In a public address last week (November 28), Governor Rick Snyder unveiled his administration’s aggressive plan for continued, massive fracking across Michigan. His intent is to make Michigan a leader in natural gas fracking and to allow the rest of the country to benefit from Michigan’s fracked natural gas.

His entire address is here.

Regarding fracking, Snyder said this, using the standard industry sales pitches:

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has received increased attention lately. This technology is being used in combination with horizontal drilling to reach some natural gas and other resources that otherwise could not be developed. This innovation is already benefitting Michigan in the form of unusually low natural gas prices and additional money from state leases that goes to our public lands and our parks. But some have expressed concerns about what these technologies mean for Michigan’s environment.  Neither fracking nor horizontal drilling is a new technology—they have been used in Michigan for many decades. None of the fracking that has been done in Michigan has resulted in a single water quality problem. In fact, fracking’s deeper wells likely pose less risk to our groundwater than the shallower wells we are more used to. With our water withdrawal statute, as well as our strong regulatory history of natural gas drilling, we are better prepared – more adaptable – than most other states.

That said, it’s important that our citizens understand what fracking is really all about. That’s why the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute is undertaking an evaluation of fracking. At their invitation, the state is participating in the steering committee for this effort alongside environmental and industry groups. At the end of the process, the public will have well-reasoned, objective explanations of what this technology is and is not. We will also have a Michigan-focused evaluation of the various implications of fracking. This is a great example of collaboration and a public university serving the needs of the state, and I am looking forward to seeing the results.

Here’s some of the press coverage:

Detroit Free Press: Gov. Rick Snyder approves of fracking, if done right

Detroit News: Snyder wants more gas drilling

Michigan.gov website: “Ensuring Michigan’s Future [sic]”

The gas industry’s trade group, Michigan Oil and Gas Association commented “We believe this project will demonstrate how Michigan is a national model when it comes to regulating hydraulic fracturing and ensuring proper safeguards for keeping water, air and land protected.”

The gas industry is sure that the “study” will back them up. We think it will, too.

Frack industry money flows heavily in Michigan

And Governor Snyder is no exception. He’s the fifth most funded politician by the gas and oil industry from 2000-2010, according to the report Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets, by Common Cause: (State treasurer Dillon is number 3, attorney general Bill Schuette is number 6, and former governor Granholm and attorney general Cox were pretty well-greased, too).

Figure 13 Michigan’s top 20 state-level recipients of fracking industry money

Rank Name Office Party Total 2000-2010

1 MI Republican Party Party R $135,130

2 Andy Dillon State Treasurer D $128,500

3 Jennifer M

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. Granholm Governor D $98,800

4 Mike Cox Attorney General R $76,250

5 Rick Snyder Governor R $61,900

6 Bill Schuette Attorney General R $59,418

7 Michelle McManus Senate R $51,700

8 Mike Nofs Senate R $49,650

9 Randy Richardville Senate President R $34,500

10 Jason Allen Senate R $31,800

11 Dick Posthumus Governor R $29,150

12 Dick Devos Governor R $28,750

13 Jeff Mayes State Representative D $27,100

14 Bruce Patterson Senate R $26,350

15 Howard Walker Senate R $25,525

16 Terry Lynn Land Secretary of State R $21,050

17 Tony Stamas Senate R $16,875

18 Kathy Angerer Senate D $16,250

19 Rosemary Black Hackett Judge – $16,000

20 John Moolenaar Senate R $15,175

(source: Michigan Common Cause)

Taking Large Volumes of Water from Waterways

Another part of Snyder’s plan to frack Michigan includes creating a council to “study how users can withdraw large volumes from waterways without doing ecological damage.”

“Frackademia” to the Rescue: U of M Fracking Study 

The studies to be produced by University of Michigan will focus on fracking “best practices” and will be a collaboration with the gas industry and groups Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council and Michigan Environmental Council, both of which are already on record as wanting fracking regulated–but not stopped. (See our post earlier this year on how Big Green groups and the gas industry colluded to promote “best practices” at the Critical Path Energy Summit in 2010; MEC’s James Clift in Detroit News “Pollution concerns, falling natural gas prices slow drilling,” May 25, 2012; and Grenetta Thomassey’s remarks in Midwest Energy News).

Also on the study’s steering committee are “stakeholders” Hal Fitch, the head regulator from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and another DEQ rep, and two representatives from the industry organization Michigan Oil and Gas Association. The Michigan DEQ, in addition to doling out the well permits to the oil and gas companies, takes in some of the profits from the production of natural gas. The agency is a partner in the industry that they regulate.

With the gas industry, the gas regulators (already in financial partnership with industry), and pro-gas enviro groups collaboratively steering the study, the university is just veneer to give the public the impression of credibility to its findings. It’s the same fatally-flawed formula used in New York state with Governor Cuomo’s frack panel. Several units at University of Michigan are part of the study, including the Graham Institute for Sustainability, Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, Risk Science Center and Energy Institute.

See: Hydraulic Fracturing in Michigan U of M study

This U of M video (below) featuring frack study researcher Brian Ellis is a good indication of where the study is heading. Note the choice of animated graphics describing the fracking process as using water and “detergents” and how professor Ellis states that water, sand, and “additives” go into and out of the frack well. This is the entity that’s going to tell the public what fracking is all about? The entire exercise is to fine-tune the regulations for continuing fracking.

It should be noted that MSU is also on board with the gas industry, with MSU Extension’s pro-gas leasing “educational” seminars and website, following in Penn State’s footsteps.

It’s all par for the course

We’ve been warned by people in other states, that this is the standard recipe for getting fracking underway and widespread throughout a state:

• Rope in a well-respected university or two in studies to come up with regulatory fine-tuning.
• Get a committee or panel of some sort that has the facade of “environmental group” buy-in (and to give the pretense that such groups represent the citizenry), when in fact it’s a few, pro-gas groups, to provide the necessary compromises on fracking regulations.
• Retain all the large legal firms.
• Have a lot of “collaboration” with the gas industry itself.
• Make the claim that this state will frack better, be safer, be different, has the best regulations.

Cutting through the hype about “best regulations” and regulationism

Regulationism is all about allowing pollution and harm and devastation to happen in the first place–just a matter of how much.

Regulating fracking is not going to prevent the global warming that now puts the entire planet in peril–regulated or unregulated fracking will only hasten it.

Regulating fracking can’t prevent the squandering of fresh water, intentionally and permanently poisoning it, and removing it from the natural hydrologic cycle. This is an era of critically diminishing supplies of fresh water in the US and around the world. Great Lakes levels are drastically down and predicted to exceed record lows this winter, due to global warming and drought.

More grassroots organizations are forming in Michigan and joining the fight against fracking.

The October 24th protest in Lansing at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources auction of state-owned mineral rights brought more needed attention to the plight of our state and how it’s being sold off to the oil and gas industry for hydraulic fracturing and a fossil-fuel based future.

Organized by a group called Citizens Against Drilling on Public Lands, the October protest brought out individuals and groups from all over the state, including a Barry County-based group, Michigan Land Air Water Defense, which filed a lawsuit against the Michigan DNR that day to protect state game and recreation areas in Barry and Allegan Counties. Protesters made a stand both inside and outside the auction. Seven people were arrested and jailed. We applaud both actions and the courageous people who took a stand against the selling of our state, and to the new group Michigan Land Air Water Defense for their important lawsuit against the DNR. Ban Michigan Fracking was there as were petition circulators for the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan.

Coverage of the event is here:

Lansing City Pulse: “Frack This”

GRIID: “DNR land auction met with resistance in Lansing”

Lansing State Journal: “7 arrested while protesting fracking at Lansing Center”

Earth First News: “5 Charged with Felonies in Michigan Fracking Protest”

In These Times: “Michiganders fight fracking on state land”

Michigan Radio: “Worried about fracking, citizens group sues the DNR”
Michigan Land Air Water Defense

Video of the protest

This was not the first time the State auctioned off mineral rights to the oil and gas companies. Since the advent of the new horizontal hydraulic fracturing technique, similar auctions in 2010, 2011 and in May 2012 netted the state millions of dollars in royalties and many thousands of acres were auctioned. (See DNR’s Oi & Gas Lease Auction website and the DNR Mineral Lease Information Maps for each county. Much of the recently-auctioned land is destined for deep horizontal hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

Public Land, Private Land

While the focus of the protest was on the selling of state-owned lands, mineral rights under private land was also auctioned off by the DNR that day. An Ogemaw County resident, who owns an 80-acre farm, but not the mineral rights below the surface, asked the DNR if he could buy his mineral rights. He was told no because they were being auctioned off, nor could he attend the auction and buy them. They were sold out from under him for $10/acre. The fate of his 80-acre farm is now in the hands of the oil and gas industry.

To understand more of the full picture of just how much of Michigan is going to be fracked, one has to realize that  public land (state parks, state forests, other publicly-owned lands such as county and township parks) and privately-owned land whereby the landowners do not own their mineral rights, have been auctioned off by the State for drilling.

Many landowners do not realize that the “rights” to what’s below the surface of their property, may not belong to them. Before the movie Gasland appeared, the documentary Split Estate portrayed this phenomenon and how families in the West are devastated by oil and gas drilling, while the gas and oil industry ravages their land, water and air.

See the Split Estate trailer

How much land is there in Michigan?

According to the MSU Planning and Zoning Center, there are 37 million acres of land in Michigan. Fifty-four percent of that is forested, 30% is agricultural and 6% is urbanized. 7.5 million acres, or about 20% is comprised of state and federal forests. The DNR is responsible for 4.3 million acres of state land. Another 24.5 million acres are owned by thousands of private landowners, who may or may not own the rights to the minerals below the surface. The Michigan House of Representatives issued a bi-partisan report in March 2012, Natural Gas Subcommittee Report on Energy and Job Creation, which reveals the State of Michigan controls 6 million acres of mineral rights. The House Subcommittee urges the State to “lease or lose” them. Doing the math, it seems that 1.7 million acres of private land–like the 80-acre farm in Ogemaw County–are in control of the State. But that’s not all.

Compulsory (Forced) Pooling

Even if you are one of the landowners of Michigan’s privately-owned 24.5 million acres of land, if you held out and did not sell off your mineral rights, in Michigan you can get fracked under your land anyway by being compulsorily forced into a “pool” by the DEQ. Investigative reporters at ProPublica did a state-by-state comparison of all the states’ forced pooling laws.  Michigan’s compulsory pooling law (MCL 324.304) allows the State to force landowners who refuse to sign leases with the gas and oil companies into drilling units against their will. When landowners take it to court to prevent the forced pool, DEQ Assistant Supervisor of Wells, Hal Fitch, is the Lone Decider. Here’s one example of a case in Kearney Township in Antrim County.

Regretting your decision to lease?

And then there are the people who have already sold off their mineral rights to the frackers, and may regret their decision. We urge landowners who are now thinking twice to contact us about starting a group like Fleased (www.fleased.org), landowners in New York state who now are fighting the gas industry to get out of their leases.

Don’t own your mineral rights?

You may be able to buy back your mineral rights from the State, but as the DNR website states, there are no guarantees it can or will.

Earlier auctions in Michigan

Earlier this year, Reuters reported on how energy giants Chesapeake Energy and Encana colluded to keep auction prices low (Encana tipped off Chesapeake to land plans in Michigan, July 11, 2012). Encana is currently fracking Michigan, while landowners who signed up with Chesapeake have sued that company for reneging on leases. (See: Northern Express, Natural Gas Blues: lawsuits abound a year after the boom went bust, August 19, 2011; Forbes,  Chesapeake bid-rigging scandal could be the final blow for McClendon and Rolling Stone, The big fracking bubble: the scam behind Aubrey McClendon’s gas boom, March 1, 2012). By September, Encana did an internal investigation and declared itself innocent (See: Shaleshock Media: Encana: the hens are safe). There is an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and the Michigan attorney general. (Note: Attorney general Bill Schuette received over $59,000 in campaign donations from the frack industry according to Michigan Common Cause).

The fracking of our public forests, parks and state land

Already the State of Michigan is conducting fracking operations in our state forests. New York’s forests were defended against fracking in a lawsuit brought against the state of New York by some residents and a watershed group in Croton Watershed v NYDEC

. In their suit, they declared “that industrializing State Forests with the newly proposed natural gas extraction process known as High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing (HVHHF) is contrary to the enabling legislation authorizing the purchase of lands for State Forests and is inconsistent with the responsible stewardship of State Forests, sustainability and policies of New York State as set forth in the State Constitution, Environmental Conservation Law (ECL), and Common Law Public Trust Doctrine.” The Croton Watershed group obtained a court ruling that the case is a constitutional issue, and so far, New York has prohibited any drilling.

Michigan Land Air Water Defense‘s lawsuit against the state is very exciting, and many Michigan voters will be following it closely.

The drill rig at the Excelsior wells on Sunset Trail in the Mackinaw State Forest, Kalkaska County. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

Yes, that’s right

. It costs these multi-national gas/frack companies just $300 to apply for a frack well permit. But when Ban Michigan Fracking asked the Michigan DEQ for copies of documents so that the public can find out what happened in the 40,068-gallon frack fluid disaster spread out on roadways, in a Freedom of Information Act request, DEQ asked us to cough up $476.

Would you like to know what happened to all that frack waste?

We would and we’d like to provide the documents to the public. Please help us by donating to Ban Michigan Fracking today and help us uncover some of the facts.

Last week, Ban Michigan Fracking reported the 40,000+ gallon frack fluid disaster to the National Response Center operated by the US Coast Guard, and also to the Environmental Protection Agency.

See our Report to EPA and our incident report to the National Response Center.

What We Requested of the DEQ

September 13, 2012

FOIA Request

To: The DEQ and DNR

From: LuAnne Kozma, Ban Michigan Fracking, 9330 Boyne City Road, Charlevoix, MI 49720

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I request the following information regarding the well called State Excelsior 1-25 HD1, permit 60389:

All correspondence and reports, field notes, photographs, site evaluations and other materials including emails and phone notes between, to or from members of either department and all other parties including but not limited to: corporations, persons, governmental entities or departments, road commissions, the EPA, other Michigan state employees or elected officials, first responder units and public health authorities regarding the frack fluids at the Excelsior 1-25 HD1 well during the period commencing with the approval of the well’s permit to today’s date, September 13, 2012.

Records regarding the quantity of frack fluids removed from the well between May 14 and June 13, 2012.

Records showing the quantities of brine/flowback and locations in the state in which this brine/flowback was stored, received, and used (ie, flowback materials) for application on roads,  approval of which was granted by DEQ and then revoked.

All records and correspondence regarding cleanup activities DEQ has done to remediate areas that received the flowback from Excelsior 1-25 HD1.

All MSDW [sic] sheets regarding this well.

Please inform me of any and all costs of this FOIA request prior to making electronic copies.

I request that charges be waived because our organization is acting in the public interest.

Sincerely,

LuAnne Kozma

9330 Boyne City Road

Charlevoix, MI 49720

The DEQ’s charges for the FOIA?

9 hours of professional staff time @ $25.80 per hour = $232.20

5 hours of clerical staff time @ $20.40 per hour = $102.00

373 copies @ $.38 per page = $141.74

Grand Total : $476.00

Plaintiffs in the case against the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality over treating frack wells as injection wells continued the lawsuit by appealing the case to the Michigan Court of Appeals. (Download the Leave to Appeal.)

Attorney Ellis Boal filed the appeal on behalf of plaintiffs Deanna Hughes and Heather Schiele, residents who were threatened by a Devon Energy well in Gladwin County, and Ban Michigan Fracking on October 16, 2012.

See an earlier post about the lawsuit here.

Judge William E. Collette of Ingham County Circuit Court rejected plaintiffs’ claims on September 25. (Collette Decision)

The case began in April when plaintiffs filed an administrative petition to the DEQ asking for a declaration that every frack well, whether vertical or horizontal, is an “injection well,” as that term is defined and as frack wells are defined by the DEQ itself

.

One would think so, since a frack operator injects huge amounts of water and chemicals into each well, and a significant part of it remains disposed in the frack well.

The legal definition of “injection well” includes “a well used to inject water, gas, air, brine, or other fluids for the purpose of increasing the ultimate recovery of hydrocarbons from a reservoir…. ”  It also includes disposal wells.

All facts in the case are uncontested.

Before filing, plaintiffs went to several industry experts, including one who is the American Petroleum Institute’s top expert, with the DEQ present.  Without hesitation the experts confirmed that a frack well fits the DEQ wording of an injection well.

One result of a DEQ declaration would be that certain of the chemicals injected would have to be disclosed before drilling starts, which would make baseline water testing by nearby landowners easier and cheaper.  Another would be restrictions on the fracking process itself, including a limit on the pressure.

The industry was invited to participate in the case.  It declined, preferring to let the DEQ carry the ball.

The DEQ sat on the petition beyond the rules’ 60-day time limit, after which DEQ director Dan Wyant wrote, rejecting plaintiffs’ position.  Plaintiffs sued.  The judge deferred to Wyant’s ruling.

The appeal to the court of appeals raises two basic issues:

1.  Whether a court should discard the deference it traditionally accords to an agency’s interpretation of its rules, when the agency refused to abide by its own time limit.

2.  Whether under the facts above the court declare that a frack well is an injection well.

Part of the suit was to rescind DEQ frack permits issued since April when the petition was first filed.  Specifically the suit tried to stop two of Encana’s giant wells on Sunset Trail in Kalkaska County in the Mackinaw State Forest, one of which recently set a state record for depth.  The case of the Sunset Trail wells will be moot by whenever the court of appeals rules.  But if it rules favorably, any frack permits pending at the time will be automatically in violation.

Michigan does not have a Halliburton loophole in its rules.  But the DEQ has fashioned one anyway, which it is not allowed to do.  Ban Michigan Fracking is for a fracking ban, not simply better regulations.  But the suit puts the agency on the run by exposing how it has bent over backward to protect the industry, which won’t protect itself, instead of the public. Frack wells are indeed injection wells, injecting millions of gallons of fluids and for permanent disposal for some of that frack waste.

We see the problem of fracking and the tremendous amounts of frack wastes it produces clearly, particularly in the ongoing episode of the 954 barrels  (that’s 40,000+ gallons, or nearly two tanker cars!) of frack flowback wastes recently spewed onto Michigan roads as permitted by the DEQ this past May and June. That frack flowback waste came from two Encana horizontal frack wells in the Mackinaw State Forest. 

And how do people living near frack wells stand a chance against an agency like the DEQ?

We need to BAN FRACKING and expose this entire fascade of “regulations” that “protect” us.

A deep horizontal frack well in a backyard in Ogemaw County. Photo by LuAnne Kozma. Copyright 2012 by Ban Michigan Fracking.

On Michigan’s “Global Frackdown Day”, do something meaningful.

For “Global Frackdown Day,” Michigan activists can do something symbolic.  Or they can take real, meaningful action that will lead to actually banning fracking.

High-volume shale gas fracking has started here.  As of the end of August the DEQ had issued 40 permits.  Pennsylvania already has 3000 deep frack wells, and Michigan is headed the same way unless we stop it.

The legislature and governor are not about to ban fracking, and they are busy leasing off more acres for fracking or crafting bills that simply regulate fracking, so the only way to get a statewide ban is with an end-run, state constitutional amendment.

The 3-sentence amendment would ban horizontal fracking in the state, as well as disposal of frack waste.  Read the exact wording here.

Make the commitment to work with a group of friends to collect 2,000 signatures to amend the state constitution with Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan.

The campaign needs 100 groups or more to commit to collect 2,000 signatures each, in the next month, to make it to 400,000 signatures by November 6th.  Over a single weekend, a group of ten people can easily collect that many signatures at a busy festival or event.

Collecting signatures on the Mackinac Bridge on Labor Day.

Can you spare a day or two of your time to ban fracking in Michigan and get a BAN that can stand the test of time?

Getting out to an event and asking strangers to sign a petition to ban fracking is an exhilarating experience. It gets you talking with people face to face, voter to voter. It is democracy in action. As we petition, we find people who have never heard of fracking and people who do know and are quick to sign.

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is a state ballot question committee.  The amendment petition has been approved by the State Board of Canvassers. There is a 180-day window to collect signatures to place it on the 2014 ballot.  The window closes on November 6, Election Day, after which the Committee will collate and organize the signature sheets and deliver them to Lansing.

Many groups talk the talk of a ban.  But Ban Michigan Fracking walks the walk.  We wrote the amendment language and formed the state ballot question committee, Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan. We do not support efforts such as the various frack reform bills introduced in the Michigan House this year, which attempt to regulate the practice and make fracking “safe.”

Fracking cannot be done safely no matter how well it is regulated, and the regulations in Michigan are weak to begin with

.

So let’s do something effective to BAN FRACKING IN MICHIGAN. Take action now.  Sign up to circulate petitions by contacting a coordinator near you at:  www.LetsBanFracking.org

BREAKING NEWS (September 18, 2012, 12 midnight)

News that over 40,000 gallons of dangerous, toxic frack fluids from a northern Michigan horizontal frack well in Kalkaska County,  (Excelsior 1-25 HD1), were approved by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in May for use on Michigan roads as “brine” is slowly leaking to Ban Michigan Fracking and other activists through a series of emails and phone calls.

A wet, recently "brined," machine-applied Sunset Trail in Mackinaw State Forest, during the hot dry summer of 2012 nearby the Excelsior deep frack well, the source of the frack fluid.

Two letters by DEQ senior geologist Ray Vugrinovich, provided to Ban Michigan Fracking last week, addressed to a company called Team Services LLC indicate that he evaluated the test results of a sample of what he calls “brine” from the Excelsior 1-25 HD 1 well and approved it for dust and ice control on Michigan roads on May 14, 2012.

A month later on June 13, 2012, the DEQ realized its error and revoked its permission, stating:

“Since that time it has come to my attention the well is still producing so-called flowback water from hydraulic fracturing. Because of the unknown composition of the flow back water, the uncertainty regarding impacts to soil, groundwater and surface water, of the compounds used during hydraulic fracturing, use of brine [sic] from the State Excelsior 1-25 HD-1 must be discontinued immediately. Brine from the well that has been moved to a central holding site prior to use must be disposed of by injection into a disposal well.”  — Ray Vugrinovich, DEQ Senior Geologist, revoking permission he gave Team Services LLC a month prior, allowing massive use of flowback wastes on Michigan surface roads and landscapes

In an email,(1)  DEQ’s Rick Henderson admitted that 954 bbls of frack fluids from two Excelsior wells were taken from the frack well during a two-week period and used on roads:

“Yes. Between 5/30/12 and 6/13/12 954 bbls of flow back water & brine from the Excelsior 1-25HD1 and the Excelsior 1-13HD1 were applied to roads.” — Rick Henderson, DEQ

How much is 954 bbls (barrels) of frack fluid??

1 bbl is 1 barrel or 42 gallons

954 bbls x 42 gallons = 40,068 GALLONS 

Picture this, as we did, of railroad tanker cars hauling water from NY to PA to frack in PA: One tanker car holds about 24,000 gallons of water.

Consider the magnitude of this spill:

NEARLY TWO TANKER CARS OF FRACK FLUIDS WERE DUMPED ON MICHIGAN’S LANDSCAPE and DEQ is to blame.

Where’d it all go? We demand to know! Here’s a list of approved “brines” from oil and gas wells, obtained through the DEQ:

BrineListApproved2012

Ban Michigan Fracking sent a request to the DEQ, through the Freedom of Information Act, demanding more information about this disastrous, permitted dumping of toxic frack fluids, including records of any clean up the DEQ has done, and where all the 40,000+ gallons of toxic frack fluids has been strewn.

In her remarks to the Natural Resources Commission on September 13, LuAnne Kozma reported on BMF’s FOIA request and demanded an investigation of the incident.

Environmental Impact ALERT–Water Supplies and Human Health Threatened

Ban Michigan Fracking urges all residents, commercial property owners, farmers and others concerned about the damage of the 40,000-gallons of frack fluids to human health and the environment to document the damage and test your water supplies, streams, lakes, soil, crops and animals. Test your families. Report illnesses to your doctors. (See House Bill 5565 on the impending threat to gag medical personnel prohibiting them from revealing frack chemicals, even to patients).

Dr. Ron Bishop, of NY state, a chemist who has written extensively about the dangers of frack fluid, states: “Some chemicals in ubiquitous use for shale gas exploration and production, or consistently present in flowback fluids, constitute human health and environmental hazards when present in extremely low concentrations.” (Risk Assessment of Natural Gas Extraction, p.2) Bishop’s list of chemicals are a good guide for testing

. Go to an independent lab, not one associated with state government.

1. On September 17, 2012 DEQ operations chief Rick Henderson wrote to JoAnne Beemon of Don’t Frack Michigan in answer to her question:

“Was any of the brine from Excelsior 1-25 HD-1 applied to the road?”

“Yes. Between 5/30/12 and 6/13/12 954 bbls of flow back water & brine from the Excelsior 1-25HD1 and the Excelsior 1-13HD1 were applied to roads.”

Many people are surprised, horrified and then outraged when they learn that Michigan, in the heart of the Great Lakes, is being fracked by horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

Forty deep frack well applications have been permitted so far* representing 36 different wells. How many hundreds and thousands are to come?

*As of 8/27/2012. See the DEQ’s list of High Volume Hydraulically Fractured Well Completion Active Permits and Applications

Michigan is in the “exploratory” stage now, but all indicators–from rampant leasing of mineral rights to the widening of roads and seismic testing, forested lands being clearcut prior to any frack applications, and the establishment of “man camps”–point to a plan for an ever-increasing network of deep horizontal frack wells to come throughout the Lower Peninsula.

To BAN and prohibit this new kind of horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the state, members of BMF started a ballot question committee, “Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan” to amend the state constitution. Go to the committee’s website at:www.LetsBanFracking.org to find how you can get involved in this effort before the November election.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality repeats the industry claim that fracking has been going on “for decades” to reassure us that nothing is amiss. However, the new High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing, (HVHHF) or unconventional horizontal drilling for “natural” gas, now called simply fracking, that has been devastating the nation and places throughout the world, is new and is currently threatening all of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. To understand the industry’s and government regulators’ PR spin, see the documentary “Unearthed: The Fracking Facade” here:

The frackers are drilling in the Utica and Collingwood shale and the A-1 Carbonate layer in Michigan. The frack wells are located in Antrim, Cheboygan, Crawford, Gladwin, Hillsdale, Kalkaska, Missaukee, Montmorency, Osceola, Ogemaw, and Roscommon Counties in the Lower Peninsula.

THOUSANDS more to come

Midland Daily News reported on September 13 that Encana alone has identified 1,700 deep frack well sites in Michigan in the Utica Collingwood shale on the 430,000 acres they have leased for fracking.

Eighteen applications for new well permits the DEQ has in hand are also from Ionia and Crawford Counties in addition to the counties listed above.

Leases for state-owned mineral rights have been auctioned off in many more counties including Barry, Oakland and Washtenaw Counties.

Despite hype from the industry and compliant, business-oriented media that the gas industry has slackened or slowed or “drooped” or “fizzled” (those are all the headlines), the DEQ is on a steady march to approve frack well after frack well.

Where are Michigan’s Horizontal Frack Wells?

Antrim County

Antrim County’s State Mancelona 1-28 HD1 and 1-31 HD1 are just two of the frack wells here. Another State Mancelona application is pending.

Cheboygan County

This is the site of one of the first Collingwood-Utical shale wells, Kendall 1-27 HD1. “Man camps” are planned for Cheboygan and Kalkaska Counties to bring in fracking crews presumably from out of state.

Gladwin County

In the middle of the state the frack industry is going after a layer called the A-1 Carbonate. The wells in Gladwin, Ogemaw, and Roscommon, Ionia Counties are the locations of the A-1 carbonate frack wells. The danger of H2S, deadly hydrogen sulfide gas leaks plague people in Gladwin County and other areas.

Kalkaska County

In Kalkaska County it’s our state forests that are being used for the fracking industry’s Michigan experiment. The city of Kalkaska is the home of the Roughnecks ice hockey team and a Halliburton outpost. The State Excelsior wells in the Mackinaw State Forest now have a huge drilling rig (see photo above), a frack well flowline, and processing station. Didn’t you think our state forests were supposed to be for forestry, watershed management, wildlife, fisheries, and recreation?

See this video taken in September 2012 of our once beautiful state forest land.
Footage of State Excelsior frack wells & drill rig

Hillsdale, Jackson and Lenawee Counties (The Irish Hills area)

The vacation land known as the “Irish Hills” is known for its many lakes and rolling landscape. In less than two years, the area became the home of 42 conventional wells for oil and gas. Forty more wells are planned. Some of the wells go under the local lakes

. Huge metal silos dot the landscape with gigantic flares burning off the methane that the companies, which are after the oil, feel free to burn off into the atmosphere, where residents and animals are breathing its toxic fumes, and heating up the planet. With the Collingwood-Utica shale layer being directly below these soon-to-be 82 wells, deep horizontal frack wells are just a matter of time. Dr. Chris Grobbel presented a program to the community warning them of this danger. (See Resources menu for Grobbel’s presentation)

Four horizontal frack wells have been permitted in Hillsdale County. We are still acquiring information about these wells. Please contact us if you can share photos or information.

Three new Class II injection wells are also planned for this area. The DEQ already approved these permits and the EPA recently held a hearing, and are expected to rubber stamp the approval of these permits soon.

The Detroit Free Press did an article about the area earlier this year:

Oil boom fears flow in pristine Irish Hills | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Missaukee County

The well that started the land rush for mineral rights in Michigan is the State Pioneer 1-3 HD1 well, located in a state forest, drilled by EnCana.

Photo by LuAnne Kozma. Copyright by Ban Michigan Fracking.

Ogemaw County

Devon Energy has drilled and fracked this deep frack well called David’s Acres on Henderson Lake Road. It is also in the A-1 Carbonate layer.

David's Acres frack well in Ogemaw County, on Henderson Road. Ogemaw County is considered a new hot spot for fracking in Michigan and more wells are on the way.

Roscommon County

Roscommon has one frack well permitted, State Richfield 1-34 HD1, and another, State Roscommon 1-8 HD1, applied for, both by Devon Energy. The State Richfield site, along Campground Road in the state forest, had been totally cleared of trees, and the county road commission approved the widening of the road, paid for by Devon Energy, before an application was filed with the DEQ. And this with a state with “great” regulations.

You can see how regulations are not the answer to this problem.
They ARE the problem.

MORE TO COME SOON IN THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES:

Oakland County

Barry County

Kent County

Yours?

Please contact us at info@banmichiganfracking dot org to tell us about possible fracking, leasing, injection wells, or other concerns.

Update 9/19/2012: Oral argument was had before Judge William Collette in Ingham County Circuit Court today. A decision is expected soon.

DEQ’s response brief

Plaintiffs’ reply brief

Ban Michigan Fracking together with individual plaintiffs Deanna Hughes and Heather Schiele, who live nearby a horizontal frack well in Gladwin County, sued the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) this week in Ingham County Circuit Court to force the DEQ to treat all frack wells as injection wells, to revoke the permits issued to Encana for the frack wells called Excelsior 2-25 HD1 and 3-25 HD1 and any other permits issued to Devon or any other company since the petition was filed, and suspend the granting of any new permits until the judge’s ruling.

One of the three State Excelsior wells in Mackinaw State Forest in Kalkaska County on Sunset Trail. Photo by LuAnne Kozma. Copyright by Ban Michigan Fracking.

VIDEO: Footage of State Excelsior frack wells & drill rig

First the plaintiffs had filed an administrative request in April for a declaratory ruling to the DEQ  asking the agency to treat frack wells statewide as injection wells, and to suspend issuing all Michigan frack permits while it decides the petition

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In response to the administrative request, on June 28 DEQ head Dan Wyant untimely rejected the petition.

The plaintiffs moved this week for summary disposition. The judge will hear the case on the merits on September 19, 2012 in the Ingham County court in Mason, Michigan.

See: Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Disposition.

The suit offers factual evidence that the gas industry agrees a frack well is an injection well, so the DEQ should too.

A favorable ruling would mean applicants for frack wells would have to provide data, among other things, about the chemical analysis of the types of fluids to be injected.  The data would have to be provided at the time of the application. While that data would provide nearby landowners some information so that they can do  baseline water testing, the DEQ rules, as this lawsuit proves, are so weak and don’t even compare to the industry’s own recommendations to test for the carcinogenic compounds such as BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Xylene), Dielsel Range Organics (DRO), Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), and Dissolved Methane, among other compounds.

Hughes and Schiele live in Sherman Township, Gladwin County, where Devon Energy is beginning horizontal fracking in the A-1 Carbonate layer, a bit shallower than Utica-Collingwood.

Documents:

Request for Declaratory Ruling

Affidavit by Ellis Boal

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 4

Exhibit 5

Exhibit 6

Exhibit 7

Exhibit 8

Exhibit 9

Exhibit 10

Exhibit 11

Affidavit by Guy Bradmon

Letter of DEQ chief Dan Wyant

Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Disposition

The statewide ballot initiative by the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan to amend the Michigan state constitution continues past the original July deadline. Signatures are now being gathered in the six-month period ending on Election Day, November 6, 2012

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This would place the proposed amendment on the ballot in the next statewide election in 2014.

More people are needed to circulate petitions. We urge you to join in this important effort by pledging as small groups of individuals to gather 2,000 signatures. Michigan registered voters can sign the petitions at various locations and events around the state. Volunteer here.

The campaign’s video features Canadian scientist Jessica Ernst, who is suing Encana, with a warning and hopeful message for Michigan voters:

The ballot initiative poses a serious threat to the fracking industry. Energy In Depth, the industry’s public relations spin machine, takes its first aim at the anti-frack movement in Michigan at the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan in its inaugural article about Michigan. EID states that the amendment’s powerful language, “if enacted, could easily rule out most new natural gas development in Michigan – whether from “shale” or not.” Quoting the amendment, EID leaves out the important second sentence of the 3-sentence amendment defining horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The slickwater horizontal frack industry in Michigan is indeed going after non-shale deposits (the A-1 Carbonate layer), as well as the Collingwood/Utica shale layer, which is why the amendment reads as it does–to prevent deep horizontal hydraulic fracturing statewide.

Energy In Depth distorts Michigan election law in many ways, calling the Committee’s petition invalid. Pretty laughable, but that’s what you can expect from Energy in Depth.

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan explains the deadline and signature-gathering process here:

http://letsbanfracking.org/Update-on-new-deadline.html

Next, Energy in Depth is going to try to persuade Michigan residents that fracking is good for our people, our children and our beautiful state, by showing its heartwarming propaganda movie called  “Truthland” and peppering the crowd with people wearing “I Heart Fracking” buttons. See “EID expands outreach to Michigan.” Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, please visit a frack well site near you and see for yourself: is this what we want for Michigan?

Frack equipment at the frack well site called State Richfield 1-34 HD, taking aim to frack away. Photo by LuAnne Kozma. July 2012.

Would you welcome this frack well near your home? This is the cleared pad for State Richfield 1-34 HD, to be fracked by Devon Energy. The intended formation underground is called A-1 Carbonate. A massive network of wells like this will proliferate in Michigan if we do not ban fracking. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.