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Ohio attorney general’s decision threatens future of Patriot Water
By Karl Henkel
WARREN
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine dealt a blow Tuesday to Patriot Water Treatment, LLC, that could put the nearly 1-year-old company out of business.
Former Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Chris Korleski, who worked under former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, illegally issued Warren a brine water permit last year, DeWine said.
He also said that Patriot’s permit also was not issued legally.
The ruling does not mean Patriot, the only brine wastewater-treatment plant in the state, has to cease operations immediately, but the fate of both permits now rests in the hands of the Ohio Environmental Review Appeals Commission. If ERAC agrees with Dewine’s decision, Ohio EPA Director Scott Nally could decide to revoke either permit, effectively disrupting Patriot’s business model and putting it out of business.
“It is my determination that the permits issued previously did not have a basis in the law,” DeWine said.
“The safety of Ohio’s water is too important to put at risk as most wastewater treatment plants don’t currently have the proper technology for adequately treating fracking fluids.”
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a process in which water, chemicals and sand are blasted through pipes into rocks thousand of feet below the ground to unlock natural gas and oil.
Patriot has been receiving water used in fracking, treating it, and then sending it to the city of Warren’s wastewater treatment plant.
Patriot disagreed with the decision.
“In terms of Patriot’s water cleaning process, neither the Attorney General nor OEPA director Scott Nally have ever set foot in our facility, so we feel they are unable to understand or assess what we do,” said Andrew Blocksom, president of Patriot.
The company, which has purchased land in East Liverpool and Steubenville in hopes of building plants similar to the one in Warren, believes the permits were issued within the limits of the law.
Ohio law states that brine may be disposed of by one of only three methods: underground injection, surface application on roads for dust control and ice or any other method approved by the chief of the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management for testing or implementation of a new technology or method of disposal.
Patriot’s plant cannot qualify as a “new technology,” despite the fact it’s the only wastewater treatment plant in Ohio, said Chris Abbruzzese of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
“Patriot’s process is the first of its kind in Ohio and therefore, by definition, innovative,” Blocksom said.
DeWine’s ruling stated that “disposal of brine wastewater through a treatment plant and discharge to waters of the state is not an authorized matter of disposal.”
It could become an “authorized matter” if the chief of the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management approves it.
But DeWine and the Ohio EPA remain steadfast that Patriot will have to find another way to dispose of treated water by January 2012, when the city’s brine-water permit expires, or sooner, should the ERAC act in the next two months.
“Options are available to Patriot to properly dispose of brine under Ohio law, but sending brine water to a wastewater treatment facility is not one of them,” Nally said.
“Under Gov. [John] Kasich’s administration, Ohio EPA has tried for the past 10 months, and will continue to try, to give Patriot the flexibility necessary to operate their business, but disposing of oil and gas brine into the waters of our state is not going to be tolerated.”