Safety comes first at well site, says ODNR official

Safety comes first at well site, says ODNR official

YOUNGSTOWN

For a brine-injection well on the city’s West Side to resume operating, its owner must “meet a high standard” to show it’s safe, said an Ohio Department of Natural Resources official.

D&L Energy Group and ODNR officials met privately Wednesday to discuss the well on Ohio Works Drive.

Eleven earthquakes, including Saturday’s 4.0 magnitude quake, were centered close to the Ohio Works Drive well, operated by Northstar Disposal Services LLC, a D&L affiliated company.

Last Friday, D&L agreed to an ODNR request to cease operations at that well.

After the Saturday earthquake, the largest of the 11, the state imposed a moratorium ordering D&L to keep four inactive wells, within a five-mile radius of the Ohio Works well, closed indefinitely.

“We’re not saying we believe for certain there is a direct causation [between the well and the quakes], but, at this point, there has to be a pretty high bar of information provided to move forward with allowing injections at those sites,” Andrew Ware, an ODNR spokesman, told The Vindicator on Wednesday.

At Wednesday’s meeting between D&L and ODNR, company officials said they would pay an independent entity for a geology examination near and around the Ohio Works well.

In a prepared statement, D&L said the study is “appropriate and necessary.”

There is no timetable for starting or completing the study, “but D&L is committed to moving forward in an expeditious manner,” the statement read.

D&L has seven water-holding tanks on site with five more coming soon to store water from the well, and casing pipe will be removed shortly to prepare for testing.