Filings preview arguments for and against allowing Weatherfield injection well to reopen
By Ed Runyan
COLUMBUS
A Franklin County judge has denied the request of American Water Management Services to reopen its Weathersfield Township injection well on a temporary basis while she hears an appeal of the well’s closure.
Judge Kimberly Cocroft ruled Aug. 18 that she would not allow Howland-based Avalon Holdings, owner of the well on state Route 169 just north of Niles, to reopen pending her final decision.
The filings from the company and state suggest the arguments that will be presented in the appeal.
In her judgment entry, Judge Cocroft said she would “defer to the expertise” of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources “as well as serving the public interest,” in refusing the immediate reopening. She referred to the well as being in an “urban” area.
The deeper of the two injection wells at the site has been closed since shortly after earthquakes in the summer and fall of 2014 that ODNR says may have been related to the injection well.
Such wells force fluid waste from oil and gas drilling deep underground as a means of disposal.
American Water Management asked Judge Cocroft in July for a decision allowing the injection well to reopen, arguing that an ODNR order closing it deprived AWMS of all economically viable use of the property and was arbitrary and illegal.
In an Aug. 6 filing, the ODNR said the reason for closing it was “to protect the community surrounding the well from earthquakes escalating in magnitude that could jeopardize public health, safety and the environment.”
At least 20 small seismic events, or earthquakes, occurred near the injection well in 2014, culminating in a 2.1-magnitude quake Aug. 31, 2014, the ODNR said.
The department also suggested a possible connection between the Weathersfield earthquakes and a 4.0-magnitude Dec. 31, 2011, earthquake in Youngstown, saying the Weathersfield and Youngstown injection wells may have “tapped into the same geologic fault system.”
AWMS, however, said the closing was improper because there were no complaints from the public about the 2.1-magnitude earthquake and smaller ones because they were “much too small to be felt by human[s] and were thousands of times weaker than events that can cause even slight damage to property.”
The company said the ODNR’s decision closing the well was “inconsistent” because other Ohio injection wells were allowed to continue to operate despite seismic activity involving “much higher magnitudes, frequencies of events, and many times the energy released compared to the insignificant events observed in the vicinity of AWMS.”
Local environmental activists with the organization FrackFree Mahoning Valley say one reason the Weathersfield well presents a risk to the public is because of its proximity to schools and other structures in Niles, as well as the Meander Dam several miles away.
Additional filings in the case are due at the end of September.