Barnesville, OH Hires Costly Columbus Lawyers in Gulfport Lawsuit
In 2012, Barnesville (Belmont County), OH signed a contract with Gulfport Energy to sell Gulfport water from the Slope Creek Reservoir for 1 penny per gallon. Gulfport now wants to begin drilling in the area, following a joint venture agreement with Antero Resources. But Barnesville says the water level in the reservoir is too low and won’t sell. Gulfport sued and the whole matter has ended up in federal court (see Gulfport Energy Sues Barnesville, OH for Access to Water in Reservoir). As we later pointed out, the cost to Barnesville taxpayers because their political leaders “didn’t think” when they signed on the dotted line will now be very expensive (see Barnesville Officials “Didn’t Think” When Signing Gulfport Water Deal). Barnesville has just hired a high priced law firm from Columbus to represent them in court. How will Barnesville pay the new high priced lawyers? From money the town received from (yes) selling water from the reservoir to someone else…
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Reading through earnings calls transcripts (hey, somebody has to do it), we discovered what we believe no one else has (yet) discovered or reported. On an earnings call yesterday, top management from EV Energy Partners, one of the largest acreage holders in the Utica Shale, shared interesting initial results from the test Utica well they drilled in Tuscarawas County, OH–a well drilled using waterless fracking technology from GASFRAC (see 
Last Friday MDN brought you the Rice Energy first quarter 2015 update (see 
Something troubling for MDN. The Constitution Pipeline, a 125-mile pipeline that will stretch from the gas fields of Susquehanna County, PA into New York–to Schoharie County, has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), a multi-year process. The only thing keeping Williams from starting up the backhoes and beginning to lay pipeline is New York State–specifically the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC must grant what’s called a 401 Water Quality Certificate that allows the Constitution to lay pipe through and under swamps, creeks and other bodies of water. The DEC ran a series of public hearings on it, one of which MDN editor Jim Willis attended in January (see 
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…