Ohio Hydrocarbon Production Well Inspections and Violations

Inspections and Violations in Ohio

Only a few states in the U.S. currently release free violations data related to unconventional oil and gas drilling. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) maintains an inventory of well inspections and violations within its RBDMS database. We examined and mapped their data with a focus on hydrocarbon (oil and natural gas) production wells and relevant Class II Injection¹ wells – where the high volumes of liquid wastes produced during hydrocarbon extraction are often disposed of, deep within the earth.

By the Numbers

As of January 2013 there were a total of 5,954 hydrocarbon well inspections and 956 “True” violations. “True” violations refer to those inspections that were deemed to be in violation of the Ohio Revised Code (OAC) Chapter 1501:9-3 Saltwater Operation or Chapter 1501:9-1 Oil Well Drilling.  Violations and/or inspections tend to fall under a couple of categories including compliance notices, neighbor phone call, or routine field visits or inspections. There have been 470 and 430 “Complaint” and “Request” based inspections to date, respectively (Table 1).

Figure 1. Cumulative OH hydrocarbon production well inspections & ODNR determined true violations (Sept 2010 – Jan 2013)

The ratio of inspections to violations issued over time in Ohio has been somewhat variable, but a trend does seem to be slowly emerging. At the present time average hydrocarbon well inspections are increasing by 7 per month, while true violations are only increasing by 0.5 per month (Figure 1)². Thus, the ratio of inspections-to-violations declined from its September 2010 high of 13.2 to 3.1 in February 2011. This ratio, however, began to rise shortly thereafter.

Assuming the current trajectory holds, the next ODNR RBDMS update should report approximately 11,696 inspections as of the end of January 2014 and more than 48,000 total inspections by January 2018. This trajectory dictates that we will see roughly 1,500-1,600 true violations by January 2014 and approximately 4,500 by January 2018.

Map Description

The map below displays a monthly updated inventory of Ohio’s hydrocarbon and relevant injection well-related violations. This map will be updated monthly around the 25th of each month. We have established fixed search criteria for the RBDMS Microsoft Access database, which is updated weekly. Inspection purposes include general complaints, civil action, compliance agreement, and criminal actions, while there are myriad inspection descriptions (Table 2).

To view the legend, metadata, and map fullscreen click on the arrows in the top right hand corner of the map.

Inspection Data Availability and Analysis

Significant data gaps exist with respect to latitude-longitude across Ohio’s current inventory of Class II and hydrocarbon well inspections (Note: Data is only available up to February 2013). Below we have analyzed the current gap between “Total” inspections and those “w/Latitude-Longitude” data. We are currently working to close these gaps. The largest gap exists for the “Salt Water Injection Wells All Time” (i.e., Hydraulic Fracturing Waste Class II’s) data with only 3.5% of all inspections accompanied by latitude-longitude coordinates.

Tables