(Photo by Amber Phipps) Marietta City Council’s Water, Sewer & Sanitation Committee met Monday evening to discuss the appointment of members on the Injection Well Task Force.

Marietta City Council’s Water, Sewer and Sanitation Committee met Monday evening to discuss the appointment of members to its Injection Well Task Force.

The ad hoc advisory committee will consist of seven members who will analyze specific data within the context of Class I and II injection wells.

The committee will be made up of a council representative, water superintendent, hydrogeologist, petro-engineer, a representative from the legal and engineering field, geochemist and a geologist.

Councilman Ben Rutherford, the committee’s chairman, was named chair of the task force because no one present opposed it. He will then select the remaining six members, and if there are no objections from council, the members are officially appointed.

Prior to his appointment and an executive session, Rutherford said he intentionally left the chair position open because he wanted either Councilman Bret Allphin or Jon Grimm in that role since he felt it wouldn’t be objective with him as chair.

“Since I voted not to sue, then I can’t be objective and I’ll enter into this in a biased manner,” said Rutherford. “I don’t want bias to enter this, which for an academic setting is hard enough to do and trying to do that in a political setting is pretty tough.”

Other members of the Water, Sewer and Sanitation Committee expressed their approval for having Rutherford as the member chair due to his background in chemistry.

“The legislation doesn’t say you have to be the chair, but it says you, as the chair, are to form the committee,” said City Law Director Paul Bertram. “Then what I think should be done is you form the committee and then the committee makes the chair … that way it’s fair and unbiased.”

Rutherford has reached out to a variety of specialists who will be considered for a position on the committee. Members are to be selected as soon as possible, and the meetings must be scheduled before Dec. 31.

“I hadn’t originally thought that a geochemist was necessary for this process but … it looks like those interactions can actually have a significant impact on flows of solution in one direction or another,” said Rutherford.

The Injection Well Task Force, which was passed in a unanimous vote as Resolution 79 during the regular council meeting Thursday, stemmed from growing concerns over approval of a permit for a Class II injection well to be drilled within two miles of the city’s water well field. That meeting drew over 80 individuals with hours of comments in regards to how ODNR handles injection well permits. The city is also considering potential legal action over that well.

Resolution 79 was amended prior to last week’s regular meeting to broaden the committee’s oversight beyond just the Class II Stephan Well No. 1. A Class I well is proposed off Bramblewood Heights as well.

Class I wells are used to inject hazardous and non-hazardous wastes into confined rock formations thousands of feet below underground drinking water sources, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Class II wells are underground injection wells designed to dispose of fluids brought to the surface during oil and natural gas drilling, the most common being brine, or salt water, according to the state EPA.

The task force, an ad hoc advisory committee to the Water, Sewer and Sanitation Committee, will be charged with gathering information on geology in the area and the potential effects of the wells. The committee will then report its findings to the council at large.

“We literally could have enough data that would fill this entire room for any one of those positions,” said Rutherford. “So part of it is going to be their testimony but also part of it is going to be providing that testimony and then capturing that within a dialogue that should speak directly to the current construction that’s being proposed.”

Amber Phipps can be reached at aphipps@newsandsentinel.com