Little can be done about injection wells, attorney tells Trumbull crowd

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

A local gas and oil attorney said citizens of Trumbull County with concerns about the state’s highest number of injection wells may need to focus on voicing concerns about future injection wells, rather than trying to do anything about existing ones.

But the three county commissioners and county Engineer Randy Smith said it’s still worth a try to seek changes to Ohio law that took away almost all local control over the industry. Wednesday was the first of two meetings Smith sponsored to educate the public on injection-well legal issues.

Atty. Thomas G. Carey of the Harrington, Hoppe and Mitchell law firm said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources usually takes about a year to evaluate a potential injection well before approving it. That’s the time to register concerns about it, he said. After that, little can be done.

One pending legal case — City of Munroe Falls (Ohio) v. Beck Energy — does suggest the possibility that local individuals through their local governments can regulate truck travel associated with brine injection by establishing weight limits on vehicles, Carey said.

The county engineer’s office has used weight limits to secure road improvements from brine-injection companies in recent years, Smith said.

But based on how courts so far have ruled in the Beck Energy case, that may be the most local communities can do, Carey said. The matter is pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.

That information was no comfort to Vienna Township resident Mary Swift, who wanted to know if something could be done to reduce traffic passing in front of Mathews High School on Warren-Sharon Road.

She said she and other residents didn’t know enough to get involved while Kleese Development was still seeking permits to operate injection wells in the area. “We were new to this. We didn’t know what was coming,” she said.

Commissioner Frank Fuda said it’s going to take the help of “all of our state officials” to give county officials more control to limit the number of wells that can exist in the county, how much waste they can accept and how they operate.

“It looks like everything’s being handled by the state. Our hands are tied,” Commissioner Dan Polivka said.

State representatives Sean O’Brien of Bazetta and Michael O’Brien of Warren could not attend the meeting, but they are expected to attend today’s session at 6 p.m. at the commissioners’ meeting room in the county administration building, 160 High St. NW.