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Columbus judge again orders Weathersfield injection well back open
By Ed Runyan
WEATHERSFIELD
Two decisions from Columbus courts have once again ordered a Weathersfield Township injection well back open for business, but the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says it will appeal again.
Judge Kimberly Cocroft of Franklin County Common Pleas Court this week ordered that the American Water Management Services injection well on state Route 169 just north of Niles reopen under a monitoring system that will adjust how the well operates depending on the magnitude of small or large earthquakes detected.
That system will continue to use four seismic monitoring stations AWMS installed earlier in Weathersfield and Niles to provide the company and state regulators with “real-time” monitoring of earthquakes – also known as seismic activity – occurring near the well.
Injection wells force wastewater from the gas and oil industry deep underground as a means of disposal.
Steve Kilper, vice president of AWMS, said the operation can be back up and running within a few weeks if further legal action doesn’t prevent it.
If a small earthquake of magnitude 2.35 or more occurs, AWMS will “immediately” reduce the daily volume of fluid injection and injection pressure by 10 percent for a 20-day period, the ruling says.
Conversely, if no earthquakes of 2.35 magnitude or larger occur, the company will be allowed to increase injection volumes and injection pressures upward by 10 percent.
Other adjustments will follow, depending on the magnitude of seismic activity detected. An earthquake of 3.0 or higher would shut down the well for 20 days, but it could restart after that at reduced injection volumes and pressures, the ruling says.
The well will be able to inject 1,550 barrels of fluid per day to start, a reduction of 20 percent from the 1,938 it injected in July and August 2014, when it experienced small earthquakes. The well will be able to inject initially at a pressure level of 1,350 pounds per square inch.
The ODNR shut down the injection well Sept. 4, 2014, after several small earthquakes were detected near the site. The largest was a 2.1-magnitude event Aug. 31, 2014. It was too small to be felt by humans, but the ODNR feared the well may have caused slippage in the same geological fault system that triggered the 4.0-magnitude 2011 New Year’s Eve earthquake at the D&L Energy injection well in Youngstown.
Matt Eiselstein, an ODNR spokesman, said ODNR will appeal the ruling because the monitoring system outlined in the ruling “will allow this injection well to cause an unlimited number of seismic events of any magnitude, while offering no chance for ODNR to require the well to be plugged.”
Eiselstein said the court rejected the plan ODNR offered that “would have created the appropriate protections for the citizens in the area.”
He added that the ODNR is concerned that Judge Cocroft’s decision “unnecessarily places the safety of the Mahoning Valley community at risk.” In addition to the appeal, the ODNR will file another stay of execution seeking to prevent Judge Cocroft’s decision from taking effect, Eiselstein said.
The ODNR also appealed and requested a stay of execution of Judge Cocroft’s Dec. 23, 2016, ruling that overturned the decisions of the ODNR and Ohio Oil and Gas Commission to close the well and ordered the well back open. At that time, she ordered the company and ODNR to offer a plan outlining the conditions under which the facility could operate.
Judge Cocroft’s ruling cited a June 2016 U.S. Geological Survey document in asserting that the plan for reopening the well is warranted. The document, called “the 2016 One-Year Seismic Hazard Forecast for the Central and Eastern United States From Induced and Natural Earthquakes,” says the potential to experience damage from earthquakes in Weathersfield Township is “less than 1 percent.”
The ruling said all of the small earthquakes that occurred near AWMS site in 2014 were “at or below normal daily background levels for Ohio.”
It added that none of the small earthquakes was “felt” by people “or would even have been known to occur had it not been for the sensitive instruments installed by AWMS and other companies in Northeast Ohio.”
The Columbus-based 10th District Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that the ODNR’s attempts to stop Judge Cocroft’s Dec. 23 decision from taking effect were premature and dismissed them. Judge Cocroft issued her new ruling the same day.