FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. — WV Oil & Natural Gas Association Executive Director Corky Demarco and Fayette County Commission President Matthew Wender debated the merits of Friday’s federal court ruling that invalidated the Fayette County frack waste ordinance.
Wender said his concern is less with fracking, but what happens afterward with the waste water injection well sites.
“There are a lot of ill, harmful, consequential effects that oil and gas fracking fluid has the potential for harm for the general public,” he said on Monday’s edition of the MetroNews-affiliated “The Mike Queen Show” on the AJR News Network.
“It’s the storage and not the drilling or the exploration of gas. It’s the storage of the fluid coming back up from that exploration.”
Demarco said past regulatory standards mean that water tables are well protected from what’s being injected into these disposal sites.
“These types of injection wells are what the United States Environmental Protection Agency considers a safe place to store these chemicals,” Demarco said.
“The thing is, we’re injecting them way below the water tables, and it’s separated from the water tables by layers of impermeable rock that has to be determined long before the well is approved.”
The Fayette County ban passed earlier this year and was immediately challenged by Pennsylvania-based company EQT.
Wender said the Commission chose to act, based on the interest of public health and welfare as authorized in state code, for a number of reasons–including a study that showed fracking waste leaking harmful endocrine disruptors into Wolf Creek in Fayette County.
“That’s a very specific study,” Wender said. “Very specific to the harmful consequential effects of fracking fluid.”
Demarco said his industry contends the endocrine disruptors are not a threat because they would need to be at levels 40 times higher than recorded to cause potential harm.
“Some of the studies that [Wender] mentioned we’ve looked at, and it’s been determined that you would have to have 40 times the amount of endocrine problems in the water for it to be a health issue,” Demarco said.
Endocrine disruptors can be particularly dangerous for developing fetuses in pregnant women.
The Fayette County Commission will likely discuss whether or not to appeal Judge John T. Copenhaver’s previous ruling when the ruling is finalized this Friday.