Marietta OH City Council declares emergency over Class II injection wells

Farm and Dairy
By Liz Partsch 
October 22, 2025

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SALEM, Ohio — An emergency is taking form underneath the rolling hills of Washington County, Ohio, according to the Marietta City Council, related to the prevalence of injection wells near the city’s aquifer.

This emergency was the focus of three resolutions passed by the council on Oct. 2, all related to the abundance and close proximity of Class II and Class I injection wells in the county that the council says pose a risk to the city of Marietta’s aquifers. 

One of these resolutions asks the Ohio General Assembly to approve a three-year moratorium on the permitting of Class II and I injection wells in the county. 

The city council’s actions come after months of meetings and concerns from residents and environmental activists regarding the migration of fracking waste from Class II injection wells into conventional oil and gas wells in Washington County. The council is concerned that its aquifer will be next.

“Once (our municipal water supply) is impacted, you cannot fix it. Our community is pretty much done for,” said Erin O’Neill, Marietta City councilwoman representing the fourth ward.

The resolutions

The first resolution, No. 79, passed by the Marietta City Council, establishes an Injection Well Task Force Committee to gather scientific information regarding the safety of brine injection wells and their potential to contaminate water sources. This committee will be made up of no more than seven members who will serve and advise the city council until the end of the year.

The second resolution, No. 80, designates the city’s law director to pursue legal action against the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for permitting the construction of drilling brine injection wells that may have an impact on the City of Marietta’s source water, aquifer or well field. 

The last resolution, No. 81, urges the Ohio House and Senate to introduce legislation establishing a three-year moratorium, preventing ODNR from permitting more Class II injection wells and the Ohio Department of Environmental Protection from permitting Class I injection wells in Washington County. 

It also asks for a three-year moratorium prohibiting the continued injection of waste into existing injection wells in the county and that “ODNR immediately cease all current and future injection/disposal of brine waste into all Class II wells within six miles of the Marietta’s Source Water Protection Area,” states the resolution.

In this resolution, the Marietta City Council declares an emergency related to the abundance and proximity of Class II injection wells near the city’s aquifers. 

Washington County is home to 17 active injection wells, as of 2024. ODNR recently approved two more Class II injection wells in Washington County in 2025; the county is now tied for the most injection wells in the state, along with Trumbull County, which has 19 injection wells.

In 2023 and 2024, the county accepted 11,970,274 barrels of oil and gas wastewater.

According to the council, there are four Class II injection wells within two miles of the City of Marietta’s Source Water Protection Area. Two other injection wells  — a Class I and II injection well — are also within two miles of four aquifers. 

“These wells, individually and as a group, create an unacceptable risk to the public health and safety of the 32,000 persons served by four nearby, and separately operated, public drinking water aquifers,” states the resolution. 

Brine migration is cause for concern

Over the past several months, residents and community leaders have been concerned that local water supplies could be contaminated by brine (fracking) wastewater after recent instances where this wastewater was found to have migrated from Class II injection wells into conventional oil and gas wells in Washington and Athens counties. The resolution details several of these occurrences.

An ODNR investigation in 2019 identified that brine waste had migrated up to five miles away into 28 production wells. After one year of operation, the Redbird #4, a Class II injection well, leaked 4.2 million gallons of brine waste into these wells. 

Additionally, the resolution lists four production wells that contain fracking wastewater due to suspected brine migration. Their owners have filed complaints with the ODNR, but have not received the agency’s inspection reports of the wells. According to the council, the agency has taken no action to determine the cause of the increased brine fluid in these wells.

The resolution also lists concerns related to an uptick in seismic activity in Washington County. Since 2010, 130 earthquakes have occurred in the county, with 76 happening this year, according to ODNR’s Ohio Earthquake Database. 

ODNR has previously confirmed seismic activity related to fracking operations in Mahoning and Noble counties.  

The resolution ends by asking ODNR to conduct a study on the suspected migration of brine within Washington County “so that the full extent of the reported issues and abnormalities by oil and gas production well owners and the risks to the nearby aquifers is fully comprehended and known to the well owners, the impacted oil and gas well businesses, city and county officials and the public.”

The resolution has received support from township trustees, water system trustees and one of Washington County’s commissioners, in addition to the environmental group Buckeye Environmental Network.

O’Neill says the coordinated effort between city and township officials is “a lesson in how local government is supposed to work for citizens.” 

“From here on out, Marietta will no longer stand by and allow ourselves to become a dumping ground for other people’s waste,” O’Neill said in a statement. 

A spokesperson for ODNR said that the “ODNR Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management will follow Ohio Revised Code regarding the regulation of class II injection wells. The division does not have jurisdiction over class I injection wells.”

(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.)