An environmental advocacy organization sued the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, arguing regulators skirted state law when they issued permits allowing a company to drill two wells in Southeast Ohio for long-term storage of millions of gallons of liquid fracking waste.
The lawsuit escalates a broader battle between a small Ohio city and the state government over the risk of a collision between Ohio’s natural gas industry and the city’s drinking water.
The ODNR relied on an outdated, much more permissive set of rules when they greenlit the 6,000-foot-deep injection wells from Deeprock Disposal Solutions earlier this year, according to the Buckeye Environmental Network’s lawsuit.
Fracking a single well for natural gas can take an estimated 4 million gallons of water. That spent, salty “flowback” brine – which carries carcinogenic heavy metals and radioactive properties from the shale underground – gets pumped back to the surface for disposal.
Companies around the region send their brine by rail and truck to Ohio’s 232 injection wells, like Deeprock’s. The company’s new permits have stirred opposition from water treatment officials concerned about the possibility of hazardous waste, with a history of leaking underground, finding its way into drinking water sources.
“Should these aquifers become polluted with toxic brine waste, there is no possible way of treating the water to make it potable again,” said Jay Huck, manager of the Putnam Community Water Association, in a statement.
ODNR approved the permits in 2025 using old rules that changed in 2022
When the ODNR approved the two Washington County injection well permits in 2025, it relied on a looser set of regulations that hadn’t been in effect for more than three years.
The agency said it used the rules that applied in 2021 when Deeprock Disposal Solutions originally requested the permits. But the Buckeye Environmental Network said in its lawsuit the ODNR should have used the new rules, established by the agency in 2022, at the time the state’s oil and gas chief made his decision earlier this year.
This legalistic point matters because the new rules would have required state officials to more thoroughly review the properties and water wells around the proposed disposal wells.
The new rules would also impose stronger construction requirements and set limits on the volume of brine – the byproduct of fracking companies spraying water, sand and a chemical cocktail to free natural gas from shale – and the pressure at which it’s injected.
Deeprock has drawn scrutiny in the community both for a trail of environmental messes (including what the ODNR called an “uncontrolled brine release” from one of its injection wells) in Noble County, and for the growing political profile of its former CEO, Brian Chavez, who is now chairman of the Ohio Senate Energy Committee.
The lawsuit amounts to further escalation of a legal and political battle between Washington County and the state.
Since ODNR approved the permits, the City of Marietta has authorized its law director to file an independent lawsuit on the city’s behalf against ODNR. And three water authorities in the area – the City of Marietta, Putnam Community Water and the Warren Water and Sewer Association – have grown increasingly outspoken about concerns related to the glut of injection wells in Washington County and their history of environmental problems.
ODNR, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Company plans to inject 126,000 gallons of waste per day
The plaintiffs are asking judges on the 10th District Court of Appeals to order ODNR to rescind the permits and reconsider them under the stricter set of rules.
Operating from the surface of the two wells, Deeprock plans to pump a daily average of 126,000 gallons of brine at high pressure into each of them.
Both wells sit within two miles of Marietta’s designated sourcewater protection area. One well sits within two miles of an aquifer.
The wells’ opponents see the problem as twofold. For one, ODNR on at least seven occasions has suspended operations of injection wells in Ohio after finding they leaked underground. Two of those wells belonged to Deeprock, and the agency only shuttered them after years of problems were followed by a massive well blowout and $1.3 million cleanup effort.
The second problem, as expressed in the lawsuit and shared by Marietta City Council President Susan Vessels in an interview, is cumulative. Each new injection well, in addition to the 17 already in the county, adds to the cumulative pressure underground, raising the risk of failure.
“We have four wells permitted to inject up to 20,000 barrels per day, just outside the city and less than two miles from our source water.” she said.
History of leaks, shutdowns, lawsuits
In at least seven instances since 2019, according to formal suspension orders from ODNR, fracking waste migrated outward from those injection sites and reached the surface via other oil and gas wells as far as six miles away.
The brine sits underground at high pressure. But when it oozes to any of the thousands of operational or “orphan” oil wells nearby, it can use those wells as a straw or chimney to shoot to the surface, sometimes spraying into the air like a busted sprinkler.
In Washington County, the Redbird #4 well leaked an estimated 4.2 million gallons of brine, which surfaced at 28 different oil wells as far as five miles away. Owners of those wells are suing several injection well operators in the area. The matter comes before the Ohio Supreme Court this month.
When the Deeprock wells in Noble County caused a blowout in 2021, ODNR paid the nearly $1.3 million clean up costs. ODNR opted to seek funds from the owner of the abandoned oil well that acted as a dumbwaiter, rather than the injection well that leaked the brine.
In Athens County, ODNR shut down three injection wells after an oil well nearby suddenly stopped producing oil and instead spat up to 4,200 gallons of brine in 90 minutes, according to the agency’s suspension order.
And four other operational injection wells in Washington County pose serious risks of failure, according to the city’s written objections to the two new permits, based on its analysis of state records and private well sampling.
What is Deeprock Disposal Solutions?
Deeprock Disposal Solutions officially formed in Ohio in 2017.
The company is the successor of Water Energy Services LLC. In a lawsuit filed by Deeprock around time, it described its ownership structure as split between several oil and gas operators in the area, including Heinrich Production, a company led by Chavez’ wife, Christyann.
After Chavez was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Ohio Senate in 2023, his financial statements filed with the state ethics office list him as an owner and CEO of Deeprock. His 2024 filings reflect no ownership interest and his resignation as CEO.
Both he and a Senate spokesman didn’t respond to inquiries about whether he or his family maintain an ownership interest in Deeprock.
But this year, Christyann Chavez has appeared at city council hearings focused on the wells at issue alongside Deeprock’s attorney, Laura Goins, of West Virginia. And a Marietta city councilman said at a recent meeting that both Goins and Christyann Chavez called him recently on the matter.
The company operates eight active injection wells, with three more in development, ODNR records show.
The company’s website is no longer active. Its “sister company,” ComTech Industries, didn’t respond to inquiries.
Ohio is a major destination for fracking waste
There are 232 fracking waste injection wells in Ohio. Compare that to the 16 commercial wastewater injection sites in all of West Virginia (along with 54 non-commercial permits) or 14 in Pennsylvania.
Those companies have been collectively permitted to inject nearly 1.4 billion gallons of waste underground per year statewide, according to ODNR figures. That’s enough to fill more than 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.