West Virginia has opened the Ohio River to fracking. The state government announced that companies can ask to drill beneath the Ohio River for natural gas and oil. Those companies would pay the state a per-acre fee as well as royalties on the oil and gas.

West Virginia has opened the Ohio River to fracking.

The state government announced that companies can ask to drill beneath the Ohio River for natural gas and oil.

Those companies would pay the state a per-acre fee as well as royalties on the oil and gas. It is a move that could bring millions of dollars into West Virginia, which has tapped into its rainy-day fund to prop up its budget.

But environmental activists say that cash infusion could come at the expense of clean drinking water for thousands of people on both sides of the river.

West Virginia has made initial awards to three oil and gas companies � Triad Hunter, StatOil USA Onshore and Gastar Exploration � to frack beneath 12 miles of the Ohio River next to southeastern Ohio and has received requests from companies to frack beneath an additional 9 miles. The drilling would occur from Marshall, Wetzel and Pleasants counties.

The first three deals are still being negotiated, and nothing has been signed yet, said Josh Jarrell, deputy secretary and general counsel of the West Virginia Department of Commerce. But they include a cash fee of as much as $9,000 per acre in some cases and a 20 percent royalty on oil and gas produced at each well.

�That revenue infusion will go right back into our state parks,� Jarrell said. �There�s been a tremendous amount of pressure on our state budget lately, so it�s going to help everyone enjoy those resources even more.�

Fracking involves drilling down thousands of feet, turning the drill horizontally into shale deposits, and blasting water, sand and chemicals at high pressure to fracture the shale to free the oil and gas trapped there.

After the shale is fractured, water, fracking fluid, sand, oil and gas flow back up the well to the surface, where they are separated. Wastewater frequently gets pumped into injection wells for disposal; fracking fluid gets reused, if possible; and oil and gas are separated to be used for energy.

The industry says both drilling and wastewater disposal are safe, but environmental-advocacy groups point to well fires, explosions, tainted groundwater and earthquakes that result from fracking and wastewater-injection wells.

�There are spills and dumping (from fracking), and things like that are all threatening our waterways in southeast Ohio to begin with,� said Leatra Harper, managing director of the Freshwater Accountability Project, which is based in Muskingum County in Ohio.

�But especially when we�re fracking right next to and under public sources of drinking water, that�s an immediate threat.�

Jarrell said companies that want to frack beneath the Ohio River must get permits through the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

�We�re absolutely concerned about (the risks) and we�re sensitive to them, but we have to defer to the DEP to manage those risks,� Jarrell said. �They�ve been doing this type of activity for a while, and it�s been done safely. We believe it can be done very safely.�

About 5 million people get their drinking water from the Ohio River, says the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, an eight-state agency that monitors water quality on the Ohio and works to prevent and deal with pollution there.

The commission tests water at some public drinking-water intake points along the river, said Jason Heath, the commission�s technical programs manager and assistant chief engineer. Public water systems test their own water, too.

Heath said the commission already tests for benzene and toluene, two toxic chemicals present in fracking wastewater.

But the commission does not test regularly for radioactive materials, which are also sometimes found in fracking waste.

Heath said the commission hasn�t taken a position on drilling beneath the river. But he said if chemicals got into the river, there wouldn�t be much the commission could do besides shut down public drinking-water intakes.

�There�s not a whole lot you can do when something gets in the river but wait for it to go downstream,� he said.

larenschield@dispatch.com

@larenschield