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OH Supremes Say ODNR Guilty of Takings re Trumbull Injection Well
Here’s a story we haven’t written about in two years. American Water Management Services (AWMS) owns a wastewater injection well in Trumbull County that supposedly caused a low-level earthquake (that nobody could feel) in 2014. Actually there are two injection wells located at the site, both operated by AWMS. They were both “temporarily” shut down by the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources following the quake nobody could feel (see ODNR Temporarily Shuts Down Injection Wells After Low-Level Quake).
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Unrepentant. That’s the best single word we can think of describing the attitude of “leaders” in Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) who illegally passed their own set of environmental laws, violating the PA state constitution, in a bid to prevent a safe saltwater injection well from being built in a rural location in the town. Grant continues to use radicalized lawyers in their lawbreaking bid to prevent the well.
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Eureka Resources, which operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale, is doing some really cool stuff. Last October the company began extracting lithium from Marcellus wastewater at one of its plants in Bradford County, PA (see 
In April of this year, MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) had finally, after more than two years of evaluation, granted a permit to build a shale wastewater injection well in Plum Boro in Allegheny County (see 
SECUR O&G, LLC is headquartered in Sewickley, PA, but its main operation, a Marcellus/Utica waste processing center, is located in the Bens Run Industrial Park in Friendly (Tyler County), WV. SECUR processes both liquid and solid drilling waste and handles TENORM (technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material) at its Bens Run facility. Last Friday SECUR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of WV.
In a piece of stellar investigative journalism and reporting, MDN friend Bob Downing (at 
Yesterday MDN told you that miracle of miracles, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has finally, after more than two years of evaluation, granted a permit to build a wastewater injection well in Plum Boro in Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh (see 
In early 2018, the federal EPA approved a new Marcellus wastewater injection well for the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum Boro (see 
The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a notice in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin that the agency is proposing changes to the Residual Waste General Permit WMGR123, which governs the processing, transfer and beneficial use of oil and gas liquid waste to develop or frack an oil and gas well. Some of the changes include defining certain terms, including “processing,” “transfer,” and “storage”; changing the application from a registration to a determination of applicability; revising sampling and analysis requirements; and revising the frequency of inspections.
We spotted a new scientific study published in an upcoming edition of the journal Water Research. The study is called: “Sulfate precipitation in produced water from Marcellus Shale for the control of naturally occurring radioactive material.” Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have found a way to strip out radioactivity from produced water coming from Marcellus wells so the water can be boiled to produce clean water and usable minerals/salts.
Last year MDN told you about New Jersey-based Omni Energy Group and their application to build two new injection wells in Belmont County, OH near St. Clairsville (see 
The radical organization Earthworks has been exposed for making a false accusation against the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), claiming the DEP ignored complaints of potential environmental violations in the shale patch due to distractions over the coronavirus pandemic. Earthworks claimed a frack wastewater treatment plant in Potter County is leaking onto the ground. DEP said it did investigate and no, there is no leak.
This is truly disappointing. A few weeks ago we told you that Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled a long-running lawsuit involving Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system (see 
In a disappointing decision, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently ruled a long-running lawsuit filed against Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system. For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed. However, Commonwealth Court has decided the town can continue to try and make a case that it should be able to override state law with its home-cooked regulations because by doing so they will somehow protect citizens’ health, which the town says is allowed under PA’s poorly-written Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA).