Balancing risk and potential

Balancing risk and potential

Canton Repository: The economic potential of oil and gas drilling in Ohio is too big to neglect. So is the potential downside of storing wastewater from the drilling process in some deep injection wells.

Ohio has to find and maintain a balance that encourages drilling and protects the public. This will occur by relying on good science and maintaining effective government regulation and oversight.

The incidence of minor earthquakes near an injection well in Youngstown has rightly focused the attention of state officials and residents on the end result of drilling.

Millions of gallons of wastewater may be going into some wells that are not geologically compatible with storage of this brine.

The Department of Natural Resources has taken the only sensible precaution. It has shut down the well near the epicenter of the quakes and others within a five-mile radius until officials understand the situation.

Is there a need to ban drilling and underground storage of wastewater? No, because 176 injection wells have been used for wastewater storage elsewhere in Ohio for nearly 30 years without seismic problems. Clearly, something different is going on in Youngstown.

Is there a need to put more emphasis on seismic studies of well sites before the wells are created? Yes, because prevention is the best medicine.