Vice Mayor Verlita Meade said I-MAC Petroleum Services Inc. representative Charles Brooks offered the town $50,000 up front and $10,000 a year for 10 years if the town would allow the injection well.
“There was no response. It didn’t change anyone’s mind,” Meade said.
District 2 County Commissioner Steve Carter said he felt like the town of Vian received bad information at the recent hearing held in Tulsa.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) recently held a hearing in Tulsa on the proposed well. The decision was left up to Administrative Law Judge Kathy McKeown.
Town attorney Larry Vickers is starting the process of re-opening the hearing that was held in Tulsa.
“We want to get the transcript to present our side further with legal counsel,” Meade said. “We want to have everything together before the judge makes her decision.”
Brooks held a question and answer session during the meeting. Several residents asked questions and expressed their concerns regarding the danger of saltwater injection wells.
Of those residents, Sinclair Armstrong and David Thornton, District 3 Cherokee Nation tribal councilman, spoke strongly against the saltwater well.
“Armstrong gave statements adamantly opposing the well site,” Meade said.
Thornton spoke during the hearing held in Tulsa and noted that the Cherokee Nation had already sent in a letter to the OCC objecting to the well, following a meeting held at the Vian School auditorium on Sept. 17.
The letter, written by Ryan Callison, director of Cherokee Nation Environmental Programs, stated that I-MAC did not demonstrate a proven track record in safe underground injection wells in the area or financial resources to cover the cost of a spill, a sound plan for preventing contamination of drinking water aquifers with injected saltwater or containing and cleaning up spills of saltwater at the ground surface should it occur.
The letter also stated that geological faults in the vicinity of the proposed well, coupled with the history of wastewater injection in the well at Sequoyah Fuels, show there is considerable risk that injection of saltwater into the Arbuckle formation will contaminate wells and water supplies.
