Deep Injection Well Construction Booms Despite Push to Recycle

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

May 24, 2012 | 1:44 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA

The EPA has approved a permit to turn this former oil well in Warren County into a deep injection well. Nearby residents are appealing the decision.

Drillers use deep injection wells as one option to dispose of drilling waste deep underground. EnergyWire reports on the number of waste disposal wells under construction, or pending permits, in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“In Ohio, 16 new wells are under construction to take waste “brine” from oil and gas wells. Seven have been granted permits but have not yet been drilled, according to figures provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. An additional 20 applications for new brine wells are under review.”

That’s a 25 percent increase over the number of disposal wells operating in Ohio today. And as EnergyWire points out, it’s an unexpected development given how much recycling of waste water Marcellus Shale drillers, and environmental regulators, say is now happening.

“Though less than 8 percent of the brine, used fracturing fluid and drilling waste from Pennsylvania Marcellus wells is injected into disposal wells, that’s up from a little more than 6 percent in 2010. And state records show that the total amount of waste being sent to injection wells has gone up nearly 500 percent since 2010.”

Pennsylvania only has 5 operating deep injection wells. (One has been temporarily shut down by the EPA.) Two new permits have been approved by the EPA but are under appeal by local residents. Two other permit applications are pending. State Rep. Bud George, from Clearfield County, has proposed a two-year moratorium on any new injection wells in Pennsylvania.

Deep injection wells have raised alarms after one in Youngstown, Ohio caused an earthquake on New Year’s Day. StateImpact took a closer look at how Pennsylvania’s drilling waste helped contribute to that quake.