OH Anti-Driller Suing MWCD Asks EPA to Stop OH Injection Wells
The virulently anti-drilling and misnamed Fresh Water Accountability Project (FWAP) has just generated more toilet paper, er, a press release in which they claim they’ve written a letter to the Region 5 office of the federal Environmental Protection Agency asking the EPA to trample on the U.S. Constitution by stripping away the right of Ohio to issue permits for Class II injection wells. Nothing new there–such groups habitually like to enforce their fascism on common folks (which is why they should be vigorously opposed and defunded).
The interesting thing to MDN is not that the FWAP is generating yet another fundraising press release–but that it was written by Lea Harper–you know, the woman who’s suing the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District to try and stop fracking and drilling on MWCD land around Seneca Lake (see Anti-Drillers Win Minor Victory Against Muskingum Watershed Dist). It’s also no coincidence that Lea Harper and her FWAP is being partially (or wholly) funded by the odious and fascist Food & Water Watch. That is, FWAP is nothing more than a front for FWW. We just thought you’d want to know how incestuous it is with anti-drillers…
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Just when you thought there was a conclusion to the story of Ben Lupo and Hardrock Excavating and the dumping of frack wastewater down a drain that eventually emptied into the Mahoning River–the story takes a new turn. MDN previously told you that Hardrock’s owner, Ben Lupo, changed his plea to guilty last week (see 
In one of the biggest (perhaps the biggest) fines levied by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Halliburton has been fined $1.8 million for storing and treating hydrochloric acid (HCl) at a facility in Homer City, PA (about 50 miles from Pittsburgh). The HCl shipped and treated at the Homer City site happened over a 13-year period of time from 1999-2011, meaning most of it came from conventional natural gas well sites, although some it likely came from Marcellus Shale sites too (the conventional/unconventional split is not identified in the DEP paperwork). Marcellus drilling in PA didn’t ramp up until around 2006-2007. The DEP says Halliburton had claimed exemption from the state’s Solid Waste Management Act of 1980 for their Homer City facility, saying they were shipping and storing very small amounts of HCl at the facility when in fact that was not the case. Based on their false claim, Halliburton was given a pass on inspections, paperwork filing, signage, and the requirement to use certified hazardous waste haulers on more than 250 truck trips in and out of the facility–hauling HCl. Halliburton was in the wrong, they now acknowledge it (having been caught), and they’ve been levied a steep fine.