Injection Wells

Wells are something we think of as a way to get water up from below the surface for us to use. Some industries, however, think of wells in the reverse fashion. To them, wells are an easy way to send liquids back down into the Earth from the surface. Instead of pumping them out, they inject them, hence their name. Injection wells are as creepy as they sound.

 

Taking liquid waste and disposing of it by sending it thousands of feet down into the Earth started back in the 1930s. The oil and gas industry started sending their waste liquids deep underground where supposedly they would be harmless. At the time, it seemed like an effective use of a well that ran dry; it put them to another good use. The logic seemed to be that they were filling the void left beneath the surface when liquid was removed, easily and cheaply disposing of poisonous waste, exchanging it for the profitable natural resources. In those days, the industry could pretty much pump and dump wastes wherever and whenever they wanted to.

 

In about the 1950s, the chemical industry, the people who discovered the miracles of chemistry, also discovered injection wells as well. The wells inspired the industry, most notably Dupont, to  reverse engineer a well that would give them convenient places to dispose of and store toxic waste. They disposed of  waste by creating a well several thousand feet deep and injecting from the surface incredible amounts of the most toxic by-products the industry makes. In some cases the wells used were those left behind by the oil and gas industry; others they created themselves. 

 

Incredibly, the EPA thought this was a brilliant idea and approved it. Given some of their other policies, it’s not entirely surprising, especially as chemical companies and their industry lobbying groups armed themselves with charts and studies showing just how safe this disposal method was. 

 

The definition of an injection well from the EPA obscures its dangers: “An injection well is used to place fluid underground into porous geologic formations. These underground formations may range from deep sandstone or limestone, to a shallow soil layer. Injected fluids may include water, wastewater, brine (salt water), or water mixed with chemicals.”

 

They are used to “place fluid underground in porous geologic formation.” The ambiguity over what types of fluids are put into an injection well conceals the fact that they are used almost entirely to put toxic substances in the Earth. There are six different categories of these wells according to the EPA, and all of them are for the purpose of injecting some type of waste into the Earth or fracking, which still involves injecting poisonous chemicals in the first place. 

 

My definition of an injection well differs greatly: “An injection well is a shaft that industry drills into the ground to find a place they can dispose of their industrial toxic waste, radioactive waste, contaminated fluids from oil and gas operations, and any other waste products they need to get rid of because it is far less expensive than other methods.” 

 

Before I move into the negatives I will point out two positive uses for injection wells but, use by industry for waste disposal outstrips the positive thousands of times over. 

 

One positive use is injection wells are also sometimes used to pump excess surface water into underground aquifers to recharge them. If the water returned underground is uncontaminated, that is one positive purpose these wells are used for. Secondly, there is extensive investigation currently going on about using injection wells to sequester vast amounts of carbon dioxide in the ground similar to how they dispose of liquid waste. There is an entire class of wells the EPA sets aside for this. It was tried in the past but now may again become a way to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if it doesn’t return to haunt us. With the exception of these two uses for injection wells, all of the rest are environmentally destructive. 

 

One hazardous liquid being pumped back down almost as fast as it is being pumped out is fracking fluids. While there is supposed to be a difference between wells drilled for resource recovery and those for waste, the oil and gas industry is blurring the lines by reusing contaminated fracking fluid, which, instead of being disposed of in a regulated disposal well, are pumped back into the already depleted well. The gas and oil industry claims this allows them to get more yield. They also readily have permits for that purpose instead of a more difficult permit and regulation process for a well used strictly for disposal.

 

Another common fluid disposed of through injection wells is sewage waste from treatment plants. This has been ongoing for decades. Florida, for instance, had gotten rid of much of its sewage by injecting the waste deep underground, convinced it would never return. Surprise to them, it has returned in quite a few places. 

 

Millions of gallons of hazardous wastes are routinely disposed of using injection wells as well. Some industries that are the largest producers of toxic wastes actually have one of these located on their property. It’s a handy way to get rid of all the poisons they create right there. 

 

For decades now, industries have used injection wells to pump over 30 trillion gallons of hazardous and contaminated substances underground. Across our country are tens of thousands of these wells being used as a toilet to flush industrial pollution down deep into the Earth. Scientists within the industry claimed the wastes would remain deep underground, never pose any risk to water supplies, never leak, and never travel through any fissures or cracks under the ground. It would not be possible for waste to travel back up to the surface either through the well they went down in or other wells that created pathways. 

 

Those cracks and fissures that never were supposed to appear are now showing signs of strain. Up until fairly recently, industry and environmental officials continued to say that injection wells were a safe way to dispose of waste, incapable of failing, despite the growing information to the contrary that wells do fail frequently, creating large consequences for our water and people. All along, however, there were failures. There had been reports of cracked wells and wastes leaking into aquifers used for drinking water as far back as the 1990s.  

The pressure needed to pump this waste down into the underground rock is tremendous. The walls of the wells may be rated to handle the initial pressure, but in many of these wells, they are not calibrated for the frequency and duration that the operators are using them for. Greed drives the industry to use the well for as long as they can until the well backs up and can’t take anymore shoved down it. By then, it is too late, and waste already has created a path through the well into the surrounding ground long before the depth they were supposed to be sent to.

 

There are records filed with several state agencies such as Florida and California that people living near these injection wells are beginning to see more and more accidents happening from these wells. Some leaks date back to the 1990s. Quietly, over the past couple decades, people are being exposed to the contents of wells that have been coming back to the surface. 

 

There are several areas of impact from these injection wells. 

 

1. Water Contamination

 

Initially, the industry claimed that if waste is injected into a permeable area between two impermeable areas underground, the waste injected has no place to go. This perspective is rather absurd on the face of it. First of all, the Earth is not neatly layered like a brick wall with one layer of rock evenly stacked upon another. The various layers underground rise and fall like the surface, with high places, low places, and deep fissures and fractures opening up places where two areas are interconnected. Our water comes from aquifers trapped between layers but also from interconnected flows under the surface. Injecting fluids too close to the upper layers allows the waste to infiltrate the subsurface water and contaminate drinking water with this waste. That’s what happened in Florida.

 

Near Bakersfield, California, Some officials working with oil and gas companies made a massive error. Nobody will confirm whose mistake it is, but at least nine injection wells pumped over three billion gallons of contaminated waste into underground aquifers containing high quality water designated for drinking and irrigation. Upwards of 40 water supply wells are within a one mile radius of one of the injection wells pumping contaminated wastes.

 

In Northern Reeves County, Texas, an injection well used for fracking wastewater may be leaking thousands of gallons. Investigations show a sizable mound of land is rising near the site of the injection well. One of the lead researchers believes fluids from the injection well are not going down as they are supposed to but are spreading out and away. There may be cracks in the well casing that would allow this. It is also possible that pressure from the injection process may have blown out the well. In the meantime, there is growing concern about the contamination of groundwater in the area. 

 

2. Return of Wastes

 

There is a growing number of instances of wastes coming back up, using the well shaft to travel to the surface. It is not just these injection wells that occasionally backup with waste; wells that have been previously used, perhaps ones used for fracking or old oil wells, are other routes the waste is using to resurface. If there are enough holes into the same underground area with continuous pumping of liquids and sludges at high pressure, these holes are almost like straws. The pressure will eventually cause the waste to find a release valve and rise. Because some of these places have hundreds of wells in a small area, it is a question of when it will happen, not if. 

 

3. Leaking Wells

 

Injection wells are very susceptible to leak, especially if they are used for too long and with too much pressure. In Pennsylvania, EXCO Resources operates two injection wells in Clearfield County. In 2012, the company noticed the well was leaking brine, but continued injecting fluids into it for months without notifying the EPA.  When they found out, the EPA temporarily shut down one of them and fined the company.

 

In 2010, contaminants from an injection well bubbled up in a west Los Angeles dog park. 

 

Within the past three years, similar fountains of oil and gas drilling waste have appeared in Oklahoma and Louisiana. 

 

In Romulus, Michigan, Environmental Disposal Systems began operating injection wells. After operating for 10 months, inspections revealed leaks in the piping of one well. The EPA shut it down. Additional investigations discovered multiple violations of the operating permit in the well’s use, failure to provide records of monitoring, skipping required testing of the safety systems, and injecting wastes without an operator in case of an emergency. 

 

Florida has long been the leader in disposing of their sewage waste using injection wells. They spend millions of dollars to drill thousands of feet down below the surface. Their scientists continue to state the waste will remain trapped where they are injected, that they will never escape. In the early 1990s their wells failed. A large release of partly-treated sewage contaminated fresh water aquifers that may be needed to supply their growing population. 

 

In Miami-Dade, wastewater with levels of ammonia, chlorides, and fecal coliform from human waste have been found in the Upper Floridian aquifer, a source of drinking water for the area. A study of the wells by the Sierra Club concluded ten wells were not constructed properly and were missing extensive wall casing to enable the waste to travel into the confinement zone. The conclusion about the leaking wells and subsequent contamination of the drinking water source was that the supposedly impermeable geology was actually permeable. Unfortunately, once waste is injected and leaked, they are unable to be removed. 

 

Florida, however, continues to insist it will use injection wells because this time, they say, these wells are going deeper, so the waste will stay where it is injected and never move. Failures, however, are inevitable. The waste will escape due to the nature of the Earth’s structure and will travel upward and outward, contaminating everything in its path as well. 

 

The safety record and serious violations these wells have is downplayed by the industry. If they lose access to this disposal method, it would create a financial disaster and force them to look for a real solution. There are many investigations going on by groups who are interested in exposing the truth about these injection wells. It takes a lot of time and digging through the data available, but the facts are indisputable. 

 

One major review of information done by ProPublica showed an incredible number of problems with the wells. Routine inspections of the structural integrity of these injection wells showed a violation rate of one out of every six. During the three years of records reviewed, more than 7,000 wells had indications that the walls were leaking. Those walls are all there in between the waste and the aquifers we use for drinking water. Despite these problems, the operators never stopped injecting waste, even when they knew the wells were leaking.    

 

One count puts the total number of injection wells at over 680,000. About 160,000 are used for toxic waste and sewage disposal. Every week more wells are drilled by the fracking industry.  After using them to pump up oil and gas, many will be used to pump down waste. While the exact number of wells is not agreed on, there is agreement on one fact: the federal government and many scientists admit they have no idea how many are leaking, just that many of them are. 

 

When it becomes so obvious a well is leaking and it no longer is safe to use, state agencies have no alternative but to close the specific well. Responding to these problems, Kansas shut down at least 47 injection wells in 2010 because their mechanical integrity could not be restored, while Louisiana shut down 82 and Wyoming shut down 144. Tens of thousands more may be leaking, but unless it is so severe, they remain leaking their poisons. 

 

Out in an area known as Far West Texas, researchers from Southern Methodist University used radar imaging to examine a specific injection well that they thought exhibited signs of leaking. The researchers noticed the surrounding area near the injection well showed signs of the ground uplifting, and radar images showed as even more pronounced when the well was most active between 2007 and 2011. The conclusion was that the well was releasing the waste being pumped into it at a very shallow level, perhaps only several hundred feet deep instead of the much further depth the waste supposedly was being pumped to. Tests of the groundwater at the shallow level showed increases of chemicals found in the waste fluids and not occurring naturally in the quantity found. 

 

The industry has run amok over the environment, and we the people will pay in the end. In 2017, the widely respected publication Science Direct published the largest study of fracking and its impact on health ever done. Researchers from prestigious universities such as Harvard participated in the documentation and analysis. The study concluded that without a doubt there are health effects on people exposed to fracking. The most significant finding was that infants within two miles of active wells had lower birth weights and more health issues than those further away; even a couple more miles made a significant difference. 

 

How big does the disaster need to be before anything is done about the thousands of toxic waste dumps we created underground? We pushed the ocean to its limits and beyond before anything was done. It’s rapidly becoming evident the Earth is showing signs that we’ve pushed it too far as well. 

 

There is a whole new body of research on the connection between injection wells and earthquakes. In areas where heavy fracking takes place and much of the wastewater is injected into the underground, a higher number of tremors is being recorded. The fluids under high pressure are making the faults, which are already prone to slip, more likely to do so. 

 

In North Texas, a series of quakes in a concentrated area of these injection wells is almost certainly related to fracking activity in the area. The pressure of waste disposal through injection wells could double the possibility of an earthquake. This gives even more urgency to getting real regulation of injection wells before huge accidents happen. 

 

Injection wells are in a class by themselves with regards to abusing the planet and creating a future catastrophe. The purpose of an injection well is simply to inject something an industry wants to get rid of below the surface of the Earth. Apparently, if we can no longer see it, it must have gone away. They  may be wonderful to the industry as the handiest dumping grounds, but the costs to the environment eventually will catch up, and this time they may be uncontrollable and unfixable. Damage to the water supply will be measured in centuries and millennia, especially in cases of highly radioactive fracking waste disposal. 

 

If you live in an area where injection wells are used, your water supply may already be contaminated with some levels of toxic waste. In time–maybe years, maybe decades–many of these wells will fail. 

 

The best we can say is use extreme caution if your water supply is anywhere near the same place any type of injection wells are. The technology is unsafe and always has been. Failures will increase until the EPA will be forced to act against the desires of the industry. That will be too late in many places as trillions of gallons of waste are already underground. 

 

Staying a mile away from these wells, regardless of what the substances being injected by them are, will afford you some protection from spills and leaks on the surface by equipment and transport vehicles. Fracking waste injection wells in which hundreds of thousands of gallons of radioactive and chemically contaminated wastes are injected are especially subject to spills. If the wells leak, either in the casing near the top of the wells or in the areas the wastes are injected to, aquifers supplying water to the area may be contaminated. Regardless of where your water supply comes from, test the water annually.