NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio — The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) will consider short-term sales of water from Clendening and Piedmont lakes to the oil and gas industry during the upcoming lake “drawdown” period when billions of gallons of water are released downstream as part of routine flood reduction operations.

Members of the MWCD board of directors authorized the temporary water sales, which are limited to those two lakes only and will be negotiated with the industry and capped at designated amounts. The action came Sept. 21.

“At drawdown, billions of gallons of water are released from the lakes, making this the optimum time to supply excess from the lakes to the oil and gas industry without any negative impacts on recreational activities at these two lakes,” said Sean D. Logan, MWCD chief of conservation.

Requests for water by companies preparing to drill Utica shale wells near the Clendening and Piedmont lake areas have increased in recent weeks as drilling operations are expected to begin soon.

Limited time frame

The MWCD board directed that any sales from either Clendening Lake in Harrison County or Piedmont Lake, located primarily in Belmont County, can occur only during the fall and winter, when lake levels are in “drawdown stage,” or reduced as part of the flood-control operations conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the dams at the MWCD lakes.

The combined amount of water released from Clendening and Piedmont lakes during the drawdown operations is more than 6 billion gallons. The amount normally required by oil and gas companies for the hydraulic fracturing process at individual well sites ranges from 5 million to 10 million gallons of water.

Earlier this year, the MWCD Board approved one water supply agreement with Gulfport Energy Co. for up to 11 million gallons of water from Clendening Lake, or less than 1 percent of the overall volume more than 8 billion gallons of water estimated in the lake during summer.

A temporary pipeline was used to draw a total of nearly 8 million gallons of water from the lake for drilling operations at a Gulfport well site nearby.

Part of the deals

Any water supply agreements approved include provisions that the MWCD has the right to cancel the deals if any negative interruptions in recreational and normal operations at the lakes are suspected or identified.

In June, the MWCD announced that it would suspend sales of water to the oil and gas industry pending the completion of water availability studies to be completed at Atwood, Clendening and Leesville lakes by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Those studies have not been completed, but information from them is expected sometime around the end of this year.

Seneca study

During Friday’s meeting, the board also approved a water availability study with an international engineering firm to be conducted at Seneca Lake.

CH2M Hill Engineering, headquartered in Colorado and with offices in Columbus, will begin the study immediately and be paid $20,000.

The MWCD has legal authority to sell water from the reservoirs and the use of water for beneficial public uses including consumptive, domestic and industrial uses was one of the two primary purposes cited for the organization of the MWCD in 1933.

The other primary purpose was to reduce the effects of flooding in the Muskingum River Watershed and the eventual construction of the 16 reservoirs and dams allows for the effective management of those two objectives.

Three long-term contracts for water supply from MWCD reservoirs are in place. They are with the Village of Cadiz in Harrison County for water from Tappan Lake; with the City of Cambridge in Guernsey County for an emergency backup supply of water from Seneca Lake; and with Carroll County for water from Atwood Lake for the county’s operation of Atwood Lake Resort.