This is the second post in a three part series which discusses water rights & regulation in the Utica and Marcellus Shale regions. The first post discussed how oil & gas companies select water resources to supply their drilling activities.  The post also reviewed two different strategies employed by companies when accessing water resources:

  1. Companies

Oil & gas development in Ohio has reinvigorated an area of law- water rights- that had laid mostly dormant for more than a century.  The need for fresh water for fracking has resulted in large investments in water infrastructure and competition among companies to secure access to prime sources of fresh water. 

According to the

Back in April of this year, a citizen group filed a petition that argued Ohio illegally tried to exempt oil & gas companies from complying with federal emergency planning and citizen reporting requirements under the "Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act ("EPCRA").  EPCRA requires companies that store certain hazardous chemical above certain thresholds to inform

This past summer the Ohio General Assembly passed House Bill 59 which changed various aspects of the regulatory approach toward oil & gas waste material management.  One aspect dealt with under H.B. 59 was the regulation of oil & gas related waste that may be considered technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TENORM).  H.B. 59

With the passage of Ohio’s budget bill (House Bill 59), the State has enacted tougher regulation of oil & gas related wastes. Beginning January 1, 2014, a person is prohibited from storing, recycling, treating, processing, or disposing of brine or other waste substances associated with oil & gas exploration and production without a permit or

Across the country more local governments are attempting to pass their own ordinances regulating or even prohibiting natural gas drilling in their jurisdictions.  Under home rule principals, the typical rule of thumb is that local ordinances are preempted if the state has a comprehensive regulatory scheme for that area.  However, various state courts have reached