Thursday, July 17, 2014

Opposition to frackwater on the Ohio River

Folks in Athens County, Ohio, which itself has only a few miles of Ohio River frontage, are trying to stop a proposed barge dock in neighboring Meigs County. GreenHunter Water wants to build a barge dock to handle liquids associated with hydraulic fracturing in the Utica and Marcellus shale regions of Ohio and, I assume, West Virginia.

The public notice for the permit application says the dock would be built at Mile 223.7.

"The proposed facility would consist of a barge dock with a center platform and two pipe pile dolphins to accommodate two tank barges (either 195 feet x 35 feet or 300 feet x 54 feet) simultaneously," the public notice says. "... The purpose of the project is to unload bulk liquids (~2.5 million bbl per year) from the tank barges via a pipeline, mounted on the side of the walkway, to above ground storage tanks."

According to the web site of The Athens News, the Athens County Fracking Action Network wants the Corps of Engineers to extend the public comment period.