An Ohio judge has asked the operator of a closed injection well to submit a plan to reopen the well in Trumbull County’s Weatherfield Township, about 65 miles southeast of Cleveland. The well was closed in 2014 because it was believed linked to two nearby small earthquakes.
An Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) spokesman said state attorneys are considering a response to the judge’s order.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kimberly Cocroft ordered the state and well operator, American Water Management Services (AWMS), to submit language for a judgment order to reopen the well.
Cocroft said the state had the authority to shut down the well after earthquakes were detected in July-August 2014. But Cocroft also said the Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management should have allowed AWMS to resume operations after submitting a plan to pump brine at lower pressures and volumes.
Some scientists suggest that injecting waste fluid below ground causes existing faults to become stressed, triggering earthquakes. In 2012-13, ODNR expanded its seismic monitoring around Class II injection wells.
Updates to Ohio state law call for rules that go beyond requirements mandated by the US Environmental Protection Agency for Class II injection wells.
The Seismological Society of America published a related article in 2016 in which professors from Miami University in Ohio linked 2014 earthquakes in Poland Township, Ohio, to hydraulic fracturing activities believed to have activated a previously unknown fault.
Scientists said it’s rare for hydraulic fracturing to cause earthquakes that can be felt above ground by humans but that increased seismic monitoring is detecting more earthquakes than might have been reported otherwise.