Seminar to inform residents on fracking

Seminar to inform residents on fracking

richfield village

Richfield Village residents can learn about the fracking method of oil and gas drilling at a seminar at 7 p.m. July 18 at Town Hall, 4410 W. Streetsboro Road.

Mayor Bobbie Beshara made the announcement at the June 5 Richfield Village Council meeting. Dale Arnold, of the Ohio Farmers Bureau, will speak at the seminar.

“This will be a good chance for residents and Council to learn about fracking and understand what it means,” Beshara said.

Advocates rally against fracking

COLUMBUS

Advocates against hydraulic fracturing in Ohio gathered at the Statehouse for a rally and march in support of banning the practice.

Organizers of the “Don’t Frack OH” event said they expected hundreds of people to gather for a mock demonstration of legislation being passed against hydraulic fracturing.

Hydraulic fracturing is the high- pressure oil-and-gas-drilling technique also known as fracking.

Gov. John Kasich signed into law new regulations on fracking in the Utica and Marcellus Shale formations running under sections of the state. Opponents say the practice has a negative impact on the environment.

The rally and march concluded a weekend of events that included workshops on activism against fracking.

Film gives different view on fracking

COLUMBUS

Ohio shale firms and anti-drilling activists had rival events sparked by a documentary against hydraulic fracturing.

The Ohio Energy Resource Alliance, made up of oil and gas interests in the state, screened the film “Truthland” at a Columbus science museum.

The film is a response to the 2010 HBO film “Gasland.” It has become a cult film in the growing movement against hydraulic fracturing.

The documentary by filmmaker Josh Fox features contaminated wells and illnesses as he visits regions where the shale-drilling boom is beginning.

Alliance’s “Truthland” retraces Fox’s steps and, the group says, tells a different story.

Stark State to offer class on oil-field jobs

canton

A class designed to prepare workers for jobs in eastern Ohio’s oil fields will be offered this fall at Stark State College.

It marks the beginning of what Stark State expects will be a series of programs and classes aimed at preparing workers for future jobs in the oil and gas industry.

Eventually, the college expects to open an energy center in downtown Canton where classes and training for oil field jobs will take place. The state has allocated $10 million toward developing the building.

“We’re looking at it from all aspects and trying to address the needs,” said S. Kathleen Streere, a petroleum engineer who has been named coordinator of Stark State’s oil and gas programs.

The initial class will teach “floor hand” duties to prospective workers on drilling rigs.

Stark State is working with ShaleNET, a federal grant program developed to train oil-field workers and place them with drilling companies.

ShaleNET is based in Pennsylvania and provides training through 20 community colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

Pa. officials lobby neighboring states

ALLENTOWN, PA.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration has been lobbying neighboring states to approve regulations to open the Delaware River basin to natural-gas drilling, a plan that came to a screeching halt in November when Corbett’s counterpart in Delaware said the proposal lacked sufficient public-health protections.

The state’s push to get behind Marcellus Shale gas drilling, using fracking, is an attempt to revive proposed regulations developed by the Delaware River Basin Commission.

The commission, which regulates large uses of waterlike fracking in the watershed covering the eastern third of Pennsylvania, the upper Delaware area in New York, western New Jersey and most of Delaware, has blocked the practice in the absence of its own environmental regulations.

Company withdraws plans for two wells

MANSFIELD

Preferred Fluids Management has withdrawn its proposed site plan for two 5,000-foot-deep injection wells from consideration by the city planning commission.

“It would now appear, at least with respect to Mr. [Steve] Mobley and his company, that they are no longer proceeding with their project,” Mansfield Mayor Tim Theaker and Law Director John Spon said in a news release.

“While this withdrawal appears to be a city victory over a company that sought to inject toxic poison into our soil, the city must remain vigilant against other companies,” the news release said.

Protester charged with inducing panic

Athens

Shortly before noon on June 26, a fracking protester who had secured herself to two concrete barrels at an oil and gas waste-water injection well in Alexander Township was separated from the barrels and hauled away in a sheriff’s cruiser.

After an appearance in Athens County Municipal Court, protester Madeline Ffitch was released on her own recognizance. She has been charged with inducing panic, a fifth-degree felony.

Ffitch released herself from the barrels around 11:45 after talking to her attorney, Don Wirtshafter, and Athens County Sheriff’s Capt. Bryan Cooper.

Up until then, law enforcement had been planning to use power tools to remove her from the barrels.

The situation attracted a heavy law-enforcement presence, with multiple jurisdictions represented on rural Ladd Ridge Road about seven miles southwest of Athens.

Ffitch is a 31-year-old landowner from Dover Township in Athens County. Law-enforcement officials have indicated that they may seek reimbursement from her for the cost of their response to her protest.