When a state agency last year ordered an operator of injection wells for fracking waste to stop injecting into its wells in the Coolville area, the reason cited was that toxic waste fluids were apparently “migrating” from the injection wells and showing up in oil and gas production wells up to a mile or more away.
A new lawsuit against companies that have operated injection wells in Athens, Meigs and Washington counties is based on the claim that this kind of migration has been happening on a larger scale. Standard Oil Company Inc. has sued 11 companies, alleging that they have allowed the extensive release of toxic waste fluids in the three Ohio counties.
Standard Oil, based in West Virginia, claims that by injecting high volumes of waste fluids into underground wells in an area not well suited geologically for this use, and by employing careless practices that have allowed fracking waste fluids to migrate underground into oil-and-gas producing rock formations, the well operators have ruined these formations as sites for commercially viable oil and gas extraction by making it “prohibitively expensive and economically unfeasible.” This has allegedly caused financial damage to Standard Oil, which owns oil and gas rights under more than 3,650 acres in Washington County.
The lawsuit, filed July 22 in Athens County Common Pleas Court, includes among its named defendants firms based in West Virginia, Kansas, Texas, Alabama, and Pennsylvania, as well as four Ohio companies — Redbird Development, LLC, of Vincent; Deeprock Disposal Operating, LLC and Deeprock Disposal Solutions, LLC, of Marietta; and J.D. Drilling Company of Racine.
As previously reported in The Athens Messenger, one of the firms named in the complaint, K&H Partners, LLC, has been the focus of citizen concern in the Coolville area. In June of 2023 the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas ordered K&H to cease injection at its wells because waste fluid from from the wells was migrating to gas production wells more than a mile away. The agency’s order said the continued operation of the injection wells presented an imminent danger to the health and safety of the public and was likely to result in immediate substantial damage to the state’s natural resources. The latter prediction appears to gain support from the new lawsuit.
Standard Oil’s 69-page complaint says all the defendant companies have operated injection wells within the three Ohio counties, which are used for storing waste fluids including those generated by hydraulic fracturing operations.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method of extracting oil and gas by forcing highly pressurized fluid into subterranean rock formations to fracture them and release the fossil fuels. In most fracking operations, according to the lawsuit, millions of gallons of fracking fluids are injected, these fluids typically being made up of base fluids (water or water and nitrogen); a solid “proppant” material such as sand or bauxite; and additives that can include hazardous chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, light petroleum distillates and other aromatic hydrocarbons.
When the pressure is released and the oil and gas flow up to the surface, they bring with them waste fluids that include both the fracking fluid and water from within the fractured rock formation. This waste water contains toxic materials that can include metals, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, oil, grease, radioactive materials, fracking additives and/or chemicals, and chemical reaction products. The waste fluids can also be contaminated by other substances used in fracking, including diesel fuel, hydrocarbons, barite, pesticides, surfactants and de-foaming agents.
According to Standard Oil, such waste fluid has been getting injected into underground storage wells in Athens, Meigs and Washington counties since at least 2010. During that time, the lawsuit alleges, the defendant companies “operated their Class II injection wells in a manner that was known, and/or should have been known, to probabilistically cause recurring harm and permanent harm to adjacent properties, and to the economy, geology and ecology of Ohio.”
The lawsuit says that the tri-county region has long been known to contain “structurally disturbed areas” where the underground rock formations have been subjected to “intensive fracturing,” and “known faults and fracture systems are present,” offering many channels for wastewater to migrate, and making the region a poor choice for a place to put an injection well. A 1980 study, it says, found that Ohio contained no “desirable disposal zones for waste fluid injection,” and no locations suitable for high volumes of waste injection.
Despite this limitation, the complaint alleges, beginning in early 2012 injection well operators in the three counties “began injecting at much higher injection rates and pressures than previously in the area.” In addition, the suit alleges, some defendants violated state regulations in various ways, such as failing to maintain adequate pressurization of injection wells, and failing to put structures in place to prevent pollution.
In the last decade or so, according to Standard Oil, the defendant companies have injected more than 2.7 billion gallons of waste fluid into an area that runs northeast/southwest along the Ohio River in the three counties, and is known to contain faults and fracture systems. The result, the lawsuit suggests, has allowed more migration of waste fluids, while the nearness of the injection wells to Standard Oil’s property has allowed the defendants to “collectively and cumulatively invade, flood, contaminate, pollute and damage the gas and oil reservoirs beneath said property with harmful volumes of waste fluid,” reducing the value of Standard Oil’s property.
The lawsuit lodges claims of negligence, negligence per se, trespass and nuisance, and asks for money damages of at least $25,000 plus punitive damages in an amount to be decided by the court.
Dr. Natalie Kruse-Daniels, director of Ohio University’s Environmental Studies Program, has spoken to area citizen groups about the risks associated with injection wells. Kruse said Thursday that while she hadn’t seen the Standard Oil lawsuit, its allegations appear to echo issues that have been raised repeatedly in recent years.
“When ODNR suspended injection at the K&H wells, which are over by Torch and Coolville … essentially what triggered that suspension was actually multiple years of complaints from oil and gas operators, or people on whose land there were active oil and gas wells,” Kruse-Daniels explained. “Within a mile or a mile and a half of those K&H injection wells, there were a number of oil and gas wells where the pressure around the well increased hugely, and where they started producing brine, sometimes in a spraying sort of way. It was multiple years of essentially brine coming through there, and it was tied pretty conclusively back to the K&H wells.”
She noted that around the same time, comparable issues were being reported in connection with wells operated by the Deeprock Disposal companies (also named in the Standard Oil lawsuit). “There’s been a number of these (wells) that have had somewhat similar problems,” she said, adding that the economic interests of the fossil fuel industry seem to have had more impact on how injection wells operate than have the concerns of the public.
“The community has been concerned about health and safety impacts, and water quality, both surface water and drinking water, for years,” Kruse-Daniels observed. “And the thing that actually made substantive change was that those injection wells were affecting extraction of oil and gas. That’s what made the difference.”
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