New study links well near Niles to quakes

WEATHERSFIELD — A soon-to-be published study of earthquakes near two brine-injection wells on state Route 169 just north of Niles indicates that the deeper of the two wells apparently caused the quakes.

Seismologists at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, used data they collected just after a 2.1-magnitude Aug. 30, 2014, earthquake to report to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources that the quake’s epicenter was “almost directly

beneath” the injection well, said Mike Brudzinski, one of the paper’s authors.

Furthermore, the quake was part of a small sequence of earthquakes, the seismologists told ODNR.

ODNR ordered the owner of the wells — American Water Management Services, a subsidiary of Avalon Holdings of Howland — to shut down both wells soon afterward while the state further investigated.

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