Company wants $20 million from Ohio taxpayers after its injection well caused two earthquakes, American Waste Management Services' Trumbull County well caused two earthquakes. The company said it should get $20.5 million in public compensation since regulators shut it down by Jake Zuckerman, September 8, 2025, Ohio Signal
Months after launching operations in 2014, a fracking waste injection well in Trumbull County caused two earthquakes, striking just miles away from a nearly century-old dam.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates such injection wells, shut the well down soon thereafter.
More than a decade later, the American Waste Management Services #2 well remains shuttered, and company lawyers argued to the Ohio Supreme Court last month that Ohio taxpayers should pay the company $20.5 million for the losses it blames on the regulators.
The years of five lawsuits, including three that reached the Ohio Supreme Court, trace back to two earthquakes in Weathersfield Township. All parties agree the tremors were small as far as earthquakes go - about 2.0 in magnitude - and that AWMS' injection well caused them.
The injection well is a silo drilled 8,500 feet into the ground. From the surface, operators pump millions of gallons of liquid waste from the natural gas extraction process at high pressure. They shoot that toxic and radioactive waste into rock formations underground, where it's intended to stay put.
The company estimated in court filings it could have made $175,000 in income every month by disposing of about 63,000 barrels (2.6 million gallons) per month.
Ohio is a hotbed of 232 injection wells around the state, collectively permitted to inject more than 1.2 billion gallons of liquid waste statewide per year, according to figures provided by a spokeswoman.
The Supreme Court is separately considering a pair of related cases stemming from allegations related to injection wells leaking liquid waste deep underground, reaching miles away from the injection site.
Earthquakes stemming from the natural gas boom in the region had grown more common at the time, especially in nearby Mahoning County. There, over a one-year period starting in January 2011, Youngstown experienced 130 "seismic events" later traced back to the Northstar #1 injection well, according to the Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.
It peaked when a powerful 4.0 tremor shook the earth on New Year's Eve with effects felt as far away as Canada, prompting a regulatory shutdown of the well.
And in March 2014, five earthquakes between 2.1 and 3.0 in magnitude occurred within one kilometer of natural gas extraction wells owned by Hilcorp Energy, according to research from Miami University.
AWMS drilled two wells, the first being much shallower than the troubled #2 well. All together, the company estimates it spent $7 million on the project. They began operations in Trumbull County the same month as the Hilcorp-induced earthquakes.
On July 28 and Aug. 31, two earthquakes of 1.7 and 2.1 magnitude rocked Weathersfield Township, population 9,430.
The injection well sits less than three miles from the Mineral Ridge dam controlling the Meander Reservoir, an eleven-billion-gallon water reservoir and the sole drinking water supply source for more than 220,000 people in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
The township warned that the dam was built in 1931 and that FEMA has determined the dam is unstable and could fail after an earthquake.
"The result would be catastrophic flooding throughout Weathersfield Township and multiple other communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, endangering thousands of people and creating extensive economic damage," the township wrote in court filings.
The chief of the agency's oil and gas division suspended the wells in September 2014, though the agency allowed the shallower, #1 well to resume operations soon thereafter.
ODNR later relented, allowing the troubled #2 well to resume operations so long as it limits any earthquakes it causes to 2.1 magnitude. The company wanted a more lenient, 3.0 magnitude trigger for a shutdown.
The company at first challenged the shutdown order itself and sought its reversal. An appellate court ultimately upheld the suspension and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to take up the case.
The company pivoted from there, claiming the permit was an unconstitutional "taking" of its property. The term usually refers to the government claiming property for public use or regulating an entity out of business without a compelling reason, and it usually requires "just compensation."
However, lower courts balked at the money AWMS asked for, given the public interest in preventing earthquakes and the fact that the company still has viable uses for the land. They suggested a limit of about $359,000.
Its lawyers said the government regulations deprived its property of almost all its economic use on only speculative grounds. Attorney Daniel Rudary urged the Ohio Supreme Court late last month to overturn any limit established by lower courts. AWMS never exceeded its permit or violated its explicit terms.
"The two microseismic-events at issue didn't threaten anyone's life, health or property," he said. "They did not impose an impending, serious harm."
ODNR lawyers disagreed. Ohioans have a basic right to the "quiet enjoyment" of their property and to be free from manmade earthquakes, argued Samuel Peterson for the state. Albertans too have legal right to quiet enjoyment of our homes and properties, but try convincing the AER, politicians or the legal-judicial industry to responsibly take action to protect it and/or remediate harms done by frac'ers, etc.
He said it's the company whose poor job of site-selection led to the earthquakes that should bear the costs of a shutdown - not the taxpayers. The company, he said, is essentially claiming the right to cause earthquakes so long as they don't hurt anyone or anything.
That precedent could threaten a decision from ODNR earlier this year to suspend another injection well in Noble County found to have caused dozens of earthquakes in a month.
"The dispute between AWMS and the division isn't about whether AWMS should be able to cause earthquakes or not - everyone acknowledges that AWMS will cause some earthquakes," he said. "AWMS just wants to cause bigger earthquakes."
The justices haven't yet ruled on the AWMS case that was argued last month.
Alongside the now-defunct injection well business, AWMS operates as a brokerage for industrial waste in need of disposal and as a solid waste manager.
The company is a subsidiary of Avalon Holdings, which also operates a handful of country clubs and luxury resorts in northeast Ohio.
AWMS' website lists only the phone number of a sales director, who declined comment.
Avalon Holdings didn't return a message left with a receptionist.
Refer also to:
2019: Magnificent article by Andrew Nikiforuk: UK Ban Adds to the Tremors Taking Down the Fracking Industry
2019: Lancashire frac'ing: 1.6M earthquake stops Cuadrilla's work "This is a serious issue and we know that seismic activity at similar levels deformed the well bore at Preese Hall, which Cuadrilla failed to report to the relevant authorities for six months."
2019: UK: Cuadrilla moving out! "Frack Free Lancashire is delighted to learn that 35 days after they caused a 2.9ML earthquake which shook the Fylde and the confidence of their investors, Cuadrilla are finally demobilising.... The seismic activity which they provoked has not stopped though, with the 133rd event being recorded on Saturday, five weeks after they last fracked."
2019: Lancashire UK: More frac failures plague Cuadrilla, company tries but fails to seal the well and caused 57 earthquakes. How much methane is migrating into aquifers and homes? "We have little confidence in Cuadrilla's technical abilities...."
2016: USGS links Oklahoma's 5.1M (third largest) earthquake to oil-field disposal wells more than 7 miles away
2015: Cuadrilla appeals against Lancashire County refusal. "An appeal will put further pressure on residents who have been fighting to keep their community free from this filthy industry for four years now."
2015: Fracking Quakes Pose Added Risks and Require Study, Expert Warns
One of Canada's foremost experts on earthquake hazards recently told an audience of Calgary engineers that earthquakes triggered by hydraulic fracturing can exceed "what the natural hazard was in the first place" and pose risks to infrastructure only built to withstand natural earthquake hazards.
As well, earthquakes induced by fracking can produce more damaging ground motion at lower magnitudes than natural quakes due to their shallowness, said Gail Atkinson, the NSERC/TransAlta/Nanometrics Industrial Research Chair in Hazards from Induced Seismicity at Ontario's Western University.
Natural earthquakes have an average depth of 10 kilometres, whereas industry-made tremors are much shallower and closer to the ground surface where people can feel them more strongly.
Natural earthquakes typically cause structural damage in buildings at a magnitude of 5.0, Atkinson said. But earthquakes triggered by fracking could possibly cause damaging ground motions at magnitudes as low as 3.5 to 4.0, due to their shallowness.
Hydraulic fracturing intentionally creates hundreds of microseismic events by cracking deep or shallow hydrocarbon formations with high-fluid injections of water, sand and chemicals. But the technology, which can't yet model where all the fractures will go, has activated faults and slips in Ohio, Oklahoma, England, British Columbia and Alberta, creating headline-making earthquakes in the last three years.
...
"In low seismic environments like Fox Creek where the natural earthquakes are infrequent, the hazards from an induced seismic event can exceed the hazards from a natural source," warned Atkinson.
2014:
2013: UK frac quake traffic light monitoring system put in place to mitigate frac quake harms
2012: Investigation of Observed Seismicity in the Horn River Basin
... Two instances of wellbore deformation along horizontal sections were reported by one operator.
These occurred over a short interval beginning at 3,011 m KB (Kelly Bushing) in the d-A1-D/94-O-9 well. In this instance, casing deformation was minor and did not hinder completion operations. At d-1-D/94-O-9, the deformation was encountered at 4,245 m KB and the casing distortion blocked completion efforts at 4,288 m KB. ... This deformation was detected in July 2011.
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Findings
1. The seismicity observed and reported by NRCan in the Horn River Basin between April 2009 and December 2011 was induced by fault movement resulting from injection of fluids during hydraulic fracturing.
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Recommendations
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Mitigation discussions with the operator will begin immediately. Mitigation steps taken will vary dependent on the risk posed by the events and may include enhanced data recovery for research purposes. An order to suspend hydraulic fracturing specific to the well under completion could be issued dependent on an evaluation of the previously stated criteria of event frequency, magnitude, ground motion, depth and proximity to populated areas.
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Conclusion
Horn River Basin seismicity events, from 2009 to late 2011, were caused by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing. All events occurred during or between hydraulic fracturing stage operations.