Youngstown Injection Wells Previously Shut Down Resume Operation
Book ’em, Danno!” Remember that phrase from the original Hawaii 5-0 television series that aired from 1968-1980? Jack Lord was great as Steve McGarrett. That’s the image we immediately had when reading a story about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency executing a search warrant at a Vienna Township, OH brine injection well. The EPA was looking for evidence in an “environmental crime.” We have to confess we find the whole concept of “environmental crime” somewhat silly. You have violations of regulations–sometimes egregious and yes, criminal. But we detect a shift by anti-drillers to move the debate into turning what are sometimes pure accidents, other times neglect, but rarely intentional activities into “crimes.” The law-breaking Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Kathleen Kane, is famous for this. After taking office she targeted XTO Energy for what she says is a “crime” that happened several years before she took office. The “crime”? An accidental spill of wastewater. That’s how these people operate. Salem witch hunt kind of attitude–they’re frackers, burn them at the stake! Back to Vienna. The EPA in search of a crime worked with the OH Attorney General’s office and the OH Bureau of Criminal Investigation to raid the injection well facility to find “evidence” of a crime after a recent spill at the facility…
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Two weeks ago MDN told you about two men who had been indicted by a federal grand jury on felony charges of damaging a shale well (or wells) on Chevron’s Burchianti Pad in Greene County, PA in March 2014 (see 
Rats fleeing a sinking ship? (Oops…Did we just say that with our out-loud voice??) It seems PA’s anti-drilling and law-breaking Attorney General Kathleen Kane can’t keep a press secretary. Kane, you may recall, is using Lanny Davis, lawyer for Bill “BJ in the Oval Office” Clinton who lied under oath (called perjury, a crime) to defend her. Davis was able to help Clinton keep his job as president, largely by smearing the special prosecutor in the case, Ken Starr. Kane figures Davis may be able to help her keep her job as PA’s AG, even though a grand jury found her to have broken the law and violated the oath of her office (see 
A Green County man–Heath A. Rankin, 33, of Carmichaels, PA–was indicted earlier this week by a federal grand jury on a felony charge of damaging a shale well (or wells) on the Burchianti Pad in Greene County in March 2014. The pad is owned by Chevron, which is, according to one news source, planning to seek restitution for damages exceeding $5,000 allegedly caused by Mr. Rankin. Another man, Brian Harbarger, 34, of Cumberland, PA–was indicted for the same thing in December 2014. It’s too early to jump to any conclusions. Are they environmentalists that tipped over the line? Are they former/disgruntled employees? Drunk and out for a joy ride? We simply don’t know. Here’s what we do know…
Fracking Derangement Syndrome (FDS) is a dangerous disease. Most often it attacks those who grew up watching Captain Planet on Saturday mornings (one of the risk factors). FDS creates all sorts of weird behaviors in its victims. The disease recently struck again–this time infecting a 36 year-old Michigan man. The disease manifested by causing the man (the Green candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan) to crawl inside of a pipeline under construction by Enbridge and stay there for 10 hours, creating a danger to himself and those around him…
A disturbing bit of news. Officials in Waynesburg, PA (county seat of Greene County, in the very southwestern tip of PA) say about 4,000 gallons of a “gray, milky substance” flowed through the local sewage treatment plant and that the plant’s flow meters spiked up when it happened. In other words, someone, somewhere dumped something down a manhole and that something got processed by the plant and ultimately discharged into Ten Mile Creek. The disturbing bit is that the plant’s operators, along with the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), think the substance dumped may have been frack wastewater…