COLUMBUS: A Northeast Ohio injection well operator whose owner faces federal charges of violating the Clean Water Act is seeking permission to resume operations.
D&L Energy of Youngstown will ask the Ohio Oil & Gas Commission on Wednesday to overturn a state order issued earlier this year. A commission decision could take months.
The order revoked D&L’s existing injection permits, denied some pending ones and suspended disposal of salt water brine, including from oil and gas drilling.
Ben Lupo, owner of D&L and brine-hauling company Hardrock Excavating LLC, has pleaded not guilty to federal Clean Water Act violations. Prosecutors allege he instructed a Hardrock employee to repeatedly dump gas-drilling wastewater into a storm sewer.
A D&L well was also near the epicenter of a series of Youngstown-area earthquakes in 2011.