Warren officials, residents worry about impacts of injection wells

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ohio (WTAP) - There are about 180,000 class II injection wells in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

These are underground storage wells for the wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Over 200 of those wells are in Ohio, mostly in Washington, Athens, Meigs, and other Appalachian counties.

For Bob Wilson, who owns dozens of traditional oil and gas wells in Washington County, the issue of these wells is personal.

“I noticed some of my wells just went dead, quit producing gas and oil,” Wilson said. “And it kind of corresponded with the well drilled out at Redbird. I was losing two or three wells a day. I started calling ODNR, and they denied that it could be disposal water.”

Since then, analysis has shown that it was, in fact, disposal water that had migrated from a nearby injection well, rendering Wilson’s wells inoperable.

He said this loss is costly.

“Tens of millions of dollars,” Wilson said. “Because they’re pumping my reserves full of water in zones that I could have I could have drilled deeper wells and produced them and that’s all gone now. There’s nothing there but water. So, they basically ruined me.”

Wilson is not alone.

At a recent community meeting, local residents and well-owners came together with activists, local water district officials, and State Representative Tristan Rader to discuss their concerns about how the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, or ODNR, has regulated these wells.

Washington County already has over a dozen wastewater injection wells.

Now, DeepRock Disposal Solutions--the former CEO of which is the region’s state senator Brian Chavez--has been approved to drill yet another injection well, just a few miles from community water sources near the Muskingum River. Chavez did not respond to requests for comment.

Considering the impact existing injection wells have had on oil and gas wells, local water officials worry about what another well could mean for drinking water.

“We’re concentrating right now on the brine water issue,” said Steve Hutchinson, a trustee of the Warren Community Water and Sewer Association. “We have four wells that are in an aquifer along the Muskingum River not far from here. And could that brine water infiltrate them? Absolutely.”

Adding to these concerns is House Bill 170, proposed state legislation that would give ODNR authority over class VI carbon capture wells, where carbon dioxide is pressurized and injected underground.

Environmental scientist Dr. Randi Pokladnik said that like the brine water from injection wells, carbon dioxide in these class VI wells could spread through the ground into other sources.

“We know that they’re pumping this stuff into the bedrock, and it’s going to seek the path of least resistance,” Pokladnik said. “When it’s pressurized to over 1000 PSI, that’s going to seek the path of least resistance. And one of the places would be orphan wells, production wells. And they know this is happening now because the brine has infiltrated production wells, oil and gas production wells, in Washington County.”

Considering their experience with wastewater injection wells, Pokladnik and well-owners and other residents of Washington County worry about the agency’s ability to adequately regulate additional class VI carbon capture wells.

State Representative Tristan Rader, who sits on the House Natural Resources Committee, visited Washington County to hear residents’ concerns.

“I’m concerned,” Rader said. “We’ve heard a lot of concerns from people, lots of people today and have had many of these type of meetings where we’ve heard even more people have concerns about these types of injection wells that currently exist impacting water tables. And if we’re only going to add more of these high pressure deep carbon wells that are going to, you know, be regulated by ODNR, we should understand really how that’s going to impact our water supply.”

Seeing how injection wells have impacted southeast Ohio, Rader said he’d return to the statehouse with questions about how prepared ODNR is for more responsibility.

“What is our ODNR doing?” Rader said. “What tools do they have to manage this? Are they really ready for this type of responsibility? Because right now we don’t have any of these types of wells, these class VI wells, but we do have injection wells that they’re putting this brine down to the ground and we’re hearing a lot of concerns. And we’re actually seeing first hand the impacts of that. So, I’m concerned. I just have a lot of questions.”