City Manager Bill Baker said he attended a Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) hearing in Oklahoma City last week on the proposed well. He said he will report to the commission on the well, and ask the commissioners if they wish to formally oppose the well because of possible contamination of the city’s water supply. The city will also have to hire, at considerable expense when funds are low, experts to testify for the city about the possible problems the well might cause.
Panther Gas LLC of Oklahoma City is applying for the permit. The proposed well is 5.8 miles north of downtown Sallisaw and about three-quarters of a mile west of U.S. Highway 59, on county road E1020.
According to the legal publication about the well application, the well will be 1,850 feet deep and the top of the well will be at 850 feet.
Seth Loomis, company agent for Panther Gas LLC, told Your TIMES that such a saltwater disposal well is “a fairly common thing,” and is used to dispose of saltwater from a nearby gas or oil well. The company is drilling a well on the same property, searching for gas. Loomis explained the formation (from which the company hopes to be pumping natural gas) has water as well, and basically the water will be removed as the gas is pumped out and will be piped to the disposal well.
Baker said Panther Gas LLC asked the OCC for an emergency hearing on the application, which was held Monday. But, Baker explained, because three people voiced opposition to the well at the Monday hearing, the OCC rescheduled for July 14, but that hearing will also probably be rescheduled. Those attending the Monday hearing were Baker, Lacey Horn of Vian, and John Bennett, who lives north of Sallisaw near the proposed well and is a Republican candidate for District 2 state representative.
Horn and Bennett also opposed a wastewater well in Vian. The application for the Vian disposal well was dismissed last month. The applicant, I-MAC Petroleum Services Inc. of Muskogee, was facing opposition from Vian and county residents and the Cherokee Nation.
Horn, one of the spokespersons for the opposition, said after the dismissal, “I am very pleased to hear that I-MAC has decided to withdraw their application for a disposal well in Vian. I sincerely hope that in the future members of our community would not invite such entities to conduct business here. I would like to say thank you to the many people who helped in the opposition of this well.”
Horn has already filed her objections to the saltwater well north of Sallisaw with the OCC.
Baker explained that the proposed well in Vian is different from the proposed well north of Sallisaw.
“The proposed well in Vian was a commercial well,” Baker said. “This (saltwater) well is a non-commercial well, and a companion well to the gas well already drilled.”
Baker said he will ask the city commissioners at their next meeting July 12 if they want him to file an official protest against the Panther Gas well. He said the commissioners will have to determine if they want to fight the proposed well after considering that, most likely, an attorney specializing in the oil-and-gas industry and experts in the industry will have to be hired at a time when city finances are low.
“We will need time and money to oppose the well, and will have to hire experts with specialization in this area,” Baker said.
Baker said the OCC has given the city time to respond by rescheduling the hearing.
He added that the proposed saltwater disposal well may be harder to fight than the Vian well because the saltwater well is not in a populated area and because such disposal wells as a companion well near a gas or oil well are common.
