are looking for solid minerals do not use this type of naming convention.

The Amherstberg is not a formation that contains Salt, Potash or any other type of solid minerals that could be produced commercially, so I am reasonably confident that this was an exploratory well for oil and gas that was drilled under the Mineral Well Act

(underlining added)

There was one statement in Harrison’s response, a legal point, that I knew to be wrong:

In fact, oil and gas are considered “minerals” under the definition of that type of well.

He was wrong because, unlike at the Department of Natural Resources, at DEQ there is a strict separation between mineral wells regulated under part 625, and gas-oil wells. The latter are regulated under part 615.

As plaintiffs explained to the court later — in addition to highlighting the DEQ brochure which says there were no minerals in Crawford County — gas and oil are not considered “minerals” at the DEQ. Part 625 excludes gas and oil because gas and oil come under part 615. Even if the purpose of a well is only partially to explore for gas or oil, there must be a 615 permit.

Neither the DEQ’s court brief nor the court’s opinion disputed our contention that gas and oil do not qualify as “minerals.”

I responded to Harrison the same day with documents including Marathon’s page 1, and noted his error about the DEQ definition of “mineral.”

I asked if he would write me a separate letter affirming the opinion just expressed, that the Amherstburg is not a formation that contains solid minerals that could be produced commercially, and therefore he was “reasonably confident” that D4-11 was an exploratory well for oil and gas that was drilled as a mineral well to “maintain confidentiality.” I said this would likely suffice to win the case. I gave information about myself, and offered to pay his regular rates.

He responded the same day:

I am not interested in any consulting work for you or your client.

Rather, he said he provides “basic general information” to the public and is “not involved in any of the regulatory decisions.”

Translated: His practice is not to testify as an expert witness, not for anyone including the industry. I believe him but was surprised he wouldn’t repeat something in court that he had just told me, a stranger, for free.

Later I realized how tied in he is to DEQ and the industry. Last June he joined DEQ’s industry-dominated oil and gas advisory committee. The committee, composed of the “stakeholders,” is supported by several DEQ staff. Last month the Michigan Oil & Gas News pictured him with his wife as “silver medal sponsors” of the annual petroleum conference of the Michigan Oil & Gas Association (MOGA) and Northern Michigan American Petroleum Institute.

Surely everyone else on the DEQ advisory committee knows what he knows, that exploratory wells for gas and oil have “often” been drilled as mineral wells to get geologic information and then kept secret. Surely the rest of them know what he does not, that oil and gas are not DEQ-defined minerals and the oft-repeated claims of mineral well applicants — that their “purpose” is just to test “minerals” but not explore for gas and oil — are false.

Proceedings of the FOIA suit

Harrison’s encouraging emails were not confidential. I would have been free without his permission to quote them and his credentials to the court. But I decided to respect his desire to stay out of it.

The suit made two claims for opening the DEQ files, one of which we dropped when we filed at the court of appeals. (That one had contended that even if D4-11 actually were a mineral well, under a literal reading of the statute, except as to “logs” the confidentiality period applied only “during” the period after the well was “completed,” and D4-11 hadn’t yet been completed on the date of the FOIA request.)

As to the claim that D4-11 was not actually a mineral well, and therefore mineral well confidentiality should not apply, plaintiffs pointed out that the DEQ website links to the dozens of forms which it uses to question applicants for mineral wells. None of the forms asks the applicant whether the well will actually test a mineral. None of the forms asks the applicant to name the mineral it proposes to test.

Stated otherwise, as plaintiffs’ brief did (without citing Harrison’s insightful words):

Plaintiffs have no facts to contend that DEQ and Marathon arranged a sweetheart deal to keep this particular well secret. Rather it appears from the 64 DEQ forms that it never asks any operator who is testing minerals known to be present –- as opposed to exploring to see whether they are present –- to demonstrate the point. If so, DEQ invites a train of abuse from industry operators desiring to maintain secrecy by falsely stating their objectives while not under oath.

The DEQ brief responded:

In other words, even if Mr. Cooley’s allegations of deception on the part of Marathon were factually meritorious … this alleged “deception” would not be illegal.

In reply plaintiffs stated:

to qualify as a mineral well the operator’s intent at the start can only be to explore for or test minerals. In this case the operator’s stated intent was not to explore for a mineral, but to test one…. But … the Marathon safety man’s expression of hope that the company would find gas or oil at D4-11 means in the most literal commonsense sense that the company was “exploring” for gas or oil.

The court ruled on March 16. The unpublished opinion recited none of the facts indicating that D4-11 was actually a gas-oil well except it did acknowledge the claim that Marathon hoped D4-11 would find oil. The court also acknowledged that a plaintiff’s well-pleaded factual allegations have to be accepted as true at this stage, and DEQ had the burden to prove that any exemption for mineral wells under part 625 applied.

At oral argument plaintiffs had noted Marathon’s hope that D4-11 would find oil was not a fact critical to the case, and based on all the other facts, the case would be just as valid had the rig worker not made that admission.

The complaint and exhibits had shown that D4-11 would be a test well not an exploratory well, no minerals exist in Crawford County to even be tested, DEQ excludes gas and oil from its definition of “minerals,” DEQ relied solely on Marathon’s checkbox and did no independent investigation of minerals at D4-11, and the Amherstburg is a formation where Michigan oil prospectors have frequently looked. These facts showed “a good circumstantial case,” the brief said.

But even if these facts were all true, the court held, the exemptions of part 625 still applied. The case ended.

The decision amounts to a ruling that even if DEQ rightly should have processed D4-11 as a gas-oil well under part 615, the fact that it did process it as a mineral well under part 625 controls, and the exemptions to FOIA apply.

What should a landowner do?

Anyone can sit in on the quarterly meetings of the mentioned DEQ advisory committee, and minutes of past meetings are available on request.

Just one of its eight members is from an environmental organization, and that one (Michigan United Conservation Club) has long accommodated the gas-oil industry. Its director recently left there to become director of MOGA.

Since joining the committee Harrison has not brought to its attention the frequent industry practice of filing for a mineral well in cases where his expert opinion is that the operator’s purpose is really to explore for oil.

Landowner Cooley’s court complaint only sought information. It did not seek to invalidate the permit. So in the future suppose some landowner notices an ugly new several-acre gash in the forest nearby and a big noisy drill rig going up. Suppose too the rig gives every indication it is exploring for gas or oil, but DEQ claims it is really a mineral well.

Is there a remedy? Yes.

One tack would be to just assert that a permit was issued and then sue to invalidate it. A Michigan statute allows such a suit in the court of claims. The gas-oil applicant would have to be named as a co-defendant. The statute has no requirement to exhaust administrative remedies before suing, and indeed how could a landowner try to exhaust given that all information was refused? The statute of limitations is a very short 21 days, but would not be a problem if DEQ refused the permit date.

Circumstantial evidence can prove any case. Expert testimony such as what Harrison refused for D4-11 would likely be necessary, because unlike in a FOIA case the plaintiff would have the burden of proof. The burden would be satisfied simply by showing the “purpose” of the well, at least in part, is more likely than not to explore for gas or oil.

DEQ could hardly defend in light its practice of not investigating the real purpose of a mineral well. The defense, if any, could come only from the gas-oil applicant. But in the face of the plaintiff’s evidence, it would have to provide facts including the name of the supposed mineral. It would lose if it merely answered “it is a mineral well because we say so.”

Litigation isn’t the only way. Instead the landowner could find someone knowledgeable in the academic world, and then publicize the well. Surely experts are there who would be willing to shame a practice which sacrifices landowners and the environment to profit-driven competitive gas-oil interests. Surely someone would be willing to speak up.

The Flint water connection to fracking

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The Karegnondi pipeline running from Flint to Lake Huron might be a conduit to forcing more residents off of groundwater wells that will be affected by fracking, and onto the Karegnondi water system. Photo from Karegnondi.org

by LuAnne Kozma

People have been contacting us about the possibility that one reason for Flint’s plans for a new pipeline for water from Lake Huron through the recently formed Karegnondi Water Authority, is to provide water to the frack industry. This first came up in a blogpost “Could the Flint water crisis have its origins in a desire to open up new areas of Michigan to fracking?” and it’s been repeated in other reporting, such as Motor City Muckraker and Eclectablog.

The more likely connection: free groundwater for the frackers, Karegnondi water at a price for everyone else

UnknownA connection is there, but unless new evidence turns up, it’s not that the new Karegnondi pipeline necessarily would provide water directly to the frack industry. Instead, the likely scenario is that as the gas and oil industry drills and/or fracks in the Genesee, Lapeer, Sanilac, and St. Clair county areas along the pipeline’s routes, residential water wells will go bad and become contaminated, forcing residents to tie in (buy in) to the new Karegnondi water system, making them rate-paying water customers.

Monetizing water for people who currently get their water from groundwater wells is perhaps part of the business plan behind Karegnondi. Michigan has more private groundwater drinking wells providing water to residents and municipalities than any other state. The more the frackers can have access to that water, pushing more and more people off the groundwater supply and onto privatized or monetized sources, the better for the oil and gas industry, and the much worse for the public.

Download the Karegnondi pipeline map pdf.

The state’s role in oil and gas development 

Most people think the DEQ “does its job” by protecting human health and the environment, and resources like water, above all else. Not so with oil and gas. The Oil, Gas and Minerals Division of the DEQ is in charge of oil and gas development in the state, and issues permits for frack wells. Michigan DEQ is required by state law to

“foster the development of the [gas and oil] industry along the most favorable conditions, with a view to the ultimate recovery of the maximum production of these natural products.” (MCL 324.61502)

“Drill, baby, drill” is written right into the law

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. This must change. It’s been there since 1939. The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan has written a ballot initiative to change this statute, ban fracking and frack wastes, and ban acidizing in horizontal well bores.

The state has a deeper, darker “role”: It also makes money from the production of oil and gas. In effect, the state is a business partner with the oil and gas industry, even though, it’s supposed to be regulating it. In this case, “regulating” means giving them every opportunity to extract fossil fuels and make a profit.

It’s more insidious than that. Much like the lead industry waged a campaign to outfit the nation’s infrastructure with their deadly lead pipes (see: The Lead Industry and Lead Water Pipes: A “Modest Campaign”) we see these same devices being used today by the oil and gas industry to install their deadly infrastructure of natural gas plants, frack wells, compressor stations, toxic injection wells, and pipelines.

And the DEQ is right there with industry, promoting it, and mouthing the same propaganda. Brad Wurfel, the disgraced former DEQ spokesperson who recently resigned for his despicable role in the #FlintWaterCrisis (and who said “anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax”) has repeated frack industry talking points like “new fracking technology is a potential game changer for this country.” He also said: “The state’s regulatory program is regarded nationally as one of the toughest — a safe, effective way to allow domestic energy production while protecting the land, air and water.” An interview by the Rockford Squire with DEQ’s Wurfel reads like an ANGA (American Natural Gas Association) commercial, while putting down residents sounding the alarm about the harms of fracking.

Fracking and drilling planned for Genesee, Lapeer, Sanilac, and St. Clair Counties

There are plans for fracking and other drilling activity in Genesee, Lapeer, Sanilac, and St. Clair counties. There are already four “high volume, hydraulically fractured,” frack wells (those using over 100,000 gallons of water per well) in Sanilac County: the Schultz, Walker, State Wheatland & Reinelt, and Van Damme wells, all targeting the A-1 Carbonate formation.  (See current map of DEQ wells).

The State auctioned off state-owned mineral rights to acres throughout the area, with 200 acres auctioned in Genesee county near Holloway Regional Park.  In 2013 land men from Western Land Services combed the area meeting with landowners, buying their mineral rights. Local residents organized in opposition, with Oregon and Richfield Townships in Lapeer County passing resolutions against fracking. And large gas storage fields (like the Porter Ranch, California storage well that is leaking massive amounts of methane) are located in St. Clair County.

The frackers sometimes do purchase municipal water

It’s possible that municipal water from Karegnondi could be used in the future for fracking. The frackers have certainly purchased water from municipalities in the past when groundwater supplies became scare or insufficient. With the Westerman frack well in Kalkaska County the frackers ran out of groundwater, bought public water from the nearby municipality, and when that wasn’t enough for the frack job, resorted to drilling 8 more water wells on site.

The city of Saline, in Washtenaw County, was selling municipal water for oil and gas drilling in 2012 until residents rose up and stopped it, and the city imposed a moratorium on further water sales. As Saline resident and business owner Mitch Rohde, opposing the use of municipal water for drilling, said at the time,

“I can say that my company is here to stay, and isn’t here to suck non-renewal resources out of the ground, profit, and in a locust-like manner move on, leaving a path of industrialization, potential contaminant, property devaluation and other issues while lining up the next small town to feed on.”

The frack industry uses ground water for free. A lot of it.

Water well drilled on the site of the Mancelona 1-28 HD1 horizontal frack well, on state forest land. The frackers use public groundwater for free.

Water well drilled on the site of the Mancelona 1-28 HD1 horizontal frack well, on state forest land. The frackers use public groundwater for free. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

Generally, though, the frack industry uses ground water from temporary water wells they drill on the site of the well pad (see above photo). If the frack well is on state land, that means the frackers use this publicly-owned resource for free, and use as much as they want. The hokey, much criticized “water withdrawal assessment tool” (WWAT) is used by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality as a guise to make it appear they’ve considered the quantity of water being removed from the ground. In fact, it does no such thing, records no cumulative records of how much water is removed from the aquifers below, and studies no impacts.

And when a frack well applicant fails the WWAT, the DEQ staff simply visit the site, and then rubber stamp the approval anyway. One well, which failed the WWAT, used over 21 million gallons of water. (See: Michigan’s 21 Million Gallon Frack Job and Michigan Gas Wells Surpassing All Water Records,  Governor-approved Frack Panel Unconcerned).

The frack industry, if it does all the drilling it wants to, will thirst after Michigan water. One estimate from 2013 was if Encana (now sold to Marathon) drilled the 500 wells they projected, the company would use and destroy 4 billion gallons of groundwater, about what Traverse City uses in two years.

The DEQ keeps this list of the water amounts used by the industry’s recent “high volume hydraulically fractured” wells.

The millions of gallons of fresh water used for fracking are no longer “water” after it is combined with millions of gallons of chemicals, many of them neurotoxins and cancer-causing. These millions of gallons are permanently taken from the water cycle. To frack, the toxic cocktail is injected underground using extreme pressure to break up the rock formation (or in the case of acidizing, dissolve the rock). What comes back out of the well is even worse, and usually radioactive. These liquid wastes (the industry and DEQ like to call this toxic waste “flowback” and “produced water”) are then put into injection wells and again re-injected deep into the earth’s formations, to be buried supposedly forever. But well casings fail, as researchers and industry itself have studied, allowing these toxins to enter and poison aquifers. (See ProPublica’s reporting “Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us.”)

Governor Rick Snyder says “in Michigan we do fracking right”

Governor Snyder said in a televised debate, “in Michigan we do fracking right” and “we work with industry….” And now you know why the DEQ works with industry to contaminate Michigan with toxic chemicals, toxified water, and frack wastes from other states. With the world now watching Michigan’s governor, his emergency manager-based autocracy, his words and actions in the #FlintWaterCrisis, the Detroit Public School takeover, and the frack industry invasion, Michiganders and others are now seeing through this flim flam.

For more information about the harms of fracking and the ballot initiative to ban fracking and frack wastes statewide, see the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s brochure. The Committee is collecting signatures before June 1 to get the ban on fracking and frack wastes on the ballot this November.


Protest frack waste expansion in Detroit

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Protest Against Radioactive Fracking Waste

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan volunteers, Ban Michigan Fracking, Metro Detroiters for Bernie, and residents in the nearby community from Hamtramck and Detroit around the Detroit US Ecology hazardous waste facility gathered for a protest October 3. Photo: Jim West.

By LuAnne Kozma

Forty-five activists and community members gathered on October 3, 2015 at the US Ecology hazardous waste facility in Detroit to protest expansion of the facility. They included nearby residents from Detroit and Hamtramck, retirees, nurses, professors, lawyers, students, engineers, photographers, teachers, former and current city workers, a Detroit school board member, and retired postal workers.

In addition to Ban Michigan Fracking, the groups Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Metro Detroiters for Bernie, Carrie Rogge Block Club, Great Lakes Water Protection Committee, Detroit Workers Voice, and Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, joined members of a local mosque and volunteers of Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan from around the state.

Protest Against Radioactive Fracking Waste

Photo by Jim West.

The Detroit facility, which processes frack wastes, has applied to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to expand its operations tenfold.

Ban Michigan Fracking has reported on the amount of frack waste coming to Detroit from Pennsylvania for many months (*see below). The Detroit Free Press reported on the expansion on September 11, and the DEQ’s public comment deadline the next day, Saturday, September 12.  BMF wrote public comments to the DEQ, demanding an extension of the public comment period, demanding that DEQ deny the permit, and discussing the harms of radioactive frack wastes and TENORM.

We Demand a Public Hearing by DEQ

IMG_0338

Nearby residents concerned about the frack waste expansion and harm to families. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

The DEQ granted the extension of the public comment period to October 12, but no public hearing has been planned. BMF encourages people to write DEQ and demand a public hearing. The nearby community and all Michigan residents deserve to be heard. Write comments to: Richard Conforti, MDEQ, at confortir@michigan.gov or by mail c/o DEQ, P.O. Box 30241, Lansing, Michigan, 48909-7741.

US Ecology admits liquid wastes are going into the Detroit sewer system; Michigan DEQ denies it

The Detroit Free Press reported on September 11:

In an e-mailed response to Free Press inquiries, US Ecology spokesman David Crumrine said there have been no adverse environmental impacts during the 40 years the plant has operated. The plant takes hazardous and non-hazardous, solid and liquid wastes from the automotive, steel, plating and other area industries, as well as retail wastes, he said. Waste is treated to remove or stabilize its hazards as required by state and federal regulations, and then shipped for disposal at offsite landfills. Liquids are treated until they are safe to dispose of via the Detroit wastewater treatment plant. [emphasis added]

This was startling news, and what BMF had speculated for some time. The company’s admission was proof that wastewater from processing hazardous wastes at the site — 40% of which comes from out of state — goes directly into the public water and sewerage system.

Why else bring out-of-state frack wastes for processing to Detroit? When liquid wastes that are too hot radioactively to be disposed of here — DEQ’s Ken Yale has told BMF that wastes are solidified in Detroit first and then shipped for disposal at US Ecology facilities in Idaho — are brought here on their way west, there’s got to be a practical reason. Why wouldn’t Pennsylvania’s frack wastes be sent directly from Pennsylvania to Idaho?

DEQ’s Conforti denied that US Ecology is putting wastes into the Detroit Water and Sewerage System, as quoted in the Detroit News:  “Nothing will be released into the water supply — Lake Huron or the Detroit River.”

Other groups, such as the American Human Rights Coalition, based in Dearborn, are also opposed to the expansion.  AHRC is raising community awareness and demanding answers to what impact the expansion would have on the Detroit water system.

Dealing with the contaminated and radioactive waste is getting to be a real problem for the fracking/oil and gas industry. According to industry site Fuel Fix: “EPA to block drillers from sending wastewater to municipal treatment plants“:

“In Pennsylvania, drillers are worried about a double whammy — that EPA will follow up its currently proposed zero-discharge rule for municipal treatment plants with another standard blocking them from sending fluids to centralized facilities too.”

Which could pose a problem for facilities like US Ecology.

Speakers at the Protest

Protest Against Radioactive Fracking Waste

Local resident Ronnie Mixon, who also spoke at the protest. Photo: Jim West.

* Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog from Beyond Nuclear, gave some background on how harmful radioactivity is to human health.

Elena Herrada, a member of the Detroit School Board told the crowd that the school board passed a resolution that the DEQ deny the permit, in light of harm to Detroit school children.

Dawn DeRose, of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, gave an urgent pitch for volunteers to sign up to get signatures to get the Committee’s ban initiative on the 2016 ballot before the November deadline.

Protest Against Radioactive Fracking Waste

Photo by Jim West.

The signature deadline is in November. The Committee reported in September collecting over 100,000 signatures toward the 252,523 requirement and intends to make it on the ballot. The ballot initiative would ban the processing and storage of frack wastes.

 

 

* In December 2014 we reported on the wastes coming from Pennsylvania to US Ecology in Detroit reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection :

Detroit got the worst of it. Over 1,466 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” went to the US Ecology facility at 6520 Georgia Street, near Hamtramck which is the former Dynecol facility. The Marcellus shale frack wastes came from horizontal frack wells in a host of Pennsylvania counties–Butler, Clarion, Clearfield, Fayette, Greene, Indiana and Westmoreland–all in 2011 and 2012, but not reported until 2014. The former Dynecol site, which was a hazardous liquid waste processing facility in operation since 1974 “for the Midwest US and Canadian industrial markets,” is now owned by US Ecology, which bought it in 2012, around the same time the frack wastes were brought to Detroit. The company now carries out a number of hazardous operations with radioactive waste, including, according to the DEQ, processing of radioactive frack wastes which are solidified and then shipped to a facility in Idaho

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. What parts from that “processing” remain in Detroit? We wish we knew. – See more at: http://banmichiganfracking.org/?m=201412#sthash.qJ2D2iNW.dpuf

Other sources on radioactive wastes and: Rachel Treichler, attorney from New York, has this list of sources, “Materials on Radioactivity in Gas and Gas Drilling Waste.”

New DEQ fracking rules don’t help; we still need a ban

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IMG_3456

A frack well in Gladwin County, Wiley 1-81 HD1, in 2012. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

By Ellis Boal

After public hearings last summer amid the public uproar about fracking, in March 2015 the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Oil, Gas and Minerals published new administrative rules for oil, gas, and fracking. DEQ provided a link and said the new rules:

contain additional requirements when completing a well using high volume hydraulic fracturing [HVHF] by modifying Rule 201 and adding Part 14 High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing. The revised administrative rules also contained other minor updates related to definitions, injection, and spacing issues.

Since horizontal fracking came to Michigan in 2010, some environmental groups have put all effort into improving sloppy practices, and getting tighter DEQ fracking regulation.

The new rules show the futility of those efforts. If anything, they facilitate more fracking than the old rules.  Protection of public health, the environment, forests, water resources, air, climate, and our communities is still at stake.

The technical details are below.

“Construction of part”

The overall show-stopper is the legislature’s statutory finding at MCL 324.61502. This law will remain in place unless the ballot initiative campaign of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan succeeds in 2016. Innocuously titled “construction of part” – meaning “how the DEQ is to construe part 615 [the state oil-gas law]” – the finding ends with these words:

It is accordingly the declared policy of the state to protect the interests of its citizens and landowners from unwarranted waste of gas and oil and to foster the development of the industry along the most favorable conditions and with a view to the ultimate recovery of the maximum production of these natural products. To that end, this part is to be construed liberally to give effect to sound policies of conservation and the prevention of waste and exploitation.

Binding on judges, juries, and DEQ regulators, this special-interest provision has been on the books since 1939. Most government agencies treat their regulated industries neutrally. Not so with DEQ and oil-gas. “Fostering” the industry means fostering oil-gas profits. “Maximizing” oil-gas production means maximizing Michigan’s contribution to fossil fuel-driven global warming.

Thus “construction of part” declares a vision statement or ideology, that animates both the old DEQ rules and the new DEQ rules.

The citizen-led ballot initiative will ban horizontal fracking and acidizing in the state, and render the HVHF rules obsolete.

Just as importantly, it will eliminate the oil-gas industry’s special-interest protection. Instead of fostering the industry and maximizing production, the new “construction of part” will say:

It is accordingly the declared policy of the state to protect the interests of its people and environment during gas and oil development. This part is to be construed liberally to give effect to sound policies of conservation and to protect water resources, land, air, climate, human health, and the natural environment.

Terminology and a caveat

Terminology: “Part 615” noted above refers to the oil-gas “part” of Michigan’s overall environmental law known as “Natural Resources and Environmental Protection act” (NREPA), found at MCL 324.101 et seq. Part 327, noted below, is also in NREPA.

The DEQ rules are also divided into “parts,” numbered part 1 through part 14. They are in a different number sequence than the parts of NREPA. Confusingly, the two sets of “parts” have no relation to each other.

The caveat: Many of the new rules refer to “high volume hydraulic fracturing” (HVHF), defined as fracking which uses a total volume of more than 100,000 gallons of primary carrier fluid. HVHF usually occurs in wellbores which are horizontal, but not always. The ballot initiative of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan by contrast seeks to ban fracking and acidizing in horizontal wellbores, without tying it to a specific volume of primary carrier fluid.

Details on the new rules

  • Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: On April 27 the Detroit News editorialized against signing the ballot initiative, asserting that the new rules “control methane emissions.” They do not. New rule 1404(1)(c) provides only for testing for methane (and six other chemicals) in water wells which are near HVHF wells. No tests are done for fugitive methane (methane which escapes into the air). Methane is the primary constituent of natural gas, and a potent GHG. Other new rules say nothing and do nothing about Michigan’s contribution to global warming. Comments by Ban Michigan Fracking at last summer’s hearings made particular note that the prohibition of “waste” in MCL 324.61501(q)(ii)(B) does not include air or climate as protected values, and that DEQ’s historic permitting practice has been to monitor only non-GHG emissions.
IMG_1460

This frack well fragmented a state forest in Antrim County, 2011, (State Mancelona 1-28 HD1). Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

  • Cumulative impacts and habitat fragmentation: The new rules say nothing about proliferation and cumulative impacts of wells. The DNR leases oil-gas rights and DEQ permits oil-gas wells separately with no coordination between them. Wells are often located near rivers and streams. In basins with a high density of operations, numerous wellpads in the same watershed compound cumulative impacts of above-ground wellheads, compressors, pipelines, access roads, and associated industry.
  • IMG_0113Wastewater, radioactivity: The new rules have no requirement for geochemical analysis of flowback and produced water, particularly from underground radioactive shale rock typically associated with shale gas.
  • Compulsory pooling of surface owners can now be done after drilling and fracking is done:  Rule 301(1)(d) now allows a permit to be issued and the well drilled on a unit with fractures extending under unleased land — land the fracker does not have the rights to — prior to a hearing being held to see if a dominant leaseholder can force other owners into a pool. The theory under MCL 324.61513(4) is that the leaseholder should not be deprived of a fair share of oil or gas in the pool. Pooling orders are typically justified by the “construction of part” language that requires the state to foster “maximum production” (language which will be eliminated if the ballot initiative succeeds). See this example of a case of compulsory pooling where DEQ relied on “construction of part” to force owners into a drilling unit. The assumption of compulsory pooling is that everyone wants to produce oil or gas from his/her land to the max. If ever accurate historically, the assumption is not uniformly true today. Cosmetically, the new rules also change the term “compulsory pooling” to “statutory pooling,” hiding the fact that landowners are forced into drilling units against their will.
  • Seismic impacts: The new rules have a single passing reference to seismic activity. It is in rule 1202(3)(a), the procedure for petitioning to establish secondary recovery operations. In April, the US Geological Survey linked oil-gas activities to induced earthquakes. The new rules require no seismic precautions.
  • Confidentiality: Rule 416(3) requires operators on request of the DEQ to give it fracking, acidizing, and other well records. But if an operator asks DEQ to hold well data and samples confidential (excepting data on spills, leaks, and chemicals used), DEQ will do so until 90 days after drilling is completed. Confidentiality advances no environmental principle or policy.
  • Spacing and blowouts: When a fracker seeks a special spacing order, rule 303(2) no longer requires that DEQ make sure that the distance between wells prevents interference. Interference can result in a blowout at an adjacent well. DEQ is now content to grant a permit to a well where a blowout could happen.
  • Conformance bonds: Bonds for single wells range between $10k and $30k depending on depth according to rule 212, but the state auditor general found in 2013 the average cost to plug one is $50k+.
  • Hearings on well permits: Rule 201(4) provides for no notice to nearby landowners of fracker applications for well permits, and no hearings or appeals if a permit is granted.
One of the many injection wells used to dispose of horizontal frack wastes in Michigan, the Slowinski injection well in Kalkaska County. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

One of the many injection wells used to dispose of horizontal frack wastes in Michigan, the Slowinski injection well in Kalkaska County. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

  • Injection wells: There is no change in rule 102(x), the definition of “injection well.” The rule’s definition includes disposal wells and wells used to inject water “for the purpose of increasing the ultimate recovery of hydrocarbons from a reservoir.” A reservoir is any gas-bearing formation, even if it is solid rock. Injecting to increase recovery is just what frack wells do in the Utica-Collingwood, A-1 carbonate, and other gas-bearing formations. By nature, frack wells are permanent disposal wells of half their own injectate. In 2014 our court of appeals interpreted the rule definition to refer to any well used to increase recovery of hydrocarbons from a reservoir which was already producing before water was injected. Every well in the Utica-Collingwood and A-1 carbonate, and practically every other frack well in the state today, fits that interpretation. Yet DEQ refuses to treat them under the rules for injection wells. Those rules include rule 804 which uses a formula to limit the amount of injection pressure.
  • HVHF: The new rules have an amended part 2 and a new part 14 to cover high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF). HVHF is defined in rule 1401(h) as fracking which uses a total volume of more than 100,000 gallons of primary carrier fluid.
  • Trade secrets and HVHF: Under rule 201(2)(c), anticipated chemicals in the injectate, and their “chemical abstracts service” (CAS) numbers, must be identified in advance. Under rule 1406(1)(c), the chemicals and CAS numbers actually used have to be listed with FracFocus 30 days after completion. (FracFocus does not operate under a public mandate or verify information submitted to it.) But both requirements have an exception if the fracker simply makes a claim for protection under Michigan’s trade secrets statute, MCL 445.1901 et seq. The trade secrets law does not protect the public from frackers. It protects frackers from each other. Neither the trade secrets law nor the new rules provide a mechanism for a citizen to challenge a fracker’s claim of secrecy.
  • IMG_3273

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    Baseline water testing and HVHF: Rule 1404 requires the permit holder to do pre-drilling sampling of water from potable wells near the surface hole, test the samples at a lab for seven chemicals, and give a copy of the lab results to the landowner. No testing for the hundreds of other chemicals identified in frack operations is required. And chemicals in secret mixtures can’t be tested for at all. Sampling in the vicinity of the horizontal laterals, sampling of water levels and flows, sampling of surface waters, splitting samples so the landowner can have half, and doing post-drilling sampling are not required. Nor is sampling required for water wells near gas wells which are not HVHF.

  • Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool and HVHF: Rule 1402 has provisions for protection of water withdrawn for fracking. The rule requires screening by Michigan’s water withdrawal assessment tool (WWAT), adopted in 2008 by the legislature in MCL 324.32701 et seq (or NREPA part 327). If a fracker’s withdrawal request fails WWAT screening, it may request a site-specific review. DEQ would then take a closer look and decide whether to approve withdrawal. In the past, DEQ has routinely approved permits even when the WWAT test “fails.” WWAT screening has problems. It estimates surface water flows from just 147 gauged stream segments around the state. The gauges tend to be on medium- and large-sized streams, not sensitive headwaters. WWAT has not been updated since 2008. It was developed to deal with long-term withdrawals like agricultural irrigation, not the short-term intensive withdrawals required for fracking. WWAT cannot assess the potential impacts on habitat, wildlife, and nearby waters receiving site runoff. It does not account for water withdrawal impacts to wetlands and lakes. It cannot measure potential changes in surface runoff patterns due to the clearing of land and road construction. It overestimates stream flow (and so underestimates adverse effects). Academics have criticized it.
  • Use of WWAT and HVHF: Even were WWAT a valid screening device, DEQ misuses it. Two big frack wells were permitted in 2011, State Excelsior 1-13 HD1 and State Excelsior 1-25 HD1. Both wells failed WWAT screening according to the linked DEQ paperwork for the wells. That triggered a site-specific review by DNR water specialist David Deyoung. Deyoung gave the go-ahead and permits were granted. But according to pages 84-87 and 108-113 respectively of the paperwork, he gave no reasoning, did not consider the stream or river flow data of affected stream reaches, and did not even state he visited the sites.

To protect Michigan from harm, we must use the Precautionary Principle and do no harm. Rules by which to frack, only lead us down the road to more and increased fracking across the state.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan launches ballot initiative with strong support according to new poll of Michigan voters

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The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan launches its ballot initiative petition drive–all on paper, on foot, and in person–this May 22, 2015, as a new poll the Committee released, by Public Policy Polling, shows a strong majority supporting the ban on fracking and frack wastes.

Below is the complete press release

Poll results can be found here. 

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is one of the two prominent groups seeking a ban on fracking, by doing a highly-visible ballot initiative statewide. The U of M didn't really notice it. Washtenaw county coordinator Nancy Witter collects signatures at a booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs in July 2013. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2015

CONTACT: Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, www.LetsBanFracking.org

LuAnne Kozma, Campaign Director, 231-944-8750 luanne@letsbanfracking.org

Jim Williams, Public Policy Polling, 919-985-5380 Jim.Williams@PublicPolicyPolling.com

New poll of Michigan voters shows a strong majority supports a statewide ban on fracking and frack wastes as ballot initiative signature-gathering campaign begins May 22

CHARLEVOIX, MICH. – In results from a new poll conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP) released today by the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, Michigan voters indicate strong support and would vote yes for the Committee’s statewide ballot proposal ban on fracking and frack wastes.

 
The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, a citizen-led ballot initiative group seeking to ban horizontal hydraulic fracturing and frack wastes, kicks off its campaign this week. Volunteer circulators begin collecting signatures starting Friday, May 22, 2015 for a six-month period to qualify for the 2016 ballot.

 
The telephone poll reached 855 Michigan voters between May 15 and 18, 2015.

 
“As we begin collecting signatures this weekend, we know that our fellow Michigan residents are with us on a statewide ban. They don’t want fracking and frack wastes to destroy our beautiful state or harm our health as the frack industry has in other states. We are excited to work together to make a change in Michigan law and bring this proposal to the voters. Everyone who supports the ban should get involved right away and donate to, volunteer for and endorse the campaign,” said LuAnne Kozma, the Committee’s campaign director.

 
According to the poll, a strong majority of fifty-five percent (55%) of respondents said if the election were today, they would support the Committee’s ballot proposal to ban fracking and frack wastes statewide, change the current law that requires the State to foster the gas and oil industry and put in its place a requirement that human health and the environment be protected during oil and gas development, and give Michigan residents the right to sue if the fracking industry violates the ban. Only 32% oppose the measure, and 12% are not sure.

 
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of the respondents said they support changing the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s directive that currently requires the State to foster the oil and gas industry and maximize oil and gas production, to focus more on protecting Michigan’s environment and public health during oil and gas development, which is a key part of the Committee’s ballot proposal language

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An overwhelming majority, sixty-four percent (64%) of those polled, support a ban on frack wastes being disposed of in Michigan, including frack wastes produced in other states, after hearing that currently frack wastes, including radioactive drill cuttings, muds and sludges, and millions of gallons of fluids containing toxic chemicals, are disposed of in Michigan landfills, injection wells and at Michigan gas drilling sites.

 
After learning that Vermont banned fracking and New York banned fracking based on concerns about health impacts, and that other states that are heavily fracked such as Colorado and Pennsylvania have hundreds of wells in a single county with documented health impacts, fifty-nine (59%) responded that fracking and frack wastes should be banned in Michigan before the industry creates health problems for Michigan residents.

 
“These results clearly show that Michigan voters have major concerns about fracking and frack waste harming Michigan’s environment and damaging their health,” said Jim Williams, a polling analyst at Public Policy Polling.

 
“Only a ban can protect us from the significant harms of fracking,” said Peggy Case, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation and on the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan steering committee. “The poll shows that a clear majority, sixty-nine percent (69%), of Michigan residents, dependent as we are on groundwater wells and the Great Lakes for our drinking water, has serious concerns about the risk of water contamination from the frack industry. It is urgent that we move to alternative forms of energy to protect future generations.”

 
The margin of error is +/- 3.4%.

 

 

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is looking for more volunteers to circulate petitions, donors, and endorsers for the campaign which begins May 22, 2015 for a six-month period. The following Kick Off events are planned to start off the Memorial Day weekend. See http://LetsBanFracking.org

 
Kick Off Events:
For full list, see www.letsbanfracking.org

 

ALMA
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m.
Scottish Highland festival, downtown Alma

ANN ARBOR
Friday, May 22, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Outside Espresso Royale
214 S. Main St.

Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon
Ann Arbor Farmers Market
315 Detroit St.

Saturday, May 23, 1:00 p.m.
March Against Monsanto
Liberty Plaza, Corner of Liberty and Division

BOYNE CITY
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon
Boyne City Farmers Market, Veterans Park, Lake Street

CHELSEA
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
Chelsea Farmers Market
Downtown on 222 S. Main St, Chelsea

DETROIT
Eastern Market
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
Meet between Sheds 2 and 3

GRAND RAPIDS
Friday, May 22, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Outside Harmony Brew
1551 Lake Dr SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Saturday, May 23, @ 2:00 p.m.
March Against Monsanto, Ah Nab Awen Park
Training for Circulators @ 1:30 and 3:00

MUSKEGON
Saturday, May 23, 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.
Muskegon Farmers Market
242 W Western Ave, Muskegon, MI 49440

OTSEGO (ALLEGAN COUNTY)
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
City of Otsego Farmers Market
112 Kalamazoo St/M-89, Otsego, MI 49078

PETOSKEY
Friday, May 22, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Outside Roast and Toast Café
309 E Lake St Petoskey, MI 49770

ROCHESTER
Friday, May 22, 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Intersection of 4th and Waters Street, Rochester

Saturday, May 23, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Heritage Fest, Rochester Municipal Park
400 Sixth Street, Rochester

SOUTH HAVEN
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
South Haven Farm Market
Behind the South Haven Library, in the park near pavilion

TRAVERSE CITY
Friday, May 22, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Horizon Books, downstairs
243 E Front St, Traverse City, MI 49684

YPSILANTI
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon
Ypsilanti Depot Town Farmers Market
100 Rice St., Ypsilanti

Michigan says “bring it on” to more radioactive frack wastes

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2.13_frack_1.2Today Gov. Rick Snyder’s panel on radioactive waste, which met in secret last fall, issued its report, clearing the way for Michigan to continue taking radioactive frack sludge and other frack wastes to sites in Belleville and Detroit owned by US Ecology. An agreement made by the frack waste company, which operates a Detroit waste processing facility and a processing and Class I landfill facility in Van Buren Township, and the State was to hold off on taking in frack wastes until after the report was issued.  That day is here.

The Detroit News reported the release of the panel’s paper today: Mich

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. panel: no changes in handling radioactive sludge.

The TENORM panel came about after Ban Michigan Fracking broke the story in August that 36 tons of Pennsylvania radioactive frack sludge, held up for weeks with nowhere to go, were approved for disposal in Michigan by Michigan DEQ officials.

Radioactive frack sludge in Washington County, held for months at a Range Resource waste impoundment site, is now off the site and gone to who knows where. Submitted photo.

The 36 tons of radioactive frack sludge from PA sat here for months and then disappeared. Submitted photo.

 

 

The 36 tons of  radioactive frack sludge in Washington County, PA held for months at a Range Resource waste impoundment site, was what alarmed us and eventually caused Gov Rick Snyder’s kneejerk reaction to create the TENORM panel. The containers of frack sludge were moved off site some time ago and its final deposition is not known at this time. It did not go to a US Ecology facility in Michigan . . . yet.

Soon after, the Detroit Free Press blasted the news of the PA radioactive waste on its front page. We and volunteers from Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan held a vigil waiting for the trucks (that never came) at the landfill/processing facility in Van Buren Township, near Belleville, last August. US Ecology’s top radiology guy, Joe Weismann, came out to greet us, after reading this website from all the way out in Idaho. He came to Michigan to do damage control. . . and presumably at that time made the deal with the governor to quiet things down for a while. Weismann did a dog and pony show type presentation to  Van Buren Township residents at a township meeting. He was on the TENORM panel.

Ban Michigan Fracking did more investigating about the 36 tons of radioactive frack sludge and FOIA’d the DEQ for the tests of its radioactive content. We also learned about the industry’s system of diluting the high radioactive content by simply mixing it up with inert materials, and depositing all of it into the landfill that way. The 36 tons was  moved to some undisclosed location in late October. DEQ confirmed with us today that the 36 tons have not yet come to the US Ecology facility in Belleville. It was also the last request for radioactive frack waste disposal that came to the Michigan DEQ from US Ecology.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan members protest outside frack waste facility near Belleville, August 2014.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan members protest outside frack waste facility near Belleville, August 2014.

The Detroit Free Press did a lot more investigating of the Michigan Disposal/Wayne Disposal landfill, too, finding a history of violations, fines and fires. We dug up the records from Pennsylvania as to what’s come to Belleville and found over 20 tons of drill cuttings and about 315 tons of “flowback fracturing sand,” all from Greene County in Pennsylvania’s southwestern edge where the frack industry is ravaging people’s health.

The governor’s panel, which evaluated the DEQ’s current system of taking in radioactive wastes and saw virtually nothing wrong with it, (as DEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel predicted) came up with a handful of recommendations that the state could “consider” changing. Such as shuffling around the placement of radioactive waste within a landfill. It also had a former DEQ staffer as the person “representing the public.” We’ll take a better look at the report in the next weeks and make more comments.

And you can too. Michigan DEQ issued a press release that the department will take public comments on the report in a 30-day comment period starting today. Comments can be submitted by email to DEQ-TENORMPublicComments@michigan.gov, or by mail to 525 W. Allegan St., Lansing, MI, 48933.

NY Bans fracking with CBFM logo

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, the ballot question committee with hundreds of volunteers from around the state, is more resolved than ever to stop these wastes from coming into the state. The Committee is actively pursuing a ballot initiative that for two years now has rallied voters to ban fracking and frack wastes at the next statewide election in 2016. Frack wastes going to facilities in places such as the Belleville landfill, a waste processing facility in Detroit (also owned by US Ecology), and in the hundreds of injection wells and landfills throughout the state, would be banned once the proposal is passed. To volunteer for, and donate to, the ballot initiative, go to www.LetsBanFracking.org.

The Michigan DEQ does not keep or provide the public any records on the amounts, types, or locations of frack wastes being generated, emitted, processed, treated, stored, or dumped in the state. Any landfill in Michigan can accept radioactive wastes as long as it’s diluted 50 picocuries/gram with other materials. In December we reported on the 2,200 tons of frack waste from Pennsylvania dumped in Michigan based on Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s database, which tracks the waste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over 2200 tons of Pennsylvania frack waste dumped in Michigan

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IMG_1597

Waste disposal company A-1 Northern in Kalkaska received over 400 tons of frack wastes from Pennsylvania. Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking.

We’ve known this for a while now, but it’s time  to get it out there: Michigan is fast becoming a frack waste state.

Part of the story is that Michigan facilities are taking in wastes from other states.

The other part is that the frack industry generated huge amounts of wastes from Michigan frack wells.

The startling news about out of state frack waste is that  over 2,200 tons of frack waste from Pennsylvania have come to Michigan in three counties: Wayne, Monroe and Kalkaska.

We learned of this by searching the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s “oil and gas reporting” website. That the State of Michigan Dept of Environmental Quality Office of Oil Gas and Minerals neither tracks the disposal of frack wastes–generated in Michigan or elsewhere–nor provides the information to the public as Pennsylvania does, is troubling.

The Michigan facilities are headquartered in the communities of Van Buren Township,  Kalkaska, Detroit and Erie, but exact disposal facilities are not known for the Kalkaska wastes.

Van Buren Township: The Belleville-area twin processing and landfill facilities now owned by US Ecology, called Michigan Disposal and Wayne Disposal, accepted 20.42 tons of drill cuttings (which is TENORM: Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occuring Radioactive Materials) from a Greene County, Pennsylvania horizontal well in 2010 (PA reported it in 2014). And another 315.75 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” from several horizontal wells in Greene County were brought to Wayne Disposal at various times from 2010 through 2013 (but not reported by PA until 2014). See our four stories earlier this year on this website about Michigan Disposal/Wayne Disposal. We do not yet know the final disposition of the radioactive sludge approved for shipment to Wayne Disposal. Story 1, Story 2, Story 3, Story 4.

Kalkaska: Over 400 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” landed in Kalkaska County, according to the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection website. The materials came from Marcellus shale unconventional wells in Greene and Washington Counties in southwest PA outside of Pittsburgh. Chevron Appalachia LLC is the operator.  The wastes went to A-1 Northern (pictured above), an oil/gas waste disposal company, although the exact facility location is not specified. The disposal method is described as “storage pending disposal or reuse.”

Detroit: Detroit got the worst of it. Over 1,466 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” went to the US Ecology facility at 6520 Georgia Street, near Hamtramck which is the former Dynecol facility. The Marcellus shale frack wastes came from horizontal frack wells in a host of Pennsylvania counties–Butler, Clarion, Clearfield, Fayette, Greene, Indiana and Westmoreland–all in 2011 and 2012, but not reported until 2014. The former Dynecol site, which was a hazardous liquid waste processing facility in operation since 1974 “for the Midwest US and Canadian industrial markets,” is now owned by US Ecology, which  bought it in 2012, around the same time the frack wastes were brought to Detroit. The company now carries out a number of hazardous operations with radioactive waste, including, according to the DEQ, processing of radioactive frack wastes which are solidified and then shipped to a facility in Idaho. What parts from that “processing” remain in Detroit? We wish we knew.

Erie: And then there’s the Vienna Junction Landfill on the Erie, MI/Toledo, OH border which also has accepted frack waste from Pennsylvania. According to the PA Department of Environmental Protection website again, Vienna Junction took in 6,085.21 tons of frack wastes from horizontal wells located in Tioga County in the reporting period July – December 2012. We’re not including this tonnage in our headline, since we don’t know how much of it landed in Michigan versus Ohio. But it’s close enough to affect Monroe County residents.

These Pennsylvania statistics are just for the first half of 2014. We’ll update this article when the data for the rest of the year becomes available.

That’s just the wastes from one state. Undoubtedly there is more coming here, with regional facilities in Detroit and Belleville that are designed to be regional “hubs” for the industry.

IMG_1602

Westerman well in Kalkaska County, Michigan. Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking.

The frack industry in Michigan is also producing its own wastes from operations here

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. We visited the Waters Landfill in Crawford County this year (pictured below), where solid frack wastes such as drill cuttings (which are classified as radioactive TENORM) are brought. Again, no records are kept by Michigan DEQ on their website. The landfills are not public in many cases. And putting together the picture of where all this frack waste is going is next to impossible.

Waters Landfill

The landfill in Waters, Crawford County, Michigan. Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking.

According to an article by Environment 360 at Yale University, an organization called Downstream Strategies attempted to trace fracking waste from Washington County PA and sites across the US and where it ends up and found they “just couldn’t do it.”

Frack wastes are also brought to Michigan class II injection wells (a total of 1,460, of which 654 the EPA says are for disposal, while the DEQ says disposal wells number 888. Any of Michigan’s old oil or gas wells can also be used for disposal of frack wastes and turned into injection wells). We will report on injection wells in Michigan in an upcoming article.

NY Bans fracking with CBFM logoThe Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s ballot initiative would BAN frack wastes from other states from being processed, disposed or stored in Michigan. To make a contribution to the Committee, go to www.letsbanfracking.org.

 

PDF’s of the downloaded reports from the Pennsylvania DEP website:

Kalkaska: Kalkaska–WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198306_2014-1 WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_

DetroitDetroit–WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198307_2014-1-5

Van Buren Township: Wayne Disposal–WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198309_2014-1 Wayne Disposal–WasteByWasteFac

Erie: Vienna Junction WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198194_2012-2-2 Vienna Junction WasteByWasteFac

 

Committee to Ban Fracking protests in Lansing

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People from around the state in the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan organized a protest in Lansing on October 29 while the Michigan DNR auctioned off more acres of mineral rights to the frackers.

Anti-Fracking Group Protests Sale of Oil and Gas Rights on State-Owned Land

TV 10 covered the event here.

The Committee is working on a ballot initiative campaign to ban fracking and frack wastes and could use your donation today! Go here to donate.

And you can keep up with the ballot initiative on Facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/CommitteeToBanFrackingInMichigan

Marathon Oil may have purchased most of the auction’s acreage

From Michigan Oil and Gas News, reporting on the auction:

  • “Bidders believed to be representing Marathon Oil Co. dominated the Oct. 29, 2014 auction sale of state of Michigan-owned minerals at the Lansing Center, picking up more than 148,000 of the 152,629.16 acres successfully bid.”
  • “All but 164 of the parcels successfully bid were at the minimum $10 per acre, which helped keep the overall average bid per acre at only $17.15 per acre.”
  • “The news that Marathon Oil Co. — founded in 1887 as the Ohio Oil Co. — had recently completed a transaction in which it acquired Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc.’s Michigan asset marks the return of one of the state’s oldest and most storied producer/operator after an absence of 15 years.”

Below is the Committee’s press release for more information about the ballot initiative:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 28, 2014
Contact: LuAnne Kozma, Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan

(231) 944-8750 luanne@letsbanfracking.org

Ballot initiative to ban fracking supporters to protest in Lansing
Charlevoix, Michigan – The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, a statewide ballot initiative campaign (www.letsbanfracking.org), will gather outside the Lansing Center (in downtown Lansing) tomorrow, October 29, to protest the Michigan DNR’s twice-annual auction of state-owned mineral rights

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. The event takes place Wednesday from 7:00 am to noon. The auction begins at 9:00 am.
The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is a ballot question committee that collected over 70,000 signatures in 2013 for a statewide ban on fracking and frack wastes. The Committee’s proposal is not on this November’s ballot. The group is working on placing it on the next statewide ballot in 2016.
“The State’s role in creating more fracking starts with the DNR auction of mineral rights,” said LuAnne Kozma, the Committee’s campaign director. “In addition to receiving royalties from the gas and oil industry for leasing mineral rights, the State also receives income from the production of oil and gas,[1] and is required by state law to ‘foster the development of the industry along the most favorable conditions,’[2] part of the current law our ballot initiative will overturn along with a ban on fracking and frack wastes.”
The group cites the continued push by the frack industry, supported by the State, in approving radioactive frack sludge from other states at a waste facility in Van Buren
Township in Wayne County,[3] the start of new pipelines that will bring fracked gas through the state,[4] and new natural gas plants proposed in Marquette and Gaylord. The fracking giant Encana recently sold its mineral rights to energy giant Marathon.[5]

“Nearly every day, Michiganders are facing a new threat from the frack industry as the State government helps industry turn our beautiful state into Gasland, whether it’s from radioactive frack waste or new natural gas plants. All of this industrialization is going to exacerbate climate change and health impacts,” said Kozma.
The DNR will auction off more state-owned mineral rights on thousands of acres in the following counties: Arenac, Clare, Crawford, Gladwin, Grand Traverse, Ingham, Isabella, Kalkaska, Manistee, Midland, Missaukee, Montmorency, Oceana, Osceola, Presque Isle, and Roscommon.

Public notice about the auction here:http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/ProposedPubNotice_464073_7.pdf

Michigan DNR site about the auction here:

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10368_11800-169044–,00.html

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s brochure here:

http://www.letsbanfracking.org/images/CBFM%20_2014_brochure_with%20links_FINAL.pdf

# # #
[1] MCL 205.303

[2] MCL 324.61502

[3] Series of articles at www.banmichiganfracking.org: http://banmichiganfracking.org/?p=2455

[4] Detroit Free Press, “Rival Projects Compete for OK to Build Gas Pipelines,” October 12, 2014. http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/columnists/tom-walsh/2014/10/12/tom-walsh-dueling-pipelines/17046379/

[5] Midland Daily News, “Fracking Michigan, Here We Go Again,” October 13, 2014. http://www.ourmidland.com/opinion/editorials/fracking-michigan—-here-we-go-again/article_69726cb9-a734-5afd-90f2-3c60f424263c.html

No public representative on Michigan radioactive frack waste TENORM panel

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Meetings in Secret

Remember the panel the Governor set up to review the state’s disposal procedures on radioactive frack waste? Well, it’s meeting already, but meetings are not open to the public.

Apparently the panel members were named and the panel got started without fanfare, and without the public being allowed to attend its first meeting on September 22.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan members protest outside frack waste facility near Belleville, August 2014.

Ken Yale, the head of the DEQ’s Radiological division, who is also on the panel, told me yesterday that because they are a “pre-deliberative body” the state is not required to hold public meetings in accordance with the Michigan Open Meetings Act.

The Governor’s TENORM waste panel has a former DEQ radiology employee as representing “the public” 

And there’s another blow to transparency and public participation. One panel member was to represent the DEQ–and that’s Ken Yale himself. Another member was to represent the public. According to this September 22 press release by the DEQ, it lists Dave Minnaar, of Middleville, as the person “representing the public.”

Minnaar isn’t from the affected communities near frack waste sites, and he’s not simply someone from “the public.” In fact, he’s a former DEQ employee. Minnaar was one of the contributing specialists to the report An Assessment of the Disposal of Petroleum Industry NORM in Nonhazardous Landfills, which brought us the disposal standards the State is now using, along with his co-worker Bob Skwronek, who today makes the approvals on the radioactive wastes coming in to Michigan.

In this Argus-Press news article from January 1990, Blanchard says Michigan can handle nuke waste, Minnaar is quoted as the deputy chief of radiological health for the state Department of Health, saying that Low Level Radioactive Waste storage facilities (being proposed back then) pose no threat to public health. The group that fought the Low Level Radioactive Waste site during those years, Don’t Waste Michigan is also quoted in the story. I contacted an activist involved in that fight yesterday and he remembers Minnaar as one of the biggest salesman for the nuke dump.

Minnaar was one of the key DEQ employees who handled the bizarre incident in 1994-95 of the “radioactive Boy Scout,” a Detroit area teenager who assembled and worked with highly radioactive materials in his backyard. In the clean-up, the most radioactive materials, including radium and thorium, were thrown away into the household refuse (and into a local landfill) by his parents before the DEQ had the chance to haul away a bunch of barrels out west for disposal.

Expertise aside, as a former DEQ employee responsible for overseeing the very disposal methods the state uses, this appointment is not the same as having someone “from the public” on the panel.

But as DEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel has already declared, this panel’s recommendations are a forgone conclusion anyway: “the review panel will conclude that existing Michigan standards are appropriate.” Wurfel’s admission that this is a charade is quite bald

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