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Dumping legislation stalled
YOUNGSTOWN
Two key pieces of legislation introduced in the Ohio Statehouse just weeks after an illegal dumping incident have stalled.
Regulatory agencies are trying to tack on more amendments, and the oil and gas industry has expressed an interest in testifying against provisions with which it disagrees.
Introduced in February by Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, and Sen. Frank LaRose, a Republican from the Akron area, Senate Bill 46 is aimed at deterring repeat violations in Ohio’s oil and gas industry by making the illegal dumping of drilling waste a felony and increasing both fines and jail time for such transgressions.
State Rep. Robert Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th, introduced companion legislation in the House about a month after S.B. 46 was introduced in the Senate. But neither bill has made much headway to date.
“It’s not looking like it will move forward prior to the break on July 1,” Schiavoni said. “Other industries, every state agency, it seemed, wanted to stiffen penalties dealing with their actors. I was open to that, but Sen. LaRose got concerned with too many changes.”
The legislation was introduced just weeks after news broke that Hardrock Excavating owner Ben W. Lupo directed an employee to dump tens of thousands of gallons of drilling waste — including oil and brine — into a tributary that fed into the Mahoning River. A deluge of news media reports followed, many of which went both state and nationwide, prompting outrage from elected officials at both the state and local levels who were kept in the dark during the early days of a criminal investigation that was conducted by state and federal officials.
Lupo eventually was indicted and charged with violating the Clean Water Act. He has since pleaded not guilty.
Even more troubling to local lawmakers, such as Hagan and Schiavoni, were revelations that Lupo had committed similar violations on multiple occasions before — some stretching back to the 1970s and perpetrated by other companies he owned in Ohio over the years.
The goal of S.B. 46 and House Bill 93 is to elevate the crime to a felony and impose a minimum prison sentence of three years and a $10,000 fine for anyone who knowingly violates the law. Additional convictions would carry a six-year minimum sentence under the legislation and impose a fine of $25,000.
Furthermore, under both bills, it would be nearly impossible for a repeat violator to receive operational permits from state agencies — as Lupo had done even after receiving multiple citations over the course of three decades.
Now, as the legislation works its way through the General Assembly, its relevancy seems to grow as illegal dumping incidents are increasing in the state. On Tuesday, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced it would consider civil and criminal actions against Harch Environmental Resources of St. Clairsville and Gulfport Energy, which retained Harch to dispose of its oil field waste.
ODNR inspectors learned that Harch trucks had dumped oil-based mud down a hill and into a private pond in St. Clairsville.
In April, state and federal investigators were pursuing criminal and civil penalties against Lowellville-based Soil Remediation Inc. after it was accused of dumping toxic oil field waste into the ground on its property.
Though LaRose and Hagan could not be reached to comment last week, Schiavoni said agencies ranging from ODNR and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to executive offices such as Gov. John Kasich’s and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s proposed amendments to give the proposed legislation more teeth.
“Sen. LaRose has proposed that those changes should be pitched to members of the Senate or during committee,” Schiavoni said. “I didn’t have a problem either way, the changes recommended by the agencies made sense, but I understand where he’s coming from. As a co-sponsor — and considering he’s in the majority party — I deferred to him because I feel like I need his support to get this thing passed.”
Schiavoni and LaRose have revised the bill to its original version, and they considered slipping it into the state budget as an amendment.
But on Thursday the Senate approved the budget without the dumping legislation. It now appears that S.B. 46 and its companion in the House will be deliberated sometime in the fall. Schiavoni said hearings likely will take place before the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee so that more thought can be given to the amendments that have poured in.
Though it has enjoyed widespread support, Schiavoni said the oil and gas industry has expressed some concern about a few provisions in the law, for which it would like the opportunity to testify against.
Jack Shaner, senior director of legislative and public affairs for the Ohio Environmental Council, said the process is routine. He agreed with Schiavoni by saying he was confident the legislation eventually will pass.
“You have to look at this as a golden opportunity to clamp down on bad actors, and the law ought to be easy to pass — that’s probably why it’s been a magnet for amendments,” Shaner said. “Ultimately, we know this thing will pass. The last thing the industry wants is a black eye from a flagrant violation like the one in Youngstown. It would be a public relations nightmare.”