Deep injection wells approved for Indiana and Elk counties

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

State regulators have issued permits for two underground injection wells for disposal of wastewater from shale gas drilling operations, but have added requirements aimed at preventing the wells from triggering earthquakes as they have in at least five other states.

The wells will be operated by Pennsylvania General Energy Co. in Grant Township, Indiana County, and by Seneca Resources Co. in Highland Township, Elk County. They were approved Monday by the state Department of Environmental Protection, despite local objections due to concerns about quakes and groundwater contamination.

“After a thorough review, DEP determined that both applications meet all regulations, are sufficient to protect surface water and water supplies, and would abate pollution,” acting DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell, said in a news release about the permits.

According to the DEP, it reviewed sedimentation, erosion control and stormwater management plans for each of the injection wells, which will be located in areas already depleted by earlier oil and gas wells. Both already have received required permit approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Due to concerns about earthquakes in other states that have been triggered by injecting drilling and fracking wastewater thousands of feet deep, the DEP has added permit conditions designed to ensure early detection of any earthquakes. The well operators must monitor seismic activity around the wells and make the monitoring data publicly available; shut down wells that cause earthquakes measuring 2.0 or greater; and submit and update monitoring contingency plans.

The well operators also are required to operate their wells using lower injection pressure, and in formations at some distance from “basement” or bedrock formations, where seismic activity can occur at geologic faults thousands of feet underground.

Both Highland and Grant townships undertook multiple legal challenges to the siting of deep injection wells in their rural communities, but lost in the courts.

Most earthquakes caused by injection wells are so small they can’t be felt by people on the surface, but some in Ohio, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas have been big enough to cause concern.

Only about a dozen deep injection wells are operating in Pennsylvania, a small number when compared to Ohio, which has about 200, West Virginia’s 65, and the 4,000 in Oklahoma.

Nationwide, there are approximately 30,000 deep injection wells used for drilling wastewater disposal, handling about 2 billion gallons a day.