Fracking: Formulation of Appropriate State Regulation Of Waste Disposal

Abstract

With the backdrop of a growing worldwide population, the attendant increasing energy needs, and the ongoing global warming controversy, a method of unconventional oil and gas production called hydraulic fracturing, also simply known as “fracking,” has emerged a high profile method of unconventional oil and gas production. While fracking is an established technology that has been long used in various applications, including oil and gas production, more recently there has been a significant amount of controversy over whether high volume fracking, combined with the use of newer horizontal drilling technology, should be employed at all, and if used, how that use should be regulated. This paper mainly restricts its scope to the regulation of disposal of waste that is a byproduct of the fracking process, using Michigan and Ohio as examples. Michigan and Ohio were chosen because while they have different requirements from each other for regulating disposal of waste from fracking, they are both within the Great Lakes watershed, which means that contamination carries the potential for relatively far reaching negative impacts as compared with other states. At the time this paper was written neither Michigan or Ohio had a comprehensive fracking statute, yet both states host shale “plays.” In discussing the regulation of disposal of fracking waste, this paper touches on some related topics and provides a general background to hydraulic fracturing and the targeted resources, a necessary context in order to appreciate and consider the policy recommendations in this paper, as well as the rapidly evolving State and Federal regulatory treatment of fracking in general. Selected portions of this paper were published in July 2012 as part of a larger collaborative paper sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation entitled Hydraulic Fracturing in the Great Lakes Basin: The State of Play in Michigan and Ohio. Some descriptive portions of this paper borrow heavily from the collaborative paper.