Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 28, 1990                   TAG: 9006280732
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: CLINTWOOD                                 LENGTH: Medium

EPA AIDES FAVORING COAL-GAS WELL DISPOSAL

More than 70 people at a public hearing Tuesday night on Virginia's first injection well for the disposal of saltwater from gas production were worried about possible contamination of their underground drinking water.

Many of them stayed for hours after the public hearing ended to talk, and sometimes argue, about such concerns with people from Equitable Resources Explorations, or Erex, who are seeking a permit for the well.

Engineering consultants outlined the five layers of protection that such a well would have, and insisted there was no possibility of leakage.

Stephen Platt, one of the EPA representatives at the hearing, said the saltwater that emerges from natural gas production comes from 2,000 feet below drinking water zones. It would be injected back into the ground through the well even deeper, he said, at about 4,000 feet below those zones.

Platt conceded that injection wells in other parts of the country have failed but, he said, their safety record has been good since there have been regulations governing them.

One onlooker misunderstood Platt's affiliation and asked if he was working for Erex, since he was so supportive of the project under review. "I'm trying to defend a technology that I feel very comfortable about," he said.

"We are not saying that we agree with what Erex is doing. We are saying this is how the well would be constructed," said Karen Johnson, the EPA representative who presided at the hearing. "There are nationwide standards for construction."

Legislation passed in February by the General Assembly offers tax credits to companies who drill gas wells in Virginia between now and the end of the century. Erex, a Pennsylvania-based company, was the only one with wells in Virginia producing methane at that time.

But people like Barney Reilly, president of the Dickenson County Citizens Committee formed in reaction to the plans for the first injection well, said concerns remain about erroneous data in the permit request and long-range effects of the injection well.

He said the region needs the jobs and income that would be generated from methane production, but the needs of county residents should be the main consideration.