The Republican Governor has seen tough opposition from many in his own party, which has largely sided with drillers. But he’s making another pitch: Click the play button above to hear how the Governor is changing his argument.

Two weeks ago, an Athens county woman chained herself to equipment at the site of a deep-injection well where drilling waste water is disposed of. This week, a Maryland man was charged with criminal trespass for chaining himself to a gate at a disposal well in Trumbull County.

The activists contend that this waste is so dangerous, it should be disposed of differently. But Ohio natural resources officials say they’re not allowed to make that change. Click the play button above to hear more from both sides.

The latest well is being drilled in an area less than an hour from Columbus.

Public records at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources show the shift in drilling activity in Ohio.

“We’re starting to see leasing activity come into Central Ohio,” said ODNR spokeswoman Heidi Hetzel-Evans.

Hetzel-Evans explains that revised geological maps of Ohio indicate oil and gas rich shale stretches further west than originally thought.

“Knox county for sure Morrow, and Marion headed into western Ohio,” Hetzel-Evans said.

On farmland, near the Licking County, Knox County border is a new exploratory well. Devon Energy of Oklahoma City is drilling down nearly 4-thousand feet.

The company hopes it hits natural gas and oil in what’s known as the Utica shale. Access to the well site is restricted. Workers and supply vendors have to check in with a Knox County sheriff deputy at the entrance to the well field.

In Utica, Lanny White says he’s only heard of the new drilling activity and seen it from a distance.

“I heard that, yes, my first reaction is what are they doing in this area?” White asked.

Evidently they think there might be some oil deep underground here.

“Well, uh, Good luck with that, I guess,” White said. “Well, I mean, I don’t like anybody from out of town coming around here. If anybody reaps the benefits I’d hope it would be somebody local.”

At the Duke-Duchess gas station at Routes 62 and 13, Utica construction worker Allen Keegan waits each morning for a ride to his jobsite outside Columbus. He’s noticed a change since shale drilling began.

“I’ve seen more people coming in to get gas for work in the morning. I think it will bring more people in. Hopefully, the people we’ve got here they’ll give them jobs first instead of bringing a bunch of people from out of town in,” Keegan said.

It’s too early to tell whether the gently rolling landscapes around Utica, Mount Vernon, and Johnstown will yield sufficient amounts of oil and gas to attract major development of the shale fields deep below. ODNR’s Hetzel-Evans said Devon and other companies are still exploring the potential resource.

“We actually have only had about a dozen wells come into production in the Utica shale area. That said we’ve had over 200 wells drilled. Many of those wells may not go beyond exploration,” Hetzel-Evans said.

But, Hetzel-Evans anticipates more drilling, especially in areas that skirt the northernmost Columbus suburbs. She explains that locating oil and gas deposits thousands of feet below ground is an inexact science.

“Geology is not constant. You can cross the street and the geology thousands of feet below the surface will have changed dramatically,” Hetzel said.

As drilling activities move closer to urban populations, Hetzel-Evans said companies face stricter standards to protect underground and surface drinking water supplies.

Devon Energy has a clause in its well permit to abandon the Knox County site if the well proves unproductive. Current ODNR records show no exploratory wells in Morrow, Marion, or other counties surrounding Columbus. But, the geologic map now shows potential oil and shale gas deposits as far west as the Franklin-Madison county line.

The Athens Messenger reports the move came Friday after trustees heard from an OU committee studying the best ways to safeguard university land from any negative impacts associated with hydraulic fracturing.

A new state law has overhauled the process for leasing state-owned land for oil and gas development. It opens up all state land, including property at public colleges, for potential drilling.

A university official says the board of trustees should have the power to veto any mineral rights leases the state enters into regarding university-owned land, but she didn’t know if the state could override those vetoes.

State legislators okayed the idea last year, and drilling regulators have just unveiled some proposed guidelines for drilling operations.

Click the play button above to more how the proposed guidelines are already causing controversy.

The environmental group says the suit comes more than six months after the group’s first request for the public records. Click the play button above to hear from Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen.

Figures reported Monday by Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. show five wells in eastern Ohio producing 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2011.

The figures, which Chesapeake provided to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, shows one well alone in Harrison County producing 2 percent of the state’s entire natural gas production.

Rick Simmers, Ohio’s oil and gas resources division chief, says preliminary production for all the wells is very high.

Companies including Chesapeake have drilled 38 other wells that have yet to report production.

Ohio has issued about 150 permits for Utica Shale wells in Ohio.

Despite the shutdown of some wells in other states, the Ohio drilling continues.

Earlier this year, Chesapeake announced it will curtail eight percent of its natural gas production by idling 24 rigs in Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

To determine why Chesapeake and other oil and gas companies continue drilling here while cutting back in other areas, it’s important to know a little about commodity prices and rock formations.

Geologist Christopher Perry works at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

At the annual meeting of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, Perry stands next to a map of Ohio which marks limestone and shale formations deep beneath the surface. Perry says much of Eastern Ohio sits atop a 400-million-year-old formation known as the Appalachian Basin.

“The Appalachian Basin is like a bowl-shaped structural feature that’s underground.”

And, Perry adds the deepest part of the underground bowl is in Western Pennsylvania where drillers have to go down ten thousand feet or more to recover natural gas. Eastern Ohio, by contrast, is closer to the edge of the Appalachian Basin so its closer to the surface. And that means dry natural gas is mixed oily materials.

“Because its not as deep it didn’t get cooked as much it wasn’t subjected to as much temperature. And because it wasn’t cooked as much it still contains hydrocarbons. Not only are there hydrocarbons but there’s liquids, because they haven’t been driven off. They’re still in the shale.”

Perry says this makes for something called “wet gas.” Up until a couple of years ago none of this mattered. Because companies lacked the technology to drill and get it. But, a controversial horizontal drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing has unlocked bountiful amounts of natural gas.

“Quite frankly, the drilling companies that developed this technology and have implemented it in a wide variety of basins across the country have kind of victimized themselves with their own success. They’ve flooded the market with dry gas.”

So now, Joel Rudicil of JR Resources in Richfield, Ohio says the law of supply and demand has collided with what the industry calls the “shale plays” resulting in a suspension of drilling activity in some regions.

“Well, the reason that you would see a downturn in exploration and development is simply due to commodity price. We’ve got natural gas prices now that are at a 50 year low at something south of 2-dollars fifty cents, we’ve got oil at 100 dollars a barrel.”

So, now Chesapeake and other companies are looking for shales that hold ‘wet gas’ with both natural gas and oil because dry gas wells alone are unprofitable with today’s natural gas prices.

So far, an industry report says seven wells in two Eastern Ohio counties have been fracked. But, Rudicil says little is known publicly about the richness or productivity of those wells.

“Well, much of that information is proprietary because of the companies that have made significant investment acquiring lease-hold positions are still doing they’re exploratory phase. So much of that information is proprietary but what we all hear is that it’s encouraging.”

The first public production reports on the seven new wells are due later this month. When the numbers are disclosed we will know better whether Ohio is on the cusp of another oil boom. Geologist Perry says even without production numbers recent actions by Chesapeake energy and others are tell-tale.

“They’re committing capital to build mid-stream facilities, a processing plant, a storage facility for the liquids that the shale will produce . You know that’s almost a billion dollars in cost here in Ohio. So that’s an indicator that the shale will be very viable and productive.”

While the final verdict is pending on the richness of Ohio’s shale reserves. Rudicil says further exploration and recovery of the oil and gas will hinge mostly on future commodity prices and the economic laws of supply and demand.

Click the play button above for more details on the report and reaction from fracking critics.