Page 12 ■ Thursday, January 12, 2012


NATION & WORLD


Associated Press


With the skyline of Youngstown, Ohio in the distance, a brine injection well owned by Northstar Disposal Services LLC is seen in Youngstown on Jan. 4. The company has halted operations at the well, which disposes of brine used in gas and oil drilling, after a series of small earthquakes hit the Youngstown area.


Expert: Wastewater well in Ohio triggered quakes


By THOMAS J. SHEERAN Associated Press


Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seis- mologist investigating the quakes said Jan. 2. Research is continuing on the now-


CLEVELAND (AP) — A northeast


the earth as a precaution while authori- ties assessed any potential links to the quakes.


shuttered injection well at Youngstown and seismic activity, but it might take a year for the wastewater-related rum- blings in the earth to dissipate, said John Armbruster of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. Brine wastewater dumped in wells


comes from drilling operations, includ- ing the so-called fracking process to ex- tract gas from underground shale that has been a source of concern among en- vironmental groups and some property owners. Injection wells have also been suspected in quakes in Ashtabula in far northeast Ohio, and in Arkansas, Colo- rado, and Oklahoma, Armbruster said. Thousands of gallons of brine were


“If it’s safe, I want to do it, if it’s not, I don’t want to be part and parcel to destruction of the environment and the fake


promise of jobs.” – Rep. Robert Hagan, D-OH


injected daily into the Youngstown well that opened in 2010 until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Dec. 30 to stop injecting the waste into


Dec. 31 at 4.0 magnitude, state offi cials announced their beliefs that injecting wastewater near a fault line had created enough pressure to cause seismic activ- ity. They said four inactive wells within a fi ve-mile radius of the Youngstown well would remain closed. But they also stressed that injection wells are different from drilling wells that employ fracking. Armbruster said Jan. 2 he expects


After the latest and largest quake


kind of a cascading process once you’ve caused them to occur,” he said. “This one year of pumping is a pulse that has been pushed into the ground, and it’s going to be spreading out for at least a year.” The quakes began last March with the most recent on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve each occurring within 100 meters of the injection well. The Dec. 31 quake in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, caused no serious injuries or property damage. Youngstown Democrat Rep. Robert


Hagan on Jan. 2 renewed his call for a moratorium on fracking and well injec- tion disposal to allow a review of safety issues. “If it’s safe, I want to do it,” he said in


a telephone interview. “If it’s not, I don’t want to be part and parcel to destruction of the environment and the fake promise of jobs.” He said a moratorium “really is what


scrap tire dump caught fi re somewhere,” said Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols. He said 177 deep injection wells have


operated without incident in Ohio for decades and the Youngstown well was closed within 24 hours of a study detail- ing how close a Christmas Eve quake was to the well. The industry-supported Ohio Oil and


Gas Association said the rash of quakes was “a rare and isolated event that should not cast doubt about the effectiveness” of injection wells. Such wells “have been used safely and


reliably as a disposal method for waste- water from oil and gas operations in the U.S. since the 1930s,” the association’s ex- ecutive vice president, Thomas E. Stew- art, said in a statement Jan. 2. Environmentalists are critical of the


more quakes will occur despite the shut- down of the Youngstown well. “The earthquakes will trickle on as a


we should be doing, mostly toward the injection wells, but we should be asking questions on drilling itself.” A spokesman for Gov. John Kasich, an outspoken supporter of the growing oil and natural gas industry in Ohio, said the shale industry shouldn’t be punished for a fracking byproduct. “That would be the equivalent of shut- ting down the auto industry because a


hydraulic fracturing process, called frack- ing, which utilizes chemical-laced water and sand to blast deep into the ground and free the shale gas. Critics fear the process itself or the drilling liquid, which can contain carcinogens, could contami- nate water supplies, either below ground, by spills, or in disposed wastewater. Permits allowing hydraulic fracturing


in Ohio’s portion of the Marcellus and the deeper Utica Shale formations rose from one in 2006 to at least 32 in 2011.


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