Hydraulic fracturing, particularly on public lands, has spurred protests across Ohio. But a lesser known part of the process — where companies discard the wastewater from drilling — is causing an uproar in a small town in southeast Ohio.
Some residents in Marietta are concerned that the wastewater could contaminate the city’s drinking water supply.
To understand how that could happen, we’re breaking down the science.
How does fracking work?
Americans have been drilling for oil and gas for over a century, but about 15 years ago, a different kind of energy mining took off: hydraulic fracturing, often nicknamed fracking.
Here’s how that process works:
“Imagine a hole that goes down about 4,000 feet and then turns 90-degrees and then goes horizontally,” said David Jeffery. He teaches courses on petroleum geology at Marietta College and has worked with companies like Mobile and BP.
Jeffery says drilling horizontally allows companies to reach oil and natural gas reserves that were previously difficult to access with conventional vertical drilling.
In order to get those fuels out, operators inject the holes with millions of gallons of fluid at pressures so high it cracks surrounding rock and allows oil and gas to escape.
That fluid is usually composed of water, sand and chemicals like disinfectants. Ohio law requires companies to disclose information about the volume and types of products used in drilling, but there are exemptions for chemicals considered trade secrets.
After the fluid has done its job, it comes back up to the surface. But after sloshing around underground, it picks up a lot of salt and, potentially, some radioactive material.
Between the unknowns about the chemicals in the fluid and the substances it picks up underground, Jeffery says the wastewater isn’t safe for humans above ground.
“So they have to dispose of them somehow,” Jeffery said.
That’s where injection wells come in.
What are injection wells?
Injection wells are drilled deep underground in porous geologic formations to store fluids like the wastewater from hydraulic fracturing.
“That would normally be a very good solution if you find a place in which you can find space underground for this yucky stuff to be in perpetuity,” Jeffery said.
There are several types of injection wells. Some are used to store industrial waste, while others are used to mine minerals like uranium and copper. Class II injection wells are the ones used to inject waste from oil and natural gas production.
How many injection wells are in Ohio?
According to a database from the EPA, Ohio had over 250 Class II disposal wells for oil and gas waste in 2023.
A map from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources shows 234 of those wells were active that year. Seventeen were in southeast Ohio’s Washington County.
In comparison, the entire state of Pennsylvania had 16 active Class II disposal wells in 2023. The state says it sends most of its “produced fluids” to neighboring states like Ohio.
In Washington County, four injection wells are within two miles of the City of Marietta’s aquifers. Last year, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources approved two more to be drilled within that radius.
Jeffery, and many others who live in Marietta, like Dee Wells Arnold, worry that’s too many wells in close proximity to the city’s drinking water supply. A leak, they say, could be devastating.
“If you don't have fresh water, if you don't have clean water, if you don't have safe water, you can't have a community,” Wells Arnold said. “I don't think it's worth the risk.”
Are injection wells safe?
In a Q&A style document addressing concerns over a proposed injection well near Marietta, the ODNR said geologists evaluate each injection site and make sure the wells are constructed in a way that protects the environment.
DeepRock Disposal Solutions, which owns the injection wells near Marietta, did not respond to a request for comment. But they passed my number on to Matt Dole, a consultant for the Accountability Project Institute. The 501c4 is a politically active nonprofit that isn’t required to report its donors. Over the past decade it has run ads portraying Democratic school board candidates in the Columbus area as ‘COVID extremists’ and questioning a Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s defense of sex offenders in court.
Dole says the risk of injection wells leaking is negligible.
“If you consider that that injection well is two miles from the water's supply, behind reinforced concrete, behind reinforced steel, encased in concrete and 4,000 feet in the ground below solid rock, it might as well be a million miles,” he said.
But leaks have happened in Washington County before. Just a few years ago, fracking fluid infiltrated dozens of vertical oil and gas wells there.
Regardless, Dole says any attempt to shut down injection wells could cripple an industry that’s become essential to southeast Ohio economies.
“Some opponents of injection wells will say I'm for oil and gas. I don't want to lose the jobs and the economic benefit and the energy developed by the oil and gasoline industry. I'm just against injection wells,” he said. “Well, that is an irreconcilable position because the water used in the fracking process needs to be disposed of properly and injection wells are the proper way to dispose of that material.”
Tomorrow, we’ll hear more from a geologist about the risk of leaks and from locals on why they’re not convinced the benefits outweigh the costs.
