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Environment & Energy

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RiverLover

(7,830 posts)
Tue Feb 3, 2015, 08:33 AM Feb 2015

Shipping TOXIC Radioactive Fracking Waste on OHIO River is APPROVED [View all]

Ohio is already the toxic dumping ground for fracking waste coming in from PA & WV, and now we'll be getting it from TX & LA too.

Why did our Rethug Governor allow Ohio to be the nation's dumping ground???? Why is our Democratic DC administration allowing it, along with endangering the Ohio River, an already fragile ecosystem & drinking water source for 3 million Americans???

I hate the greed that's running (ruining) our country atm!!!!!!!!!!!!

GreenHunter's Ohio River barge plan wins Coast Guard approval
2/2/15

A $3 million plan by a Texas-based company to ship liquid drilling wastes via barges on the Ohio River is gaining steam.

GreenHunter Resources Inc. said its proposal was quietly approved in the fourth quarter 2014 by the U.S. Coast Guard.

No announcement was made at the time of the federal approval.

A new barge terminal at Portland in Meigs County in southern Ohio will be completed in the next six to nine months to handle the new barge shipments, company officials said.

When complete, the so-called Mills Hunter Facility complex will double the facility’s injection capacity for the drilling liquids from the Utica and Marcellus shales in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The capacity will jump from 14,500 barrels per day to about 30,000 42-gallon barrels per day, company officials said.

Based on those numbers, Mills Hunter would handle and inject about 7.8 million barrels of waste per year. It would be the No. 1 injection site in Ohio by far. That total would represent about 50 percent of the injection volume handled annually in Ohio by its 201 injection wells.

The Mills Hunter site currently has two injection wells and four additional injection wells should be operating by March 31. The barge terminal will be completed later, perhaps in six to nine months, the company said.

The Mills Hunter Facility is open and is currently taking drilling wastes by truck.

The company also intends to spend an additional $2.5 million to $3 million to expand or to develop new waste shipping terminals at New Matamoras in Ohio’s Washington County and Wheeling, W. Va. The facility at Wheeling will cost $1.5 million.

The company’s barge proposal drew more than 60,000 comments with critics worried about the threat that such shipments posed to the Ohio River that is used for drinking water by local communities.

The liquid wastes will be moved from barges on the Ohio River to injection wells for disposal at the Mills Hunter Facility at Portland. The waste is moved by trucks from well sites to the barges.

The new facility will provide GreenHunter with "a huge shot in the arm," said CEO Gary Evans in a teleconference last week.

He called the Coast Guard approval for barge shipments to be "a significant win" for the company and its clients.

GreenHunter remains very optimistic about growth in the Utica and Marcellus shales, despite slowdowns by some drillers due to low prices paid for oil and natural gas.

"It changes the face of the company," said chief operating officer Kirk Trosclair.

Hauling such wastes by barge will reduce transportation costs and truck volumes, he said.

"Our ability to transport disposal volumes via barge will significantly reduce our costs, improve our margins and allow us to pass along savings to our clients," Trosclair said in a company statement....

http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/greenhunter-s-ohio-river-barge-plan-wins-coast-guard-approval-1.563615


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