Saturday, September 06, 2014YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Ohio Department of Natural Resources Friday ordered the shutdown of the two brine injection wells in Weathersfield Township the agency determined to be the epicenter of two minor earthquakes recorded Sunday.
A statement was released late Friday by a spokesman for ODNR, who said the owner of the injection wells, American Water Management Services Inc., “has cooperated with our request and the two injection wells on [the] site remain closed. We will continue to evaluate all the data to determine what exactly happened and will share more information as it is available.”
ODNR said its decision is “due to the seismic array proactively placed in the area [from which] ODNR was able to determine that possible evidence exists linking the American Water Management Services' injection well operation to a recent 2.1 seismic event. This is a relatively minor event, but out of an abundance of caution, ODNR issued orders to the company to suspend injection operations while a full investigation takes place.”
Following the tremor, the company was in continuous contact with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, its executives said.
On Wednesday, Ron Klingle, chairman of Howland-based Avalon Holdings Corp., parent of American Water management, described the small earthquake as a “total nonevent. … Whatever is taking place is meaningless,” he told The Business Journal. “Of the events that have occurred, none have been significant." (READ STORY)
Klingle said 8,000 earthquakes registering between 2.0 and 3.0 on the Richter scale occur every day across the United States. "There are 80,000 every day between 1.0 and 2.0," he continued. "Everything has to be kept into perspective. This is an absolute, total nonevent. … What's not insignificant is that there seems to be individuals doing everything they can to scare the public."
Klingle is also chairman of the Western Reserve Port Authority and oversees the agency’s economic development activities. A few hours before ODNR announced it ordered that his company’s wells to be closed, the port authority informed news organizations that Klingle called for a presumably unrelated special meeting of the board Tuesday “to consider the appointment of a public official.” (READ STORY)
The activist group FrackFree Mahoning Valley issued a statement Wednesday demanding that all injection activity be halted at the Weathersfield site.
Ray Beiersdorfer, a professor of geology at Youngstown State University who's active in the FrackFree movement, reported that one of the American Water Management Services wells in Weathersfield was drilled to a depth of 9,100 feet, just above the Precambrian basement. The small quake suggests there are faults in the area near that rock formation, he said.
In 2012, a D&L Energy injection well in Youngstown -- Northstar No. 1 -- was linked to 12 tremors that rocked the Mahoning Valley throughout 2011. The well was shut down and a moratorium imposed on injection wells within a five-mile radius of the Northstar site in the Ohio Works industrial park. Geologists said the D&L injection well, drilled more than 9,000 feet into the ground, touched a fault in the Precambrian basement.
On March 10, a 3.0 earthquake shook eastern Mahoning County, followed by several aftershocks of lesser magnitudes. ODNR later determined the epicenters were horizontal wells drilled by Hilcorp at its well pads in Poland Township.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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