Class I and Class II Wells in Kentucky

This map service of 3,000 wells was compiled from EPA's database of Class I and Class II
Wells in Kentucky as documented from Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) requests.<br /><br />There are 11 Class I hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste disposal wells in Kentucky. Class I wells are regulated to inject industrial and municipal waste into deep rock formations thousands of feet below the lowest underground sources of drinking water. The Class I hazardous waste disposal wells in Jefferson County are now plugged and abandoned, and the Latonia Refinery disposal well in Kenton County was abandoned when the refinery was dismantled. The only Class I wells in operation are classified non-hazardous waste disposal for the recycling facility in Butler County and for the disposal of limestone mining wastewater in Mason and Pendleton Counties.<br /><br />Class II wells inject fluids associated with oil and natural gas production. There are two types of Class II wells in Kentucky: salt water disposal (SWD) wells, and enhanced-recovery injection (ERI) wells. Disposal wells inject brines (salt water) that are brought to the surface with oil and gas back into the same formation from which they were initially produced or into similar porous underground formations. This practice of brine disposal also ensures the protection of underground sources of drinking water. Enhanced recovery wells inject brine, water, steam, polymers, or carbon
dioxide into oil-bearing formations to recover residual oil or natural
gas. This is also known as secondary or tertiary recovery.<br /><br />These data were linked to a Kentucky oil-&amp;-gas well location shapefile by spatial join to EPA-supplied locations using a buffered search method. Over 2000 Class II locations were matched to well locations in the KGS O&amp;G well database. If successful match were not made by proximity, then EPA well information and location were provided as is.<br /><br />A downloadable zipped shapefile is located at http://kygs.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=c09338acf1cc4023823510d8e9bf941e