Wind and solar generation on the nation’s largest regional electric grid lags other parts of the country.

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — In the contest between competing energy sources to produce electricity in the United States, select regions of the U.S. — especially in windy Texas and the Great Plains, and the sunny Pacific Coast — are tilting to renewable technologies.

But in cloudy and cold rural West Virginia counties surrounding this small city, and in the 12 neighboring mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states served by PJM — the nation’s largest electrical transmission grid operator — the confrontation between renewable technology and fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, is a mismatch. And it’s anticipated to stay that way for at least the next two decades, maybe longer.

Of the more than 180,000 megawatts of installed generation capacity available from PJM’s members, less than 6 percent is produced by wind or solar technology. Nationally about 15 percent of generating capacity comes from these two renewable resources.

Coal-fired power, counted on a decade ago to generate over 40 percent of the power in the PJM service area, has fallen to less than a third. Natural gas, meanwhile, which was 25 percent of generating capacity a decade ago, is nearing 40 percent. Nuclear power accounts for 19 percent. PJM executives anticipate that a decade from today solar and wind capacity will still not exceed 10 percent of generating capacity. A sizable portion of that, PJM executives say, will come from distributed rooftop solar stations.

Had it not been for passage of state renewable generating requirements in Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Michigan — states served all or in part by PJM — the level of wind and solar generation in the PJM service area would be even lower, executives say.

According to market analysts, the reason is as straightforward and visible as the thousands of natural gas wells installed in forests and fields of the triangle of rural counties in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania drained by the Ohio River. Most of those wells reach more than a mile into the earth to tap the gas-saturated shales of the Marcellus and Utica geologic formations.

With astonishing speed since the first wells were drilled and began producing in 2005, gas developers turned a region once piled with the rusting bones of obsolete industrial factories into one of the largest natural gas production fields in the world. The upper Ohio River region has become the site of billions of dollars of ongoing and planned construction for gas-fired electric stations, gas processing plants, big gas pipelines, and the development of a gas-liquids plastics and methanol manufacturing corridor downstream from Pittsburgh.

Economic ramifications of the development and ecological risks — especially of the hydrofracking technology that makes it possible — are the source of considerable public disagreement across this mid-Atlantic region. There is, however, no question about the effects of gas production on electricity generation.

PJM, based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and charged with managing an 84,000-mile transmission network across all of six eastern states and parts of seven others in the Midwest and South, is supervising an electrical transmission network fueled principally by natural gas that looks considerably different than what the grid operator anticipated a decade ago.

“It’s an inverse relationship. The potential for wind and solar generating capacity tends to be less in our footprint than in other regions,” said Mike Bryson, PJM’s vice president for operations. 

The sun does not shine as long or as bright in much of PJM’s service areas as it does in the Southwest. In the select regions where it does, like in North Carolina, 270 megawatts of solar energy is under development.

In the meantime, natural gas is abundant through much of PJM’s area. “The potential generating capacity for natural gas is high,” Bryson said. “There also is a geophysical dynamic playing into electrical generation here. A combined cycle 1,200-megawatt natural gas-fired plant takes two years to build and 40 people to run it. It’s sitting right on top of shale wells. Developers are looking for natural gas liquids and are practically giving away the gas. The cost of operations are sufficiently low they are competing with subsidized renewable generation.”

Renewable energy development in the PJM service area, which supplies power to 65 million people, is a departure from other regions of the country. Nearly 100,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity has come online across the country, a quarter of that in Texas alone, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The sun is producing 60,000 megawatts of solar capacity nationally, more than half in California and the three desert southwest states, says the Solar Energy Industries Association.

All of the utilities in the 13 states served by PJM produce almost 320,000 megawatts of total generating capacity, or almost a third of the national total. About 7 percent, 22,500 megawatts, is produced from the wind and sun, according to the EIA and renewable trade industry associations.

Power producers that supply the PJM grid generate about 10,700 megawatts of that total renewable capacity, PJM executives say.

Before mammoth dimensions of the upper Ohio River Valley shale resources gained clear definition, PJM initiated studies that anticipated as much as 30 percent of its generating capacity would be produced by wind and solar. A study in 2014 found that renewable generation at that level would not hamper the grid’s stability. Benefits included reduced emissions of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases, and lower consumer costs for power.

At the time, conditions in the region’s gas field were also quite different than they are today. Proven shale gas reserves in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia totaled about 56 trillion cubic feet, and annual production of methane in these states reached 3.1 trillion cubic feet. By the end of 2018, following the development of thousands of new wells and hydrofracking practices that improved production, shale gas wells in the Ohio Valley produced over 9 trillion cubic feet.

About a third of the 27 trillion cubic feet of gas produced last year in the U.S. came from the shale gas fields of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The country’s recoverable reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration, are close to 2,000 trillion cubic feet, and nearly a third of the supply lies in the shales of these three Ohio River triangle states. That’s sufficient fuel, at current rates of consumption — about 27 trillion cubic feet annually — to supply the country for 75 years. Natural gas, its promoters say, is shaping up to be the energy source of the century.

Wholesale electricity markets reflect that abundance. Prices for methane, the gas constituent burned in power plants and for heating, are expected to remain in the vicinity of their current level — about $2.50 to $3 per thousand Btu — for at least a decade. 

Due to the prodigious supply, gas sets the regional and national price floor for electricity markets in nearly all of the country and especially in the East. That price, judging from futures contracts for electricity, as well as the large number of gas plants that are planned, is projected to remain low.

“If natural gas is cheap for a long time then electricity is going to be cheap for a long time,” said Tim Belden, principal at Energy GPS, an energy data analysis firm in Portland, Oregon. “Low gas prices are a headwind for renewables.”

PJM’s operations employ 700 people and generate $360 million in annual revenue. The gas-dominated electricity market is reflected in the mix of generating capacity now serving PJM’s service area, and in projects under construction.

There are 231 wind and solar generating stations currently supplying PJM’s total non-hydro renewable capacity. Some 19 wind and solar plants are under construction and will produce a total of 217 megawatts of capacity, according to PJM data.

In contrast, the system’s 301 natural gas-fired generating units supply nearly 69,000 megawatts, or 38 percent of the transmission network’s total capacity. Seven natural gas units, which will generate 1,744 megawatts, are under construction.

The outlook for renewable development in the 2020s, though, looks stronger. The grid operator counts 114 wind projects proposed and under development for its service area that could produce 28,000 megawatts of generating capacity. Of that total 10,000 megawatts are proposed for offshore wind farms. There are 531 proposed solar projects in the planning stages that would produce 36,000 megawatts, PJM says. It’s not clear how much of that proposed generation will be built.

Two generations ago reserves of natural gas were thought to be so tight that Congress approved a statute in 1978 — the Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act — that barred construction of natural gas-fueled power plants unless they also were capable of burning coal.

“It’s an interesting dynamic, what’s happening now,” Bryson said. “In the late 1970s, it became against the law to build a natural gas plant. That only lasted a couple of years. Today, the cost of gas has made it a predominant resource.”

Shale gas boom slows progress on renewables in PJM grid territory is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Ohio communities with high levels of fracking activity had 20 percent higher rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Ohio’s shale gas country has had higher rates for two sexually transmitted diseases in the wake of the industry’s rapid expansion, new research reports.

The study from a team at the Yale School of Public Health adds to a growing body of knowledge exploring public health and social impacts of the fracking boom. PLOS One published the report on March 23.

What does the study say?

“The bottom line of our study was that we found that counties with high levels of fracking activity had 20 percent higher rates of two major sexually transmitted infections, or STIs, chlamydia and gonorrhea,” said lead study author Nicole Deziel, an epidemiologist at Yale. “And we did not observe a correlation for a third STI, syphilis.”

Why is this important?

“The shale gas industry is a rapidly expanding industry that is occurring in as many as 30 states around the United States, as well as many countries worldwide,” Deziel said. “Yet we have a very limited understanding of the public health and community impacts of this industry. Because if there are, steps could be taken to try to reduce or mitigate those.”

Beyond that, she adds, STIs an important public health problem, with about 20 million new cases in the United States each year and billions in health care costs.

What might explain the findings for a rise in STIs in Ohio’s shale country?

In Ohio and elsewhere, drilling and fracking for shale gas typically brings in large numbers of specialized, trained workers. The labor force in those “work camps” is mostly young male workers. Typically those workers have few or no family nearby and no emotional ties to the communities where they work. Ready disposable income, a “hyper-masculinized” culture in the camps, and other factors could lead them to seek “multiple new or casual sex partnerships, which are all known risk factors for STI transmission,” Deziel explains.

https://energynews.us/midwest/qa-researcher-explores-the-benefits-and-risks-of-fracking-in-new-book/

Other industries bring influxes of workers. Why focus on shale gas?

The phenomenon of labor migration potentially leading to increases in STIs has indeed been observed in other situations. But what sets shale gas operations apart “is really the sheer scale of the industry,” Deziel said.

Ohio has issued thousands of well permits, and more than 2,000 wells have been drilled in its Utica shale play. The state also has horizontal drilling in the shallower Marcellus shale play.

Other states with huge numbers of wells and permits include Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas, Deziel noted.

Why did STI numbers keep growing even after shale gas permitting dropped dramatically?

The drop in the number of well permits around 2015 correlated with falling market prices for natural gas, Deziel noted. Once STIs have been transmitted to members of the community, however, they can continue to infect people who live there long after temporary workers have left.

Why didn’t the study find a link between shale gas activity and syphilis?

“Syphilis is most common among men who have sex with men,” Deziel explained. Her group hypothesizes that most of the increased risk in places with high levels of shale gas activity came from heterosexual transmission.

What follow up studies are needed?

“Whether the association between shale gas development and increased STI rates is causal awaits further investigation,” the report said. That would include additional studies and replication of results in other areas and populations.

Other follow-up studies could look at STI infections among the workers. They would not have been included in the Yale group’s study because they would have moved on by the time new infections were reported. “Our data really examines and quantifies the impacts on the host community and not the workers,” Deziel noted.

What’s next?

Meanwhile, “industry or policymakers should consider this study among the growing number of studies documenting some health impacts” from the shale gas industry, Deziel said, noting that other recent reports have addressed exacerbation of asthma, concerns about adverse birth outcomes and water quality issues.

Communities can also take steps, such as an increase in screening and a boost in education and awareness about STIs and prevention, Deziel said. “Even the industry itself could consider partnering with local health officials to implement some possible interventions,” she suggested.

Study links shale gas boom and sexually transmitted infections is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A recent analysis of oil and gas production data for Ohio’s Utica shale play casts doubt on earlier optimistic projections from both industry and state government sources.

Ohio’s Utica shale continues to produce large quantities of oil and gas. Recent new-well gas production per rig averaged just over 6 million cubic feet per day, according to a report this month from the federal Energy Information Administration.

But when total production and daily figures for all wells within the play are considered, the outlook for Ohio’s Utica shale is not nearly as promising, according to a Sept. 29 analysis by FracTracker Alliance. The nonprofit organization compiles data, maps and analyses about the impacts of the oil and gas industry.

“A huge amount of uncertainty” remains when “the realities on the ground on a per day basis” are compared with projections from just three years ago, said report author Ted Auch at FracTracker. In his view, that uncertainty could affect decisions by policymakers, land owners and communities dealing with shale oil and gas production.

The numbers could also matter to advocacy groups that are urging the state to require a 5 percent severance tax or other equivalent fees from the industry, an increase of the current effective rate of less than one-half percent based on their calculations. Gov. John Kasich also strongly supports raising the severance tax.

Projections ‘have not held up’

As of 2012, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ state Geological Survey projected the Utica shale play held recoverable reserves of about 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 5.5 billion barrels of oil, based on volumetric calculations. Initial production data for a limited number of wells showed production ranging from 1.5 million to as much as 9.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Around that same time, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21^st Century Energy and other industry groups hailed shale energy as a “game-changer,” with projections that Ohio’s shale resources would provide $4.6 billion in state and local tax revenue by 2020.

Fueled by that positive outlook, drilling efforts increased and Ohio’s natural gas production nearly doubled between 2012 and 2013, ODNR reported last year.

However, the new analysis from FracTracker found that earlier optimistic projections “have not held up.”

Although drilling has continued, production has been far below levels that would produce the anticipated tax revenues, Auch said. He noted that wells often have huge drop-offs in production in just the first year.

“There’s never any talking about the floor” for production and revenues in agency or industry publications about shale oil and gas, Auch said. “It’s all talking about the ceiling.”

Moreover, FracTracker found, production is concentrated mostly in the eastern part of the state, as opposed to a larger area that would have extended farther west.

Not only has the “sweet spot” of highest production “changed quite a bit in the last couple of years, but it’s getting much smaller” than the Ohio Geological Survey’s 2012 review suggested it would be, Auch said.

‘Not representative’

ODNR spokesperson Eric Heis responded that agency experts had reviewed the FracTracker analysis and found it to be “factually incorrect in a number of instances and not representative of the actual state of oil and gas production in Ohio.”

For example, the agency noted that some initial data were based on core samples and various wells that FracTracker viewed as inefficient had been plugged. Other points dealt with whether all data for particular parts of eastern Ohio had been accounted for.

Additionally, Heis took issue with FracTracker’s concerns about whether the state agency provides accurate and timely information for the public. Among other things, Heis noted, ODNR maintains a large database that includes quarterly production data from horizontal well operators, versus once-a-year reports for vertical wells.

“Production data is publicly available through the Division of Oil and Gas website,” Heis said. “In consideration of transparency, the Division of Oil and Gas has responded to over 950 public records requests this year, including five requests” from Auch at FracTracker, he added.

ODNR’s criticisms did not negate the overall conclusions of the FracTracker report, Auch replied, which is that shale oil and gas has not provided the high levels of production and corresponding tax revenues that earlier reports suggested they would.

And in various cases, Auch added, the agency’s publicly available data in fact support his statements. “The data are what the data are, and the model results from compilation” of data provided by ODNR, he said.

Why the numbers matter

In Auch’s view, ODNR should update its projections more frequently and make more data available so that non-expert land owners, communities, policymakers and others have a more realistic understanding of how any benefits from shale oil and gas might compare to costs and risks.

“We structure leases [and] we structure policy based on those initial estimates,” Auch said. More timely information could make a difference for land owners debating whether to lease their property for development, he said.

For example, lower-than-expected production would provide lower royalty payments from developers to compensate owners for their land’s resources, plus the inconvenience and any environmental risks that might come from drilling on or near their land. Lower production levels also make a difference to the state’s coffers, Auch noted.

Indeed, earlier this year the free-market organization Opportunity Ohio reported that shale oil production for last year was less than one-sixth than had been projected earlier.

At the time, the group used the estimates to oppose an increase in the severance tax rate sought by Kasich. Among other things, Opportunity Ohio argued that a higher rate could seriously discourage future investment and production in the state. Lower prices for oil and gas contributed to lower production figures, the group noted at that time.

Advocates have also raised concerns about increased truck traffic, as well as potential water contamination and damage to farmland and ecosystems from fracking. Auch noted that if the Utica shale turns out to be less productive than expected, that would mean less in severance taxes to address those issues.

More recently, several advocacy groups have renewed a call to raise the severance tax rate to 5 percent. The group includes Policy Matters Ohio, the Ohio Environmental Council, Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Ohio Communities United for Responsible Energy, One Ohio Now and the Ohio Public Health Association.

“A portion of Ohio’s severance tax on shale oil and gas should help make communities whole from the negative impacts experienced due to the shale boom in Appalachia,” the groups said in a joint statement released on Sept. 30.

In June, state lawmakers rejected Kasich’s attempt to increase severance taxes on oil and gas obtained at well heads and downstream to 6.5 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively.

And while a legislative report last week found that Ohio’s oil and gas severance taxes are lower than in other states, lawmakers are not rushing to increase it due to market volatility. Kasich reportedly called the panel’s findings “disappointing.”

Note to readers: Midwest Energy News editor Ken Paulman serves on the board of the FracTracker Alliance. This story was edited by Andy Balaskovitz.

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Analysis shows Utica shale output falls short of projections is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Even in a water-rich state like Ohio, growing water use for fracking could strain water reserves, according to new research from the FracTracker Alliance, a non-profit organization that compiles data, maps and analyses about the impacts of the oil and gas industry.

FrackTracker compared the oil and gas industry’s water use within southeastern Ohio’s Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) to residential use in that area, which covers roughly 20 percent of Ohio. Residential water use includes families’ home use, but excludes water for agricultural, industrial and other purposes.

FracTracker found that the oil and gas industry’s use ranged from 11 to 18 percent of the residential amount. If current trends continue, the industry’s water use could rise to 25 percent of the residential amount within just a year or two, reported Ted Auch, Great Lakes program coordinator for FracTracker.

Although much of the area is rural, Auch said the growing water demands are cause for concern, because those demands might ultimately limit the region’s ability to respond to periods of drought, climate change or other events.

Industry sources dismissed concerns about southeastern Ohio’s water supplies. Local authorities are not worried now, although they note that ongoing management is needed.

Less ‘available water’

The combination of fracking and horizontal drilling has made drilling in Ohio’s deep shale profitable, particularly in the eastern and southastern parts of the state, which sit over the Marcellus and Utica shale plays. Horizontal drilling bores down to and then outward from a “kick-off point” under a well pad through shale layers thousands of feet beneath the surface.

Fracking pumps millions of gallons of treated water plus sand into those deep formations to crack the rock. Most of the fluid flows back, but the sand remains and props the cracks open so trapped oil and gas can escape up to the surface. Companies generally drill and frack multiple wells at each well pad.

The FracTracker research also calculated the oil and gas industry’s water use as a share of the watershed’s “available water.”

“Available water” is the quantity of “water that carries over from year to year” within a watershed, after accounting for uses by agriculture, industry and all organisms that live there, explained Auch. “It’s the water that at any point in time is pretty much what you can count on being there in an average year.”

Calculation of the available water figures “accounted for every single input and output into the system,” Auch said, including precipitation, drainage, water use, evaporation and other factors. He compared the concept to a partly filled bathtub with water running in as some water drains out.

Fracking has already used between 4.8 and 7.7 percent or more of available water from the Muskingum River’s watershed, and that figure will likely exceed 10 percent within a year or two, the FracTracker research found.

Increasing demands on the watershed’s supply of available water is “a big concern,” said Auch. That’s because available water “buffers the system in a given drought period against extreme conditions.”

Shawn Bennett, executive vice president for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA), said FracTracker’s focus on available water “would be a fundamental misunderstanding of how the water cycle works.”

“The water is not regional,” he said. “The water that falls into the Ohio River makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico and is redistributed worldwide.  In fact, evaporation from the oceans is the primary mechanism supporting the surface-to-atmosphere portion of the water cycle.”

Auch said that the watershed approach used by FracTracker is common in ecological studies and that it reflects greater detail and essentially all inputs and outflows to the watershed.

Plenty of water?

MWCD executive director John Hoopingarner said he is “not concerned” about the volume of water being used for fracking, given the size of the state’s water reserves.

Ted Lozier, MWCD’s chief of conservation, said fracking’s usage is “a lot of water, and it needs to be managed.”

“But it’s a small amount compared to the total amount available in this water-rich region of the state,” he added.

To illustrate, Lozier compared oil and gas industry withdrawals from three of the district’s reservoirs to fall drawdown figures for those lakes. For Piedmont Lake, Seneca Lake and Clendening Lake, the 2014 water withdrawals for the oil and gas industry represented 0.086, 1.12 and 1.37 percent of those reservoirs’ respective fall drawdown figures.

The MWCD retains authority to curtail or stop industry withdrawals if water levels at each reservoir reach trigger levels. Those levels vary from lake to lake, based on recreational uses, wildlife habitat concerns and other factors, Lozier explained.

“I think we would have to be in something of a drought condition, and our stream flows would have to be at low flow conditions,” to limit industry use, Lozier said. “That would be a point where you would start to really have to scrutinize and manage those water withdrawals.”

Bennett said that the Utica Shale producing counties receive ample precipitation each year—more than 1.9 trillion gallons on average.

“Ohio is a very water rich state, unlike those in arid regions of the United States,” he said. “There is plenty of water to support our industry, as well as all other industries and the citizens who reside within those counties.”

Water quality concerns

On June 4 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its draft report on fracking’s potential impacts on drinking water. Industry representatives, including Bennett, welcomed the report’s finding of no “widespread contamination” of drinking water from fracking.

Meanwhile, various scientists and environmental groups criticized the report. Among other things, the critics asserted that the EPA had not gathered sufficient data to conclude whether pollution was widespread or not, particularly in light of the agency’s finding that chemicals from fracked wells had in fact contaminated some drinking water supplies.

The draft report looked at the drawdown of water bodies and groundwater for fracking, but focused on drought-ridden areas like south Texas.

In Auch’s view, that focus is too narrow. “The horse is out of the barn” in dry areas but in states like Ohio, “you have a chance to be proactive.” Unfortunately, he said, “We’re going in the other direction.”

The EPA noted that when water is withdrawn, the quality of the remaining water can be affected.

If the majority of a stream is “taken for a certain use, there will be changes in the chemistry and quality of that stream,” said EPA deputy assistant administrator Tom Burke.

“Likewise, when you draw down an aquifer, it’s important to understand there may be quality impacts,” he continued. “And therefore, water resource management is important.”

Industry’s water demands have gone up and will probably continue to increase in Ohio, Auch said. The horizontal lengths of wells has been increasing, and each extra foot tends to boost a well’s fracking water use between 7,454 and 8,100 gallons, the FracTracker data show.

The organization’s data also show an inverse correlation between wells’ water usage and their productivity. Auch suggested that one reason may be that operators tend to use more water to open as many cracks as possible in the deep rock of a shale play’s less productive areas, particularly since water is relatively cheap compared to other production costs.

If so, then water use by the industry could continue to be an issue as Ohio’s shale gas boom continues and eventually subsides.

Note to readers: Midwest Energy News editor Ken Paulman serves on the board of the FracTracker Alliance. This story was edited by Kari Lydersen.

Fracking and water: Quantity, not just quality, a concern is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A lawsuit filed by an Ohio company last month seeks to remove two anti-fracking billboards near a wastewater site it operates.

While the case is a test of free speech, critics say it also reflects a broader reluctance for businesses and regulatory agencies in the state to adequately inform citizens about shale gas activities and address their concerns.

Fracking is the use of chemically treated water and sand to crack and prop open rock so oil and gas can flow out. Fracking a horizontal shale well can take millions of gallons of water. In Ohio, most of the wastewater that can’t be reused goes into underground injection wells.

Ohio’s regulatory environment is allowing rapid expansion of the shale gas industry. The state’s natural gas production nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013. And shale wastewater injection for 2013 was up more than 2 million barrels from the previous year.

Critics say the system fast-tracks permits for activities related to shale gas at the expense of public comment and citizen input.

Growth in the industry is “happening in a way that communities are not necessarily always well-informed,” said Megan Lovett, a lawyer with Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services in Pittsburgh.

Lovett believes that situation makes it even more important to defend concerned citizens’ right to speak out. Her firm is currently consulting with defense counsel in the Ohio lawsuit.

‘Poisoned waters’

Buckeye Brine and Rodney Adams have sued Mike Boals of Coshocton, Ohio, for putting up side-by-side signs on rented billboards a few hundred feet from the company’s deep injection well site.

The wells dispose of wastewater from fracked wells in Ohio and from out of state. That type of wastewater typically has high levels of salt and can also contain heavy metals and dissolved radioactive materials, such as radium.

One billboard says in part that the nearby injection wells “pump POISONED WATERS under the feet of America’s Citizens. The waters come from Shale Oil and Gas development that contaminates and destroys America’s water.” The sign’s list of local participants names Adams and groups of government officials.

The other billboard includes a statement that “DEATH may come,” followed by references from the Book of Revelations.

The plaintiffs want the state court to order Boals to remove the billboards and not to make “any false statement of fact or statements that imply false statements of fact, publicly or to any person….” They also ask for an unstated amount of money, punitive damages and attorney’s fees.

The complaint claims Boals’ behavior in putting up the billboards amounts to defamation, wrongful interference with contractual relations, business disparagement, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“We think that these claims are totally baseless, and they’re just an intent to bully him,” Lovett said.

Limits on speaking out

Worries about bullying have popped up elsewhere in Ohio too.

This summer, Caitlin Johnson of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative has been working on a “listening project” in rural Ohio. The survey’s goal is to learn about people’s concerns about shale gas activities in their communities.

Many residents would only speak on condition of anonymity, Johnson said in June when she met with journalists in Carroll County, Ohio. The meeting was part of a Shale Country Institute organized by the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources.

Many people were “so scared” of possible reprisals if they spoke out publicly against changes that many businesses and local government officials welcomed, Johnson noted.

“People are being bullied,” she said.

Many people who did answer her survey worried about the social impacts of shale gas activities, Johnson said. They saw the rural, close-knit nature of their communities changing with heavy traffic and a flood of outsiders working in the industry. Rents and prices at grocery stores seemed to be “way up.”

Along those lines, Boals said there is now an “extreme amount of tanker trucks you see on the highway streaming into Coshocton.”

“It would be really unfortunate if this [lawsuit] would deter more concerned people from speaking out,” Johnson said earlier this week.

Actions by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) have also thwarted citizens’ attempts to speak out against fracking and related activities, Johnson said. ODNR staffers showed up with at least 14 armed personnel and a dog at one 2013 meeting in Portage County.

Even when citizens can submit written comments, the usual 15-day comment period is too short, said Brian Kunkemoeller of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Natural Gas program.

“This is simply not enough time here for the community to become aware, get educated, and get involved,” Kunkemoeller noted.

Nor does the Ohio Oil & Gas Commission let citizens appeal from the grant of an injection well permit, he added.

“Quite frankly, citizens have no meaningful venues for objecting to frack waste disposal, nor do most of them have real opportunities to know these things are happening in their community,” Kunkemoeller said.

‘In plain simple words’

A public relations spokesperson for Buckeye Brine declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit. “We’re just letting the complaint speak for itself,” said Jen Detwiler of Steiner Public Relations in Columbus, Ohio. The company has not had any shutdowns, spills or enforcement problems in Ohio, she noted.

The complaint alleges that the billboards’ false statements “include claims that Plaintiffs have ‘contaminate[d] and destroy[ed]’ the water supply, that Plaintiffs’ injection well-related activities ‘pump poisoned waters’ and that they lead to ‘DEATH,’ all of which is patently false.”

“What I expressed is what I know is true,” Boals said.

“I put it up in plain simple words that an injection well pump contaminated waters under the feet of Americans,” Boals said. The contamination is the whole reason for pumping it deep into the ground, he added.

Fracking operations do contaminate water, Boals said, whether waste enters the drinking water aquifer or not. Even if fluids don’t leak into drinking water, the process of preparing and using fracking fluids depletes fresh water, he said.

“Unless they do not use any fresh water in the process, they can’t say that they’ve not contaminated water,” Boals said.

The Coshocton site is “probably the most sophisticated injection well we have in Ohio,” said Mike Chadsey, a spokesperson for the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA). Buckeye Brine is an OOGA member.

“Free speech is important,” Chadsey acknowledged. But, he said, “You still can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre.”

“It’s a pending lawsuit, so we’ll see what the court says,” Chadsey added.

Boals is “not saying anything that’s not true,” stressed Lovett. She believes that the statements are protected free speech under the First Amendment.

To the extent the signs express Boals’ opinion or religious beliefs, those are protected speech too, she noted.

“When something is happening in the community, you should be allowed to speak about it—plain and simple,” Lovett said.

The Sierra Club is a member of RE-AMP, which publishes Midwest Energy News.

UPDATE, August 26, 2014:
Even without a court order, it appears Bolls’ billboard signs will be coming down. Bolls says the owner of the billboards has given him until September 9 to remove the billboards, after reported pressure from legal counsel for Buckeye Brine. More detail can be found HERE.

Critics: Ohio case fits wider pattern of quieting fracking foes is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.