"Ohio Taking in Flood of Pennsylvania Brine for Disposal"

"Millions of barrels of salty, toxic wastewater from natural-gas wells in Pennsylvania are coming into Ohio despite efforts to keep it at bay.

In June 2010, Ohio quadrupled the fees that out-of-state haulers must pay to dump brine into 170 disposal wells.

Ohio officials thought that raising the fees to 20 cents per barrel from 5 cents would help keep the brine in Pennsylvania, where drilling has exploded since the discovery of huge gas deposits deep in Marcellus shale. Ohio wants to keep its injection wells open for Ohio brine, which also might explode in volume if the state's own shale begins to give up natural gas.

But then, Pennsylvania officials told 27 sewage-treatment plants to stop dumping brine into streams. The state's geology doesn't support brine-injection wells.

Ohio's does."

Spencer Hunt reports for the Columbus Dispatch June 19, 2011.