Look before you lease your land for drilling
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”
This quote by James Madison is a great example of how our founding fathers understood that ownership of private property provides the foundation for prosperity and freedom. So they protected property rights – the right to freely purchase, to use, to manage and to dispose of it – through the Constitution with help from the Fifth Amendment. As a result Americans enjoy the privilege of landownership on a level most of this planet’s inhabitants could only dream of.
But what do Constitutional rights about property have to do with activity in Ohio’s Utica Shale? Simply put: if you are a landowner and own mineral rights, then you have some important decisions to make in regard to whether or not to lease your property.
Our founding fathers ensured we had the right to own property; they couldn’t ensure we would use the right wisely or be good stewards of our property. And they certainly couldn’t prevent others from trying to mislead or take advantage of our right.
I support the development of the Utica Shale in Ohio as long as the lease is with a reputable oil and gas company and there are stringent provisions in each lease to protect the land and water. Here’s why: as a nation we must increase our domestic sources of energy. If we don’t our children and future generations will be serving those who do.
There is no silver bullet capable of providing us with the domestic energy this country will need to prosper but there is a silver buckshot. Part of that silver buckshot is the oil and gas contained in the Utica Shale.
Because of the material’s exposure to heat in the Earth’s core, the depth of the Utica Shale decreases as it extends west into Ohio. Toward the Pennsylvania border the shale contains what is referred to as “dry gas” play. To the east of I-77 it turns into “wet gas” play; to the west of I-77 it simply becomes “oil” play. With natural gas prices plummeting from an increase in supply, there has been a shift of interest from the wet gas to the oil. Holmes, Wayne and Coshocton counties fall into the “oil” play category.
Permits had been issued to 51 Utica Shale wells in Ohio as of Dec. 1, 2011 with additional permits filed weekly. Eight wells were being drilled or had already been drilled. Reports of drilled wells by companies such as Chesapeake, LLC are mind blowing. Even if the reports were exaggerated to trump foreign investors, as some local oil and gas producers suspect, the potential amount of oil and gas from these early wells has caught the attention of some major North American companies making them eager to cash in on the play.
Landsmen representing oil and gas companies already have begun to arrive in Holmes, Wayne and Coshocton counties. Their job is simple: pound on as many doors as possible to get landowners to act impulsively, leasing their land for the lowest price possible. Initially the offers they make may sound enticing but the verbiage in such leases will do little to protect the current and future landowners who will be bound to the lease for decades to come.
If you haven’t signed a lease and are contemplating doing so, or even if your property is held by production, I encourage you to join your local landowners association. At the very least, seek professional legal advice before committing to anything.
Bob Hunter, KWLT Trustee
Toxic fluid storage needs closer monitoring
The disposal of toxic liquids safely – isolating them for the long term from our environment – has long been a problem for society. Pumping the fluid through a well bore into a deeply buried, porous rock formation for permanent storage has been one solution commonly used by geologists and engineers for many years.
In most cases the fluid is pumped under great pressure down a steel pipe in an abandoned oil well, forced into the porous formation for storage at depths of thousands of feet. To prevent the fluid from leaking into overlying water-bearing strata and causing pollution, cement is forced between the steel pipe and the sold rock wall creating an effective seal. If done properly this can be a safe, cost-effective solution for permanent storage.
Two classes of failure are associated with this technique of storage. Most commonly, the cement bonding in the well bore fails and toxic fluid can leak upwards to areas of lower pressures, polluting ground water. Disposal wells are monitored by state inspectors to see that they meet safety standards for fluid isolation and any cement failure can quickly be identified and remedied. In rare instances the pressure used to force toxic fluid into the storage layer is excessive and breaks the rock particles apart, destroying the cohesiveness of the layer so overlying strata can shift slightly. The shifting is noticed as local, small earthquakes that are not destructive. Correcting this problem involves the immediate cessation of fluid injection and then perhaps pumping out some of the overpressured liquid for storage elsewhere. This long-used technique of fluid storage should continue to be used but monitored more closely. Other systems of storage are prohibitively expensive and will inevitably increase the cost of oil.
Dr. Samuel Root,
Retired Professor of Geology
The College of Wooster
