Months after launching operations in 2014, a fracking waste injection well in Trumbull County caused two earthquakes, striking just miles away from a nearly century-old dam.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates such injection wells, shut the well down soon thereafter.
More than a decade later, the American Waste Management Services #2 well remains shuttered, and company lawyers argued to the Ohio Supreme Court last month that Ohio taxpayers should pay the company $20.5 million for the losses it blames on the regulators.
The years of five lawsuits, including three that reached the Ohio Supreme Court, trace back to two earthquakes in Weathersfield Township. All parties agree the tremors were small as far as earthquakes go – about 2.0 in magnitude – and that AWMS’ injection well caused them.
The injection well is a silo drilled 8,500 feet into the ground. From the surface, operators pump millions of gallons of liquid waste from the natural gas extraction process at high pressure. They shoot that toxic and radioactive waste into rock formations underground, where it’s intended to stay put.
The company estimated in court filings it could have made $175,000 in income every month by disposing of about 63,000 barrels (2.6 million gallons) per month.
Injection wells have caused earthquakes in Ohio before
Ohio is a hotbed of 232 injection wells around the state, collectively permitted to inject more than 1.2 billion gallons of liquid waste statewide per year, according to figures provided by a spokeswoman.
The Supreme Court is separately considering a pair of related cases stemming from allegations related to injection wells leaking liquid waste deep underground, reaching miles away from the injection site.
Earthquakes stemming from the natural gas boom in the region had grown more common at the time, especially in nearby Mahoning County. There, over a one-year period starting in January 2011, Youngstown experienced 130 “seismic events” later traced back to the Northstar #1 injection well, according to the Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.
It peaked when a powerful 4.0 tremor shook the earth on New Year’s Eve with effects felt as far away as Canada, prompting a regulatory shutdown of the well.
And in March 2014, five earthquakes between 2.1 and 3.0 in magnitude occurred within one kilometer of natural gas extraction wells owned by Hilcorp Energy, according to research from Miami University.
Weathersfield Twp. says earthquakes threaten a nearby dam
AWMS drilled two wells, the first being much shallower than the troubled #2 well. All together, the company estimates it spent $7 million on the project. They began operations in Trumbull County the same month as the Hilcorp-induced earthquakes.
On July 28 and Aug. 31, two earthquakes of 1.7 and 2.1 magnitude rocked Weathersfield Township, population 9,430. The injection well sits less than three miles from the Mineral Ridge dam controlling the Meander Reservoir, an eleven-billion-gallon water reservoir and the sole drinking water supply source for more than 220,000 people in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
The township warned that the dam was built in 1931 and that FEMA has determined the dam is unstable and could fail after an earthquake.
“The result would be catastrophic flooding throughout Weathersfield Township and multiple other communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, endangering thousands of people and creating extensive economic damage,” the township wrote in court filings.
The chief of the agency’s oil and gas division suspended the wells in September 2014, though the agency allowed the shallower, #1 well to resume operations soon thereafter.
ODNR later relented, allowing the troubled #2 well to resume operations so long as it limits any earthquakes it causes to 2.1 magnitude. The company wanted a more lenient, 3.0 magnitude trigger for a shutdown.
AWMS says the shutdown is an unconstitutional ‘taking’
The company at first challenged the shutdown order itself and sought its reversal. An appellate court ultimately upheld the suspension and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to take up the case.
The company pivoted from there, claiming the permit was an unconstitutional “taking” of its property. The term usually refers to the government claiming property for public use or regulating an entity out of business without a compelling reason, and it usually requires “just compensation.”
However, lower courts balked at the money AWMS asked for, given the public interest in preventing earthquakes and the fact that the company still has viable uses for the land. They suggested a limit of about $359,000.
Its lawyers said the government regulations deprived its property of almost all its economic use on only speculative grounds. Attorney Daniel Rudary urged the Ohio Supreme Court late last month to overturn any limit established by lower courts. AWMS never exceeded its permit or violated its explicit terms.
“The two microseismic-events at issue didn’t threaten anyone’s life, health or property,” he said. “They did not impose an impending, serious harm.”
Ohioans have a right to be free of earthquakes, ODNR says
ODNR lawyers disagreed. Ohioans have a basic right to the “quiet enjoyment” of their property and to be free from manmade earthquakes, argued Samuel Peterson for the state.
He said it’s the company whose poor job of site-selection led to the earthquakes that should bear the costs of a shutdown – not the taxpayers. The company, he said, is essentially claiming the right to cause earthquakes so long as they don’t hurt anyone or anything.
That precedent could threaten a decision from ODNR earlier this year to suspend another injection well in Noble County found to have caused dozens of earthquakes in a month.
“The dispute between AWMS and the division isn’t about whether AWMS should be able to cause earthquakes or not – everyone acknowledges that AWMS will cause some earthquakes,” he said. “AWMS just wants to cause bigger earthquakes.”
The justices haven’t yet ruled on the AWMS case that was argued last month.
Who is American Waste Management Services?
Alongside the now-defunct injection well business, AWMS operates as a brokerage for industrial waste in need of disposal and as a solid waste manager.
The company is a subsidiary of Avalon Holdings, which also operates a handful of country clubs and luxury resorts in northeast Ohio.
AWMS’ website lists only the phone number of a sales director, who declined comment.
Avalon Holdings didn’t return a message left with a receptionist.