Arguments recirculate in injection well battle | News, Sports, Jobs

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Arguments being made by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Howland company AWMS Solutions are getting repetitive now that the parties have stated them repeatedly in various Ohio courts and before the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission.

That is the case with a filing last week from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas to Judge Kimberly Cocroft of Franklin County Common Pleas Court. She is hearing an appeal of a decision by the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission that ruled in ODNR’s favor.

AWMS is hoping to reopen its injection well on state Route 169 just north of Niles after ODNR shut it down in 2014 following small earthquakes. The company is asking Cocroft to modify the parameters set by ODNR under which the Weathersfield Township injection well could be shut down again if it causes additional earthquakes. AWMS says the parameters in place now are not fair and legal.

AWMS argued last month that the rules are not fair because they would allow ODNR to hold the company in a “regulatory purgatory” if a small earthquake of 2.1 magnitude were to occur again — because ODNR could shut down the injection well and take as long as it likes to review the incident before allowing it to reopen.

AWMS instead is proposing a “traffic light system” that would activate yellow when a 2.35 magnitude earthquake takes place and a red light at 3.0 magnitude.

The yellow light would indicate that the injection well would need to reduce its injection capacity by 10 percent and reduce its maximum weekly pressure to 1,350 pounds per square inch, AWMS has stated.

If an earthquake of 3.0 occurred, AWMS would “cease injection” for 20 days, after which it could resume injections but only at a capacity that is 20 percent below average and at a maximum pressure of 1,350 pounds per square inch. AWMS says the “traffic light system” would make ODNR “accountable” for its future decisions to close the facility.

Injection wells force wastewater from the oil and gas industry deep underground as a means of disposal. The facility caused small earthquakes in 2014 soon after it opened.

WHAT ODNR SAYS

A filing last week by ODNR repeats arguments it has made in the past about the danger small earthquakes pose to the homes and schools in the neighborhoods surrounding the injection well in Niles and Weathersfield Township.

It again focuses on the potential danger as additional earthquakes would pose to the dam at the Meander Reservoir in Mineral Ridge, which is a little over three miles away from the injection well.

The filing, from attorneys for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, states the injection well “AWMS chose to drill in an urban area comprised of homes, schools and businesses” poses risks of damage and injury within that three mile area.

It says the injection well is “less than 2,000 feet from the nearest residential neighborhood and within a half mile of an elementary school.” Emmet Street in Weathersfield Township is just across Route 169 from the injection well, and the Niles City Schools Intermediate School is a half mile away.

The filing again mentions that the dam is the “sole drinking water source for over 220,000 people and approximately 11 billion gallons of water,” so a collapse of the dam “would result in probable loss of life and structural collapse of buildings and residences. ”

It again mentions the Northstar 1 injection well on the north end of Youngstown near Girard that caused a 4.0 earthquake Dec. 31, 2011. And it mentions that the soil and geological conditions in the Mahoning River Valley “make it more prone to greater surface shaking than other parts of Ohio.”

It also notes that because earthquakes are not common in Northeast Ohio, they cause anxiety among residents when they happen.

ESCALATION BUFFER

But the filing also introduces some less-known reasons why it chose a 2.1-magnitude earthquake as sufficient to allow ODNR to shut down the well in the future.

The filing states that ODNR wants to be able to shut down the well if it causes another 2.1 magnitude earthquake because ODNR believes a “buffer” of 2 to 2.5 magnitude is necessary between the 2.1 magnitude earthquake the Weathersfield injection well caused in 2014 and the highest earthquakes in Northeast Ohio of about 5.0.

It says the buffer is needed because of history of “escalating earthquakes” that occurred at the Weathersfield well in 2014 and the Youngstown injection well in 2011 and elsewhere.

Officials have said only one person felt the 2.1 magnitude 2014 Weathersfield earthquake. But the filing states that the injection well had an earthquake of 1.7 magnitude “almost as soon as” the well started to operate in 2014 and the 2.1 earthquake Aug. 31, 2014. It called that increase “escalation,” “consistent with jumps in magnitude caused by the nearby Northstar 1, which jumped from a (magnitude) 2.7 to a (magnitude) 4.0 a week later, even after the well was shut down .”

The ODNR filing cited a study by James Verdon and Julian Bommer that recommended setting such a “buffer against the threat of escalation of earthquakes to damages.”

The ODNR filing states that such a buffer is needed because experts have “acknowledged that the escalating size of earthquakes caused by Northstar 1 and by (the AWMS well) are typical for induced earthquakes.” It cited the hearing of seismologist Ivan Wong in stating that “if an injection well is inducing earthquakes, there is a risk that the worst is yet to come.”

The filing responds to allegation by AWMS in its filing last month that there should be limits on how long ODNR can study an earthquake before allowing the injection well to reopen by saying the “exact scope of that analysis would depend on the circumstances of the event — Each situation must be considered based on the facts of that particular earthquake.”

It states that AWMS’s suggestion that an earthquake of 2.1 or higher should result in a “20-day pause with an automatic restart” would be “dangerous” and “unreasonably aggressive.” It alleges AWMS wants to be able to “cause an earthquake at a magnitude greater than 3.0 every 20 days.”

AWMS now has until Tuesday to reply to the ODNR filing before Cocroft can rule on the issue.

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