Ban Michigan Fracking . Photo by Lu. Anne Kozma.
By Lu. Anne Kozma and Ellis Boal. DEQ’s request to EPA to be in sole charge of the state’s class II. The writer of the card says of Flint on the back, “This is a beautiful clean city.” Postcard courtesy Lu. Anne Kozma. While the State of Michigan was blowing off the entire community of Flint’s complaints about. Environmental Protection Agency to be in complete control over the state’s toxic waste injection wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act. If EPA approves the State’s application, it. The water has high levels of chlorides (thought to be partly the result of road salt), making it highly corrosive, and which resulted in eating up the pipes and the leaching of lead into the public water supply.
See www. flintwaterstudy. Targeted also could be EPA officials in Chicago, including Region 5’s former director Susan Hedman. Both Wyant and Hedman have resigned in disgrace over failure to enforce provisions of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
EPA illustration, in the public domain. Michigan DEQ drafted a plan in 2. In this case the subject was “class II” injection wells, wells drilled into the earth. Old oil and gas wells are sometimes pressed into service as disposal wells. The wastes going underground include the. Now DEQ is seeking what is called “primacy.” This means, DEQ would have sole power and authority over all decision making and enforcing of federal laws regarding injection wells with little EPA oversight. In November 2. 01.
DEQ circulated a “briefing report” boasting that: There are about 1. II wells in Michigan.
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And the reference to “good customer service” angers a lot of Michigan residents who want governmental protection of water resources because welive here and drink the water, not because we are paying “customers.”From EPA website 1/1. Of the 1. 28. 6 class II wells, 8. Structurally, there is no difference between a disposal well and a gas or oil well. DEQ held “public meeting,” turned it into an on- the- spot (illegal) “public hearing” and then lied about it to EPADEQ then announced a “public meeting” would be held on December 9, 2. Whether public comment would be allowed there was ambiguous, in the announcement.
When the “public meeting” started, DEQ announced to everyone’s surprise that it would hold a “public hearing” first. The two are very different, particularly in the legal requirement that a “public hearing” have advance public notice and that a formal record be made. So this “public hearing” was secret.
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With no advance notice for a . Ban Michigan Fracking. We argued there had been no proper public hearing, Michigan and EPA have different definitions of “injection well,” and DEQ had advanced no reason it should have primacy other than that it wanted the power.
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DEQ pitches the primacy plan to EPA while the two agencies cover up the Flint lead levels. But the water in Flint had turned brown and poisonous and for months people had been . It calls for DEQ and EPA to “maintain a high level of cooperation and coordination .
In September Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint published a study. DEQ’s contemptuous answer was. Michigan DEQ has no business asking for primacy over injection wells and asserting. The assumption that these toxic materials will remain safely entombed underground forever is mistaken. Anthony Ingraffea’s work in studying well casing failures shows that there is a big problem with all well structures–the cement and steel casing barriers between the drilled frack well or injection well and our aquifers. About 5% fail right after drilling, more fail later and eventually most will fail. A former industry insider.
Ingraffea commented to Ernst that industry is speeding up the cement degradation process “that used to take decades” and now takes only years. And back in 1. 98.
GAO report, Drinking Water: Safeguards are Not Preventing Contamination from Injected Oil and Gas Wells, said that most of the contaminated aquifers could not be reclaimed because fixing the damage was . When “enough” people request a public hearing of the EPA, they hold one. While EPA is predisposed to permit an application if it meets all criteria, in some instances, when a community rises up and makes a show of force at a public hearing, and other political pressure comes to bear, communities can defeat an injection well in their area, but it’s tough going.
In Fork Township in Mecosta County, the EPA held a hearing in late January. Fifty people spoke, all in opposition to the well. This well is pending and the community continues organizing to oppose it. In White Lake Township in Oakland County, residents rose up in opposition in late 2. Jordan Development. After residents inundated the township offices with calls, the company backed down prior to an EPA hearing being held and withdrew their application. Without a local notice of the pending EPA hearing, residents would never have known to complain at all.
In Summerfield Township in Monroe County, a similar story played out. Residents packed an EPA hearing in the local school auditorium in May 2. The karst topography of the area played a role in providing a substantive reason for not putting an injection well there. After sustained opposition and public pressure, as well as pending legislation in Lansing to ban injection wells in karst topography, Trendwell pulled out of the project. Regarding the DEQ having primacy and how it would have affected the outcome in Summerfield Township, township supervisor John Chandler says“We need the EPA or another set of eyes. The state rubber stamps these projects. The EPA hearing set the.
I believe it was the last trip. And DEQ would be the final word. Public hearings would be a sham. This part of the state law (MCL 3.
Michigan voters by ballot initiative. See the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s brochure at: www. Some aging wells and pipes haven’t been replaced since the 1.
Odorant is not added to gas in the Michigan fields, making it hard to detect leaks. A disaster involving thousands of evacuations like that at Porter Ranch could happen here, according to an expert quoted by MEC. MEC interviewed Hal Fitch about this. Today DEQ has exclusive authority over gas storage, so the primacy application will not affect that. Even so, Fitch’s admission belies the DEQ claim it has an “excellent” underground environmental record.
DEQ misled EPA. We obtained a copy and uploaded it to our site so anyone can review it. We were surprised to see that DEQ made no mention. January 2. 01. 2. So who should issue injection well permits? The request exposed a glaring problem: If DEQ is denied primacy then EPA Region 5 continues in command. But Region 5’s handling of what happened in Flint is just as outrageous as DEQ’s.
Citing the widely- reported history, our. Despite danger to children, the Region 5 office sounded no alarms.
Hedman claimed at first that EPA had no power to act, saying only the state could. But in fact under the federal law, the EPA. Soon top DEQ officials began resigning. A month later Hedman herself announced she would quit. Finally EPA issued an emergency order and is running the show but not from the Region 5 office in Chicago.
It’s being handled in DC. So who should be regulating Michigan’s “class II” injection wells for frack and oil/gas drilling wastes? We told Hedman: Injection permitting “should end throughout Michigan and all the states of Region 5.”In addition to Michigan, Region 5 includes Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. DEQ should withdraw the primacy application. Ohio is a state that has primacy for injection wells, with no EPA oversight. People in Ohio have been alarmed that they have been targeted as a regional center for toxic frack wastes from out of state as well as from the numerous frack wells within the state.
According to a 2. Earthworks that looked at the failures of oil and gas waste practices in four states–New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia–the two states with primacy (Ohio and WV) had the most injection wells, with about 2. New York had only 6, and Pennsylvania 1. In contrast, Michigan leads them all with. With primacy, Michigan will become even more loaded up with class II injection wells and their deadly load. A new injection disposal well .
Kowalski, Midwest Energy News, July 1. Injection wells: the poison beneath us, by Abrahm Lustgarten, Pro. Publica, June 1. 2, 2. Ban Michigan Fracking’s position is instead on a BAN: that these wastes must end and the processes that produce them must cease. Fracking and injection wells can’t really be “made better” because the fixes do not prevent harm.