American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2016 - 96

ConventionSection: Kentucky Oil & Gas Association

Working Group To Tackle
Waste Management
By Danny Boyd
Special Correspondent
LOUISVILLE, KY.-Members of the
Kentucky Oil & Gas Association prepare
for their 80th annual meeting, July 19-21
at the Northern Kentucky Convention
Center & Marriott RiverCenter in Covington, Ky., optimistic that continued cooperation among a diverse, reconvened
stakeholder working group will result in
acceptable regulation of naturally occurring
radioactive material.
In mid-May, members of the working
group met for the first time to begin
monthly discussions on regulating NORM
and technically enhanced NORM, or
TENORM, and providing guidance on
any additional legislation, says KOGA
President Rudy Vogt. The working group
includes six KOGA members, along with
state regulators and environmentalists,
he points out.
The issue of regulating NORM and
TENORM arose during the 2016 session
of the Kentucky General Assembly when
state Representative Cluster Howard, DJackson, introduced HB 563 in response
to unauthorized transportation and disposal
of out-of-state drilling waste from Ohio,
Pennsylvania and West Virginia that contained elevated levels of radionuclides,
reviews Vogt, a geologist at Cumberland
Valley Resources in Louisville.
He says Kentucky Division of Waste
Management Director Tony Hatton has
confirmed publicly that low-level nuclear
waste was disposed at a landfill in Estill
County between July and November 2015.
Officials also acknowledged investigating
whether illegal shipments of similar waste
were dumped at a Greenup County landfill.
In late spring, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway continued to investigate
the dumping incident, Vogt says. The
issue came to light during the legislative
session, held January through March, he
says.
"Immediately, there were proposals
for legislation that would have eliminated
importing or disposing any type of NORM
whatsoever," Vogt reports. "They were
96 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

very poorly written and could have been
very detrimental to Kentucky operators,
who could have lost the ability to dispose
of drill cuttings or any kind of waste in
landfills."
According to Vogt, the version of HB
563 that eventually was passed and signed
by Governor Matthew Bevin directed the
Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and Cabinet for Health and Family
Services to revise their regulations for
managing oil and gas wastes containing
NORM, and KOGA and others asked
the governor to refer the matter to the reconvened stakeholder group.
Re-Established Group
Vogt says the new GOP governor,
whose budget proposal took center stage
during a contentious 2016 General Assembly, and Energy and Environment
Secretary Charles Snavely, re-established
a committee formed two years ago by
former Governor Steve Beshear and thenEnergy and Environment Secretary Len
Peters.
KOGA Government Affairs Chairman
William Barr explains that the stakeholder
group was discontinued following its
work on the Kentucky Oil and Gas Regulatory Modernization Act of 2015, which
was established by SB 186, and the
group's subsequent work helping to craft
and implement SB 188 governing disclosure of stratigraphic test-well findings,
which legislators passed and Bevin signed
into law this year.
Barr, who is managing director at
BlackRidge Resources Partners in Lexington, Ky., adds that the former success
of the diverse group provides KOGA optimism that a similar cooperative effort
will result in satisfactory solutions to the
NORM issue.
"Modernizing Kentucky's regulations
for oil and gas exploration and production
accomplished in a short time through the
Kentucky Oil and Gas Regulatory Modernization Act of 2015 exceeded the quantity and quality of the work done in the
last two decades," Barr praises. "That
was a significant undertaking, and it will
continue under the new administration

with the reappointed work group.
"As a member of that group, I look
forward to continuing to work with the
other members to finish rewriting the
regulatory scheme to make Kentucky easier to do business in and more efficient
in terms of its regulatory scheme, while
keeping in mind the need to protect the
environment, and the health and safety
or our commonwealth," he adds.
Under last year's SB 186, the group
successfully tackled a number of complex
issues involving permitting and bonding
of deep wells, Barr reviews. More lately,
the stakeholder group dealt with stratigraphic tests under SB 188.
"We passed two significant pieces of
legislation, both of which went through
a divided state legislature, in which the
Senate is controlled by Republicans and
the House by Democrats. Both bills went
through without any objection or dissenting
vote in either chamber," he says. "The
2015 modernization act was viewed as a
bipartisan, multidisciplined effort to bring
oil and gas regulation up to date. We
were all involved, and that entails 25
people from the regulatory community,
chamber of commerce, Farm Bureau, environmentalists, the industry, and representatives from the state's divisions of
water, oil and gas; waste management;
and Health and Family Services. It is a
group that represents a cross-section of
stakeholders well."
The initial meeting, May 12, served
as an introductory gathering to discuss
the scope of the work ahead and review
existing laws, Barr says.
The Central Midwest Compact established jointly by Illinois and Kentucky in
1984 bars disposal of NORM in both
states, Barr says. "It's an issue that the
working group certainly will take seriously," he says. "We are most concerned
about the proper disposal of drilling waste
and proper waste management that complies with both federal and state rules."
Vogt comments that any solutions need
to ensure compliant industry practice,
while guarding against excessive requirements that have little or no environmental
benefits, but could hinder operators who
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