State must take concerns over injection wells seriously
Property owners living in the shadows of two proposed wastewater injection wells in Brookfield Township are voicing some legitimate anxieties over that pending project in their backyards.
As responsible stewards to its residents, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources owes it to those property owners to factor their concerns into its final decision to approve or reject the project.
Highland Field Services LLC, a Pittsburgh-based subsidiary of Seneca Resources Inc., last month filed an application with ODNR for permission to develop two saltwater injection wells near state Route 7 in the rural township. The state agency has exclusive regulatory control over such wells, which are used to dispose of oilfield waste thousands of feet deep in the earth.
As news of the proposed development has spread through the Brookfield community, so, too, have the legitimate worries over public health. Some of those concerns were aired in a front-page story on the wells in Sunday’s Vindicator.
In that story, William Sawtelle who lives near the planned wells, expressed his fears of the potential fouling of the well water that the others nearby rely on for daily consumption and use. He and others also ponder the potential harmful impact on the area’s natural resources and wildlife.
“We have turkey, deer. This used to be a popular place for hunting. That’s all going to go away,” Sawtelle lamented.
His concerns, particularly those focused on public health, should not be taken lightly. After all, the history of injection wells in the Mahoning Valley has been riddled with a series of deep troubles.
Consider the Northstar 1 injection well owned by D&L Energy Systems in Youngstown that had been drilled into a previously undiscovered geological fault line. An ODNR report traced the likely cause of 11 minor earthquakes in its vicinity in 2011 – including the jarring magnitude 4.0 temblor on New Year’s Eve that year – to brine lubricating the fault line, causing it to slip and crack.
Consider, too, the environmental harm that mucked up a wooded area off Sodom Hutchings Road in Vienna Township in 2015. There, operations of several injection wells operated by Kleese Development Associates were ordered shut down after a chemical spill linked to the wells polluted nearby streams and plant life.
Consider as well the ongoing hubbub over American Water Management Services injection well along state Route 169 in Weathersfield Township. After a minor earthquake registering 2.1 on the Richter Scale was felt in its vicinity in March 2014, ODNR promptly ordered its shutdown, and the company complied. Since then, the well has been at the epicenter of ongoing debate by environmental activists and others over public safety.
Collectively these and other similar incidents in Ohio have triggered fears and questions about the long-term viability of hydraulic fracturing and injection wells.
TIGHTER REGULATIONS, RAVE REVIEW
They also, however, have spawned a wide variety of new regulations and laws to prevent repeat occurrences of such troubles.
Over the past five years, the ODNR and state lawmakers have updated and strengthened regulations governing safety and health concerns at well sites. Tighter restrictions for construction of wells, more robust supervision and inspections over them and harsher penalties for those who violate standards have been enacted into law.
Those toughened standards recently drew the attention and praise of the Ground Water Protection Council, an independent national monitoring agency of potential threats to the safety of drinking water.
In its report on its investigation released a few weeks ago, its monitoring team concluded that ODNR’s Division of Oil and Gas program’s oversight of Class II underground saltwater disposal wells [USDW] is “well run and managed. ... The program is well organized and makes excellent use of professional staff and the latest data management processes to assure that USDWs are adequately protected.”
Despite that stellar review and the advances Ohio has made in oversight and seismic monitoring at fracking and injection well sites, the very real concerns of Brookfield residents must not be given short shrift.
Although no public hearing is required for disposal wells’ approval, a period of public comment is ongoing. Those with concerns can contact the ODNR, Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management at 2045 Morse Road, Building F-2, Columbus, OH 43229-6693.
Those involved in the permitting process for Highland’s wells should listen to their concerns intently and respond to them fully, quickly and responsibly.