People can address their concerns about the safety of hydraulic fracturing

ORRVILLE, Ohio - The oil and gas drilling process hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, has been the source of a lot of controversy lately, and concerned citizens can learn more about it Tuesday night.

The University of Akron Wayne College is holding a community forum at 7 p.m. Tuesday night in the J.M. Smucker Company Room of the Student Life Building in Orrville.

The panel consists of Rhonda Reda of the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program, Dale Arnold of Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, attorney Dan Plumly with Critchfield Critchfield & Johnson Ltd., and Dr. Adil Wadia of Wayne College.

The forum will focus on oil and gas exploration, drilling and production. Part of that process could include fracking.

Some Northeast Ohio communities have recently protested proposed fracking projects, concerned that the chemicals used would contaminate groundwater.

Reda said they have the wrong idea.

Reda said that the term “fracking” has become a catch-all for all forms of exploration. She noted that, in the past 150 years in Ohio, 274,000 wells have been drilled and, since the 1950s, many of them were fracking projects involving chemicals.

Reda said there has not been a case linking hydraulic fracturing to groundwater contamination. She said no chemical ever touches the aquifer. Chemicals include a sand mixture, a gel called gwar and a chemical to kill bacteria.

Nevertheless, Reda acknowledged there is a possibility and valid concern for contamination. Groundwater contamination could happen when the initial well bore is being constructed. Drilling operators need to put down multiple layers of steel pipe and cement. If not done properly, contamination could occur.

One concern is the fact that there so many companies that could perform these drilling operations. About 600 operators could place bids to lease land to drill on.

But Reda said the operator does not matter. Each one must drill according to the state regulations, which are monitored by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The ODNR monitors each well bore process.

So the operators know what areas are good prospects to drill in, they use maps made by the ODNR’s geological survey. Reda said they have a 90 percent success rate of finding either natural gas, crude oil or wet gas, which can be further processed into propane, helium or butane.

More information about the ODNR's geological department can be found at http://on.wews.com/xSlDqw , and more information about the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Program is at http://on.wews.com/yp7J4w