Inflection paid a $170,500 civil penalty levied by the state Department of Environmental Protection after the spill but, according to an agency spokesperson, Double D was not cited.

The criminal charges were filed in November by the state attorney general’s office but they just came to light when Inflection and Double D waived their preliminary hearings. The company faces misdemeanor charges including disturbing waterways or watersheds, and allowing a substance that could harm fish to enter a waterway; and a summary offense of drilling activity that causes a public nuisance.

Asked why criminal charges were filed against Inflection in light of the significant civil penalty, an attorney general’s spokesperson said: “Criminal charges are wholly unrelated to a civil penalty. We seek to hold the defendant companies accountable for negligence that led to pollution in a stream.”

Attempts to obtain a comment from Inflection were unsuccessful, but when the civil penalty was imposed, it attributed the spill to a then-unidentified contractor.

Double D, according to court documents, was responsible for monitoring the transfer of treated brine water from a million-gallon tank to a smaller one so it could be trucked from the well pad in Eldred Township north of Warrensville.