By SCOTT YEARGAIN
Kansas Sierra Club
Judge Franklin Theis, Third Judicial District, Topeka, Kansas, ruled on July 3rd in favor of a petitioner who protested an injection well in Franklin County, Kansas.
Injection wells in Kansas are of two types – saltwater disposal wells and flooding wells. Both inject fluids, frequently with high saline concentrations and chemicals, into underground geologic formations.
The ruling involved a flooding well, a hole drilled, in this case, into the earth to 658 vertical feet. The purpose is to extract the hydrocarbons (oil or gas) remaining in a production zone in an oil lease.
The petitioner argued that the Kansas Corporation Commission had dismissed him without an evidentiary hearing, which when sufficient evidence of risk is offered, is afforded by Kansas law. The well, located in the Cox lease in northeast Franklin County, is surrounded by a watershed which flows to the Marais des Cygnes river below Ottawa, Kansas.
The petitioner, Scott Yeargain, a member of the Sierra Club, was nominated by Elaine Giessel to the governor’s 50-year Water Planning Commission.
The problem with the Utah Oil’s application Yeargain argued, is that the KCC had not completed a thorough survey of old abandoned wells in the environs of the proposed injection well.
There were 8 original protesters in this docket, all of whom were dismissed by the KCC. They filed petitions for reconsideration and were dismissed again.
On July 27th, 2018, Yeargain filed a civil suit in the 3rd Judicial District, Shawnee County, the home county of the Kansas Corporation Commission. On July 3, 2019 Judge Franklin Theis entered a Memorandum Opinion and Entry of Judgment. Yeargain stated that the KCC erroneously dismissed him prior to an evidentiary hearing notwithstanding that he had offered prima facie evidence that permitting the Cox #9 well in the Cox lease in extreme northeast Franklin county would present an unacceptable risk due to known abandoned wells in the environs of the Cox lease. The tributaries of the Marais des Cygnes river drain the Cox lease.
A Kansas Source Water assessment report for Franklin County Rural Water District #6 by Burns and McDonnell Engineers and Consultants had indicated in March of 2004 that this public water supply is at high risk for volatile organic compounds. These compounds are the productions of oil and gas exploration, extraction, and refining. The intake pipe for Franklin County Rural Water Six is downstream from where the tributary which drains the Cox lease runs into the Marais des Cygnes river.
Only Yeargain’s case is mandated back to the KCC for a hearing because only he filed for judicial review. The court costs which Yeargain paid will now have to be paid by the commission. Yeargain, along with many other protesters, have three other civil suits waiting judgment in the 3rd Judicial District, all of which involve injection wells and the risk they pose for fresh and usable water in the Marais des Cygnes watershed.
Yeargain, along with two protesters, are Sierra Club members.