TORCH, Ohio — For 12 years, local activists have fought to stop K&H Partners’ fracking waste injection wells in Torch. Now, the day they’ve worked toward has apparently arrived: The company has ceased injection and applied to plug its three wells.
“I was pretty overwhelmed” by the news, said Roxanne Groff, a former Athens County Commissioner and environmental activist. She noted the “scores of people all over Athens fighting these wells for 12 years.”
John and Bobbi Murphy, Torch residents who rely on well water, said in a joint email to the Independent that they were relieved to learn about the plugging operation but “still angry” and “worried that the damage has already been done,” specifically in reference to drinking water.
The plugging applications follow K&H Partners’ unsuccessful, nearly year-long legal challenge of an Ohio Department of Natural Resources suspension order. That order was based on the ODNR’s finding that waste injected into K&H Partners’ three wells in Torch was migrating underground and posed an “imminent danger” to drinking water.
“What we said was going to happen did,” Groff said.
K&H declined to appeal the April decision by the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission upholding ODNR’s suspension order.
“The deadline for an appeal has expired without an appeal being made,” ODNR Media and Outreach Specialist Karina Cheung told the Independent
K&H also did not attempt to correct the issues ODNR identified following the commission’s decision, Cheung said.
Chueng said K&H’s applications are “in the review process” and the company’s plug permits will be valid for two years if they are issued.
“We are optimistic that the work will be complete this summer and don’t anticipate delays,” Chueng said.
For Groff, it’s not over ’til it’s over.
Activists also fought the Ginsberg injection well on Ladd Ridge Road, which remains unplugged four years after ODNR granted the operator’s application to plug the well after it closed.
Chueng said ODNR is now “conducting regulatory enforcement regarding the Ginsberg well.”
Unplugged wells are a problem because they present pathways for waste to travel underground and potentially contaminate drinking water, hydrogeologist Julie Weatherington-Rice previously told the Independent. Fracking waste contains various toxic chemicals, such as PFAS, known as “forever chemicals.”
In documents presented to the Oil and Gas Commission during the K&H case, ODNR variously warned that K&H’s operations posed an “imminent danger” and risk for “calamity” in Athens County. However, ODNR’s public communications about possible risk have taken a different tone: ODNR’s plans to test water in wells near the K&H site — as well as another well ODNR suspended last year, operated by Reliable Enterprises — comes only “out of an abundance of caution and to provide assurance to the community,” Cheung said.
John and Bobbi Murphy are concerned about the impact on their water regardless.
“Well water is our ONLY source of water,” the couple said in an email. “Fresh springs is our cattle’s only source of water. Water literally is life. Without it, we’re done for.”
Chueng said the agency has contracted with Patriot Engineering and Environmental, Inc. to test water wells in a half-mile radius of the K&H and Reliable Enterprises wells. Results will be made public after the work is completed, by July 31, Chueng added.
So far though, the Murphys said, “No one has been in touch, communication has been non existent.”
Groff previously described the ODNR’s water testing plan as insufficient. Meanwhile, Ohio University professor and groundwater expert Natalie Kruse Daniels previously told the Independent the success of the water testing program will depend on ODNR’s follow-up over time.
Tallgrass Energy, which owns K&H Partners, declined to comment on its decision regarding the K&H wells.
CORRECTION: The headline has been updated to reflect that K&H has applied to plug its wells, but not the wells have not yet actually been plugged.
NOTE: This story has been updated to include comment from John and Bobbi Murphy.
