Correction: Injection Well in McKean County Did NOT Fail Tests
We have an important update to share. On Feb. 19, MDN published a post about a Catalyst Energy wastewater injection well in Keating Township, McKean County, PA (see Wastewater Injection Well in McKean County Fails 2 Integrity Tests). That post used news from a local newspaper that made what is now known as a false claim that the Catalyst well had “failed DEP mechanical integrity tests twice.” That statement was 100% untrue. MDN doesn’t get things wrong often, but this time, we did, and we are publishing this follow-up post to correct the record. Our sincere apologies to Catalyst. Read More “Correction: Injection Well in McKean County Did NOT Fail Tests”
Penneco Environmental Solutions wants to build a second wastewater injection well in Plum Borough (Allegheny County), PA, next to an existing injection well. Penneco’s first wastewater injection well in Plum finally opened for business in mid-2021, overcoming all sorts of smears, slanders, and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see 
Here’s an interesting lawsuit that never appeared on our radar. It involves a lease in Fayette County, West Virginia, and the right to establish an injection well in an old conventional well on the leased property. The party leasing and using the old injection well, Webb Construction, was later sued by the party leasing out the property, North Hills Group, after new board members over at North Hills. The lawsuit accused Webb of improperly using the old well as an injection well without first trying to see if the well could be rejuvenated as a productive gas well and building a pipeline to the well that leaked wastewater on North Hill’s property. A Fayette Circuit Court jury in 2022 found in favor of Webb and against North Hills, dismissing all claims against Webb. North Hills asked the judge to grant a new trial to overturn the jury verdict, which the judge did. North Hills won in the new trial. 
We’ve been tracking a story that we consider an ongoing tragedy for nearly a decade. American Water Management Services (AWMS) owns a wastewater injection well in Trumbull County, Ohio, 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 
A new player is entering the Marcellus looking to extract lithium from shale brine (wastewater), and it’s doing it in a big way in Susquehanna County in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania. Avonlea Lithium Corporation, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Rain City Resources Inc., will provide its newly-tested technology to Kendra II, based in Springville, PA, to provide an on-site plant to extract lithium from Marcellus brine. The new plant will be set up and operating by April 2025. 
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced yesterday that it had issued an oil and gas wastewater injection well permit to Seneca Resources to continue operating well #38268 in Highland Township, Elk County. The EPA permit allows Seneca to inject up to 75,000 barrels monthly (3.125 million gallons). This well is one of two injection wells Seneca operates at that location. It was a long road for Seneca to get these two wells online, and a welcomed development that the EPA is extending the well’s operating permit. 
One of the significant stories of 2024 in the Ohio Utica was about Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio, that handles fracking waste (trucks it for disposal). AMS ran into trouble when it ran out of money. The Martins Ferry facility where waste is temporarily stored went from a permitted maximum of 600 tons of stored waste to over 10,000 tons, in violation of its permit. The Ohio Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against the company in March to force compliance. Local newspaper The Times Leader, in doing a Top 10 stories of the year, provides an update on AMS and where things stand with the cleanup. 
Penneco Environmental Solutions wants to build a second wastewater injection well in Plum Borough (Allegheny County), PA, next to an existing injection well. Penneco’s first wastewater injection well in Plum finally opened for business in mid-2021, overcoming all sorts of smears, slanders, and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see 
We’ve discussed shale wastewater, sometimes called brine or “produced water,” many times over the years. When drilling an oil or gas well deep in the earth, the hole releases naturally occurring water from the depths (far, far below the surface water table) for years after the well is drilled. The water coming out has a LOT of minerals, sometimes mildly radioactive, and is usually called either brine (meaning salty) or produced water. Traditionally, there are two ways to handle all of that water coming out of the ground: (1) recycle it and reuse it for more oil and gas drilling, or (2) pump it back down into the ground from whence it came via an injection well. Ohio University (in Athens, OH) has just won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study how produced water can be cleaned up and used outside the oil and gas sector. 
Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County, PA) town supervisors have historically been receptive (or at least tolerant) to the Marcellus Shale industry that has so blessed their town and Westmoreland County (
A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) inspector showed up at Stonehaven Energy’s Class IID “Latshaw 9” oil and gas wastewater injection well in Cranberry Township, Venango County, on Nov. 27 for a routine inspection. He found the well is not in use and hasn’t been in use since March 2023. The well was inspected in March 2024, yet no violations were issued at that time. However, the inspector tagged the well with a violation on Nov. 27, claiming the well had been “abandoned.” 
In July, the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) opened up the shuttered Austin Master Services (AMS) radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio, to begin cleanup work at the facility (see 
On May 30, 2023, a fire and subsequent explosion damaged an above-ground storage tank and the upper process building at the already-closed Fairmont Brine Processing plant in Fairmont, WV (see