Dayton
Daily News...
Three Ohio bills
would allow drilling for oil and natural gas
By Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Bureau
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
COLUMBUS — After several years of lobbying, Ohio’s oil and gas industry
is poised to win permission to drill on state lands but
environmentalists are sounding the alarm that it risks spills, fires
and pollution in some of the state’s prettiest natural settings.
Tom Stewart of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association said drilling on state
lands could create jobs, tap local sources of energy and generate cash
to help maintain state parks, but it’s uncertain how much of an upside
Ohio could experience.
“The only way to find that out is to drill some wells,” Stewart said.
Lawmakers are considering three bills that would allow drilling for oil
and natural gas on state-owned lands:
• The budget bill would allow drilling on Ohio’s 115,300 acres of state
parks.
• House Bill 133 would permit drilling on all state-owned lands,
including acres held by state universities and colleges.
• Senate Bill 108 also would allow drilling on state-owned lands.
It is unclear how much land is under state ownership, but the state
Department of Natural Resources alone owns roughly 600,000 acres.
Eastern Ohio has the best potential for natural gas and oil drilling,
Stewart said.
Stewart said Michigan and Pennsylvania have had state land drilling
programs for many years and have recently signed multimillion dollar
leases.
Nationally, the Obama administration is asking Congress to shorten the
time energy companies get to start drilling on public lands they lease,
as part of the government’s strategy to boost oil and gas production.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pushed a series of measures Tuesday in
testimony before a Senate panel considering drilling legislation. The
proposals expanded on plans announced by President Barack Obama over
the weekend to speed up drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, on Alaska’s
North Slope and off the Atlantic Coast.
The measures will not provide any relief from high gasoline prices, but
the Obama administration and lawmakers want to send a message that they
are doing something to ease the pain at the pump.
Republicans have responded by passing a series of bills in the House to
expedite and expand offshore oil and gas drilling, and the Senate is
scheduled to take up similar measures this week.
The Senate blocked a bill Tuesday that would repeal about $2 billion a
year in tax breaks for the five biggest oil companies, a Democratic
response to $4-a-gallon gasoline that might fare better when Congress
and the White House negotiate a deal later this year to increase the
government’s ability to borrow.
Environmental groups question safety of new drilling
Ohio DNR spokeswoman Laura Jones said contractors are poring over
county recorder records to determine where the state owns the mineral
rights and where they may already be assigned. For example, Columbia
Gas Co. owns gas storage fields in Hocking, Mohican and Malabar state
parks, she said. So far, it looks like DNR controls the rights on at
least 34,590 of the 115,300 acres of parkland.
Jennifer Miller of the Sierra Club said high volume, deep level
horizontal hydrofracking — a new technique used to force natural gas
deposits out — led to fires, water contamination and fires in
Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states.
“We are concerned that the same kinds of accidents could happen in
Ohio. There are over 50 organizations asking for a moratorium on deep
shale hydrofracking on public and private lands,” Miller said. “We
would like for Ohio to learn the lessons from other states and wait
until we know how to protect our public and our water resources.”
Jack Shaner of the Ohio Environmental Council added, “It’s a driller’s
dream. It’s a false economy. The only ones getting rich will be the
industry.”
Stewart countered that vertical and horizontal hydrofracking, which
blasts water into a well to fracture the earth and create a path for
gas and oil deposits to travel, has been used for more than 50 years.
Stewart calls House Bill 133 the most robust and well-thought out of
the three pending bills.
The bill would establish a four-member Oil and Gas Leasing Board
appointed by the governor to put drillable lands up for bid and require
state agencies to classify their lands, based on any deed restrictions
or encumbrances.
Read it at the Dayton Daily News
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