John Kasich long has insisted that he takes two views of the expanding oil and gas industry in Ohio. The governor likes the boost to economic development. He also says he wants the work done right, protecting public health and the environment. Of late, the state Environmental Protection Agency has backed up the latter view. It has taken an appropriately tough line with Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the Rover Pipeline.
On Wednesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did its part. It ordered a halt to new drilling activity involving the pipeline, designed to travel through 18 counties, from Washington in the southeast to Defiance in the northwest. The commission instructed the Rover Pipeline to add environmental inspectors and hire an independent contractor to evaluate its work at the site where bentonite mud, a natural clay used as a drilling lubricant, spilled across 6.5 acres of a protected wetland near the Tuscarawas River.
Once the pipeline complies, then it can seek to resume construction.
The wetland episode and another smaller such spill in Richland County are just two of 18 reported incidents of trouble along the pipeline since construction began in February. The Ohio EPA has cited the company for the spills, stormwater pollution, open burning and other violations. The agency assessed a $431,000 fine last week.
The expectation is that laying an underground pipeline across hundreds of miles will cause disruption. What the state EPA has seen with the Rover Pipeline is something much worse. Craig Butler, the agency director, views the company as in too much of a hurry, failing to heed best management practices, even demolishing a Leesville house under consideration for the National Register of Historic Places.
Butler told the Columbus Dispatch, “This is pretty systemic — that’s when alarm bells go off in my head.”
Of note, too, has been the defiance of Energy Transfer, Butler pointing to a lack of contrition, or adequate response to the state’s concerns. “They’re not taking Ohio seriously,” the director said. The company initially argued that its permits fall under federal regulation. It has talked about “inadvertent releases” as “a common part” of the drilling in the pipeline construction.
Energy Transfer has offered reassuring words about soon cleaning up the larger spill in Stark County. Unfortunately, the task isn’t so easy. As the Ohio EPA explains, even though bentonite is used in a variety of household products, from beer and wine to hand soap, it brings substantial harm when it smothers a wetland, jeopardizing water chemistry and putting species at risk.
It could be decades before the wetland recovers, serving its essential role as natural protection against pollution, flooding and other troubles. Ohio already has lost 90 percent of its wetland. In that way, every acre counts.
Thus, the state EPA has good reason to be unhappy. This episode also reinforces the governor’s case for a higher severance tax on oil and gas drilling. The revenue would help communities with the fallout, especially when a company acts as if the state doesn’t matter.