OH Commission Sides with ODNR Boss to Keep Injection Well Closed
UPDATE: This is slightly old news–from August. The article we quoted from was run yesterday, but the events actually happened in August. We understand that the case has now been appealed to Common Pleas Court.
The Ohio Oil and Gas Commission, the five-member advisory council that’s part of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) set up to hear appeals from any person claiming to be aggrieved or adversely affected by an order issued by the ODNR’s oil & gas division, upheld a decision by the ODNR to suspend operations at a Trumbull County injection well. The injection well is owned by American Water Management Services and following low-level earthquake a year ago, the ODNR’s Rick Simmers shut two injection wells down (see ODNR Temporarily Shuts Down Injection Wells After Low-Level Quake). Since that time, the ODNR allowed one of the two to reopen, but not the other (see ODNR Clears Trumbull Co. Injection Well in August Quake). The ODNR continues to “investigate” (i.e. drag its feet) so finally AWMS got tired and appealed the decision to the body that hears such appeals. Although supposedly independent, the Oil and Gas Commission works for the ODNR, so it’s no surprise they supported the ODNR in their decision to keep the second well closed…
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Last Thursday the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission issued its first order addressing the issue of forced pooling. The Commission upheld a forced pooling order against Ohio landowner Gary Teeter Trust (Ronald Roudeush is the trustee of the trust) by reaffirming that Ohio’s pooling and unitization provisions work to protect landowners–even those landowners like Roudeush who prefer not to be part of a drilling unit–by fairly compensating them. Rex Energy has leased land around the Teeter Trust (in Carroll County, OH) and sought to include 71 acres of the Teeter Trust property in a drilling unit, which Roudeush objected to and appealed. We have a copy of the decision below along with a further explanation of the case from the legal beagles at the Vorys law firm (the firm representing Rex Energy in the case)…
Only in America, and only in Ohio (slowly shaking our heads). Last Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court voted 7-0 to force an anti-fracking ballot measure that has been on the ballot in Youngstown, Ohio four times previously to be added to the ballot once again in November–for a fifth time. Even though (as the justices acknowledge) the ballot measure itself “may be” unconstitutional, as their own court recently found (see 
It seems anti-drillers love to launch lawsuits, but when the shoe is applied to the other foot and lawsuits are filed against them, they don’t like it so much. Hypocrites. A small group of anti-drilling parents in the Mars School District in Middlesex Township (Butler County), PA–folks we call Martians–want to prevent the legal, legitimate, and now fully permitted right of Rex Energy to drill a few Marcellus Shale wells three-fourths of a mile away from the Mars School. We’ve long chronicled this battle (see 
We previously told you about anti-fossil fuel groups in three Ohio counties–Athens, Fulton and Medina–who are being used by Big Green groups to attempt an illegal “community bill of rights” routine after the Ohio Supreme Court had already found local communities can’t ban fracking. They tried again and Ohio’s Secretary of State John Husted tossed the ballot measures (see 
A major defeat for Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling groups, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, was just handed down by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in a Lycoming County zoning case. In Gorsline v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfield Township, anti-drilling neighbors, including Brian and Dawn Gorsline, Paul and Michele Batkowski and others (collectively “Gorsline”) sued to stop a conditional use permit granted by Fairfield Township to allow Inflection Energy to construct a well pad on the property of Donald and Eleanor Shaheen. The case was weak, but the lowest court in the PA court system–the Court of Common Pleas (i.e. county court)–said the ninny nanny neighbors had a right to strip away the Shaheen’s property rights to allow drilling on their own property. The PA Commonwealth Court obliterated the faulty reasoning of the lower court and has, significantly, redefined how courts should interpret the results of the Act 13 zoning lawsuit that allows local municipalities the right to restrict shale drilling. The Commonwealth Court decision (full copy below) has kicked the legal legs out from under those seeking to use an amicus brief filed by THE Delaware Riverkeeper in the Act 13 case…
Landowners in Pennsylvania have been upset with shenanigans by Chesapeake Energy in shorting them out of royalties for years. In 2013 a group of landowners in Bradford County, PA filed a lawsuit against Chesapeake over the royalty issue (see 
We have a troubling development to report about the future of drilling in West Virginia–something that has happened largely under the radar, until now. More than 200 residents in WV (likely those who don’t own the mineral rights under their land) began filing “scores” of “nuisance” lawsuits over the past couple of years against Antero Resources and Hall Drilling, in places like Doddridge County. The lawsuits claim excessive traffic, odors and noise from nearby drilling make it “impossible” for them to enjoy their homes. Each lawsuit has its own unique circumstances and should be handled separately–one size does not fit all. The troubling development is that all of these lawsuits (dozens? hundreds?) have been rolled up into one mega lawsuit that sits before the WV Mass Litigation Panel…
Pennsylvania landowners Andrew and Sally Dewing signed a 10-year lease for 493 acres of land in Bradford County, PA with Central Appalachian Petroleum in April 2001. The lease was later sold to a consortium including Abarta Oil & Gas Co., Talisman Energy USA and Range Resources. The terms of the lease require rent payments of $5 per acre per year ($2,465) for each year when their property has not be drilled on or under. After not receiving payments on time in 2010, the Dewings served the drillers notice of nonpayment. Eventually the three partners figured out who was supposed to pay and made the payment–but because the payment was late (more than 60 days late), the Dewings claimed the lease was terminated under the original terms of the lease. To make a long story short, Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last Friday that no, the terms of the lease do not allow the Dewings to get out of the lease because the payment was late…
Ohio and 15 other states sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop implementation of Obama’s draconian coal and natural gas-killing Clean Power Plan while their larger lawsuit challenging the entire CPP winds its way through court (see 
The NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline, a $1.5-$2.0 billion natural gas pipeline that will carry Utica and Marcellus Shale gas spanning 11 counties in Ohio, 3 counties in Michigan, and eventually connect to the Dawn Energy Hub in Canada, has had to take some Ohio landowners to court simply to gain access to their property survey for potential routes. Sometimes county judges rule against NEXUS (see 
The Philadelphia-based anti-fossil fuel group Clean Air Council has announced through their media/public relations mouthpiece (the taxpayer-funded PBS StateImpact Pennsylvania) that they’ve launched yet another frivolous lawsuit–this time against Sunoco Logistics and their Mariner East 2 pipeline plan. Clean Air Council has launched so many lawsuits against the oil and gas industry we’ve lost count of the number. The Clean Air Council, once called The Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, is a non-profit (i.e. non-taxed) group engaging in political activity in violation of their non-profit charter–yet government officials ignore those violations. The Clean Air Council, without standing, filed a lawsuit in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas (the lowest trial court, essentially what other states call county court), charging that Sunoco Logistics, contrary to decades of accepted recognition as a public utility in Pennsylvania, is not actually a public utility and therefore cannot assert eminent domain against a few holdout landowners who refuse to allow the Mariner East 2 pipeline to be placed next to the existing Mariner East 1 pipeline already crossing their land…