A tiny town in eastern Ohio is being sued by an Oklahoma-based oil
and gas company that bought more than 180 million gallons of water from
the town last year. That water use, combined with a dry fall, prompted
the village to temporarily shut off water to Gulfport Energy. Now, a
second company has a water agreement, and there might not be enough
water to go around.Gulfport Energy alleges in the lawsuit that
the village of Barnesville, population 4,100, violated its agreement to
provide water from its reservoir by entering into a contract with oil
and gas company Antero Resources. Gulfport says the village's contract
with Antero allows for withdrawals beyond what Gulfport is allowed to
take.
Gulfport's water supply can be shut off whenever water
levels in the reservoir create a risk to the health and safety of the
village residents and businesses. Last fall, the reservoir was down
three feet below average when village officials stopped all outside
withdrawals.
"We felt like we had to shut everyone off to
protect the regular users," said village solicitor Marlin Harper. "We
don't have unlimited water."
But here's the catch: Only Gulfport
pumped water out of the reservoir last year. So even though, as Harper
admits, the Antero contract has "a little bit of a priority" over the
Gulfport contract, that's not the reason Gulfport's water supply was
shut off. During the unusually dry fall, water withdrawals by Gulfport
alone were too much for the reservoir to sustain.
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