Warren looks into selling water for fracking
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The city, which has begun to earn revenue from the treatment of frack water from oil and gas exploration in the region, also is making preparations to sell the “raw” water the companies use.
“Raw” means untreated.
Bob Davis, director of the city’s water department, told city council’s finance committee he has been approached by a hauling company that would like to obtain untreated water from the city to haul to sites where drilling companies can use it in the hydraulic- fracturing process used to mine natural gas and oil.
Davis said the company that inquired would like to obtain about 500,000 gallons of water per month, which would provide the city with revenue of about $20,000 to $25,000 per year.
Warren City Council was expected Wednesday to approve emergency legislation to allow city officials to enter into an agreement as early as January to begin to provide the water.
Doug Franklin, Warren safety-service director and incoming mayor, said he thinks there will be other companies also interested in obtaining the water.
Davis said it wouldn’t be possible to allow the haulers to remove the water directly from Mosquito Lake, the city’s water source.
Instead, the city will need to install equipment that will provide haulers an access point at the water department on Elm Road where haulers could load the water themselves and use a “swipe card” to pay for it.
Davis said he’s hopeful that the equipment and agreements will be in place so that the haulers can begin using the city’s water by April.
Patriot Water Treatment LLC of Warren is accepting low-salinity, high total- dissolved-solids wastewater resulting from the hydraulic-fracturing process used by oil and gas drillers. It’s the only facility in Ohio doing this.
After Patriot treats the water, it is released into the sanitary sewers, which send it to the city’s water- treatment plant, which further treats it.
The city’s current permit, which allows it to accept treated water from Patriot, is set to expire at the end of January.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has said it will not allow the city to accept the water on the basis that “brine,” in its broad definition, cannot be disposed of through water- treatment plants.