On March 9, 2012, the ODNR simultaneously announced (1) “new environmentally responsible standards for transporting and disposing of brine . . . mak[ing] Ohio’s rules for brine monitoring and disposal among the nation’s toughest”, and (2) the release of a preliminary report concerning the seismic activity that occurred in the Youngstown area of Ohio last December. The ODNR Press Release can be found here.
The ODNR will consider the new brine safeguards during the Class II disposal well permitting process until the standards are codified or written into rules. The safeguards will, inter alia, prohibit injection wells from being drilled into the Precambrian rock formation, require injection well operators to submit geological data before drilling, and require pressure and volume monitoring devices that include automatic shut-off switches.
A link to the preliminary seismic event report can be found through the Press Release link above. “After investigating all available geological formation and well activity data, ODNR and regulators and geologists found a number of co-occurring circumstances strongly indicating the Youngstown area earthquakes were induced.”