American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2015 - 161

ConventionCoverage: Ohio Oil & Gas Association

Ohio Continues Revising
Regulatory Sector
By Dan Holder

COLUMBUS, OH.-Delays in advancing the state's pending well pad construction rule may prove beneficial for
the oil and gas industry, posed Jody
Jones, chairman of the Ohio Oil & Gas
Association's Technical Committee. When
he spoke at the association's 2014 winter
conference, he said the proposal had been
held up for a year by the Common Sense
Initiative (CSI), the state program designed
to promote a more jobs-friendly regulatory
climate.
Standing before the 2015 meeting,
held March 11-13 at the Columbus Hilton
at Easton, Jones, manager of environmental
and regulatory affairs for Chesapeake
Energy, reported that late in 2014, CSI
asked the Ohio Department of Natural
Resources to rewrite the rule and restart
the stakeholder process.
OOGA submitted tightly focused comments, Jones said, which included a call
for revisions to the proposal's professional
engineer oversight and certification requirements. He pointed out the rule created
an odd relationship between the engineer,
operator and regulator, and was likely to
slow construction and drilling.
The pad rule defines construction, establishes specifics for operators' plan obligations, and establishes a process for
regulatory approval, Jones detailed. It
also sets a maximum review length of 55
days. "That's the maximum, but it is a
little concerning because that is a long
period in what is normally a short construction phase window," he said.
The revised rule does not regulate
freshwater or wastewater impoundments,
require financial assurance, or affect the
drilling permit process, he described.
Other Regulations
The Technical Committee also is
watching regulatory changes covering
ancillary waste facilities, Jones said.
ODNR's authority to regulate off-site
handling of waste does not affect operations at the well site, but he warned the
definitions included in the rule could impact oil and gas producers.

"OOGA will be paying close attention
to the language and words that ODNR
chooses, to make sure that a court 10
years from now does not say 'they meant
something else here,'" he said. "The rule
further clarifies ODNR's sole and exclusive authority. The rule is behind the
well pad construction rule. Its time frame
is unclear because of delays in the pad
construction rule that it is moving behind."
West Virginia and Pennsylvania are
rewriting their regulations governing radioactive materials, and those revisions
will affect Ohio operators' ability to dispose of their waste there, Jones offered.
Each state has its own requirements for
disposal sites that could affect waste
transfers from Ohio operations, he observed.
The OOGA Technical Committee is
talking with the Ohio Department of
Health about its technically enhanced
naturally occurring radioactive material
sampling burden, Jones reported. The
state requires every box of waste to be
sampled and the inspection record maintained with the manifest. He said operators

had discovered little variation in individual
loads-typically less than seven picocuries-
with repeatable results. OOGA is urging
DOH to decrease its sampling requirements. "When the sampling burden goes
down, that ultimately means so will your
costs," he predicted. "That makes it easier
to take waste to landfills that are farther
away."
Ohio regulators are clarifying the limits
of their authority over TERNORM and
NORM, especially in regard to oil field
wastes, Jones said. One key change redefines cuttings with a de minimis amount
of drilling mud as NORM, a distinction
he said other states didn't make. However,
on Nov. 17, OEPA issued a guidance
letter to landfills that indicated one interpretation of the rule could label waste
containing solidification materials as having more than a de minimis amount of
drilling mud.
"Members of the Technical Committee
immediately reached out to the OEPA
and the Department of Health, and explained this language's potential impacts,"
Jones said "Agency members were taken
to some sites to demonstrate how cuttings
were processed on-site using shell shakers
and centrifuges, and how they solidified.
I think it really opened their eyes about
how these cuttings are treated on site.
Our understanding is that the agency is
re-evaluating that guidance letter."
Federal Regulations

Jody Jones, chairman of the Ohio Oil &
Gas Association's Technical Committee,
says delays in the Ohio Department of
Natural Resources' well pad construction
rule could help well operators. Jones
was one of the presenters at OOGA's
2015 winter meeting, held March 11-13
at the Columbus Hilton at Easton in
Columbus, Oh.

If the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
decides to list the Indiana bat as threatened or endangered, Ohio operators
should expect a significant number of
restrictions on their activities, warned
Melissa Hamsher, chairwoman of
OOGA's Environmental Committee.
OOGA has submitted comments on the
proposed listing, she added.
"These changes potentially could increase restrictions on timbering, rights
of way, access roads, and well pad sites,"
said Hamsher, vice president for environment, health, safety and regulatory
for Eclipse Resources Corp. "USFWS is
requesting notification any time you have
a wetland in a bat corridor. Once it
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