The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) requested that the owners of four disposal wells in Washington County for wastewater from oil and gas drilling temporarily cease operations.
The wells, two owned by Redbird Development LLC, one by Deeprock Disposal Solutions LLC, and one by Select Water Solutions LLC, are “suspected to be causing impacts to other nearby wells that produce oil and gas,” according to a statement by the ODNR.
These wells, officially called class II disposal injection wells, accept wastewater from horizontal oil and gas drilling operations, known as fracking, that can contain heavy metals from deep inside the earth, and synthetic chemicals used in the drilling process. It can include radionuclides like radium, uranium and thorium.
“We are happy that finally the state is paying attention after over a year of hard work,” said Bev Reed, of the non-profit Buckeye Environmental Network (BEN).
Her group, along with the city of Marietta, a group of water authorities, political entities in Washington County and local oil and gas producers, has been trying to get the state to take action on their concerns about the underground migration of frack wastewater.
- Fracking produces a lot of wastewater. Millions of gallons of it are stored under eastern Ohio.
- Why some Ohio residents fear injection wells will pollute their drinking water
- In southeast Ohio, state and local officials fight over the future of injection wells
When a well is fracked, it creates millions of gallons of wastewater. Much of it is trucked to injection wells where it is pumped at high pressure into rock layers deep underground. The oil and gas wastewater, also called brine, is supposed to remain there. Ohio had 245 of these wells in 2024, according to a federal inventory.
But Bob Wilson, owner of Wilson Energy, said each week more of his wells are infiltrated with brine that he claims is coming from injection wells. He spoke at an event held by BEN last week to draw attention to the issue.
His company has been producing oil and gas in this region for decades. Of the 171 production wells he owns, Wilson said that 50 aren’t producing natural gas or oil anymore, because they are infiltrated with disposal water. At 1.61 miles away, Redbird #4 is the closest injection well to any of Wilson’s production wells.
“My wells can’t be repaired,” he said.
After the event, Wilson took people to some of his well sites to measure the pressure. At one of them, a few miles from Redbird #4, he opened a valve, and liquid sprayed out, as seen on a video.
“There should not be any water here at all,” he said.
Wilson measured the water pressure on the tubing at 305 pounds per square inch (psi). That’s up from May, when the ODNR measured 281 psi on the same tubing. In September 2023, it was only 20 psi, according to BEN.
The ODNR is looking into it
“While the class II disposal injection wells are voluntarily shut down, the well owners and the division will work towards a plan to address the issues,” said the ODNR statement.
Wilson and other producers have heard that before. In 2019, after the Redbird #4 injection well started operations, he and other well owners complained to the ONDR about brine in their oil and gas wells, according to BEN.
A consultant, hired by the ODNR to investigate Redbird #4 in 2019, looked at the underground rock layers and found that “naturally occurring fissures exist between the Ohio Shale formation and the Berea Sandstone formation, allowing wastewater to migrate between the formations and into the production wells,” according to its report.
Redbird Development could not be reached for comment. According to the ODNR, before restarting operations after the 2019 incidents, the company drilled into a deeper underground rock formation to prevent wastewater from migrating, shown as the bottom layer of the above graphic.
“Well, they did that, but the pressures are again increasing,” said Reed, whose coalition is also concerned about wastewater migrating into underground drinking water sources.
When wastewater migration happened previously, the ODNR commissioned studies of nearby drinking water wells. “Those studies found that those private water wells were not impacted,” said Chow in an email. He said the state will hire a consultant to study nearby private water wells again.
“If that’s going to be the same answer again, that’s not really something we can rely on to be safe and to know our water and our ground is protected,” said Reed. She wants a wider study.
She said that in addition to the suspended injection wells, there are three wells within two miles of Marietta’s source water protection area, and others in the permitting process.
How brine migrates through rock
“This is a terrible problem,” said David Jeffery, a geology professor at Marietta College, speaking at last week’s BEN event.
He said there is not enough space in the deeper underground formations in this area to hold all the liquids that are being pushed down there at high pressure by injection well operators.
“So [the liquids] are going to try to find the easiest way out,” Jeffery said. “So, the easiest way out is fractures.”
Those fractures are small, naturally occurring cracks in the rock. Jeffery explains that when brine travels through these cracks, it finds its way into production wells and also orphan wells, which are inactive and abandoned oil and gas wells. According to the state, Washington County had 347 orphan wells at the end of 2025.
These wells provide a pathway for the liquid to move toward the surface.
“So, a well floods out. They shut that one, [the brine] moves to the next one.” Jeffery said.
The ODNR 2020 report stated that it is “unlikely” that wastewater will migrate into underground sources of drinking water because of the composition of the rock layers and other factors.
But Jeffery warned that as this waste finds its way toward the surface, there is reason to be concerned about the Marietta aquifer, which provides drinking water for numerous communities.
