What is An Injection Well?
An injection well is a deep, man-made shaft used by industry to dispose of massive volumes of wastewater by forcing it thousands of feet underground into porous rock layers. While the intent is to safely contain this fluid beneath protected aquifers, the high-pressure injection process can fracture hard rock layers and push contaminated fluid toward unplugged abandoned wells and private water sources.
Ohio has become a dumping ground for toxic waste. Over 18 billion gallons of fluids have been injected into the state’s underground geology since 2010. This immense volume, which is enough to fill nearly 28,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, is poorly tracked; the state of Ohio does not document the ‘cradle to grave’ journey of this waste stream, leaving communities in the dark about what is flowing beneath their feet.
This deep injection system is prone to failure: seven injection wells in Southeast Ohio have failed over this period, with six of them forced to shut down after they leaked toxic brine outside of their permitted zones. The threat of contaminating our water sources is immediate, not speculative, and the need for better regulation is urgent.
BEN Ohio works on Class I, II, and VI Wells, to find out more information about each type of well, follow the links at the bottom of this page.
What Is Injected Deep Underground?
The photo you see of the tanker trucks lined up at a disposal site in Athens County illustrates the massive scale of this problem. It takes approximately 20-30 million gallons of fluid to fracture a single horizontal oil and gas well. The trucks are there to transport the wastewater (often called brine) that returns to the surface, which must be disposed of. This fluid is far from harmless; it contains a hazardous cocktail of contaminants, including hundreds of various chemicals, heavy metals, surfactants, and lubricants, as well as PFAS compounds (“forever chemicals”).
Most critically, the waste is laden with naturally occurring, cancer-causing radioactive isotopes, specifically Radium 226 and Radium 228. The radiation levels found in this wastewater brine can average as high as 9,330 pCi/L .The highest level of combined radium 226 and 228 found in Marcellus wastewater in a PA state study was 28,500 pc/L. The safe drinking water limit is 5 pc/L. Despite these severe threats, federal exemptions classify this oil and gas waste as “non-hazardous”. This regulatory loophole shields the industry, allowing the exact chemical makeup of the fracking fluids to remain proprietary and protected from public knowledge.
