A provision in Ohio's oil and gas bill changes who collects your injection well fees—and it happened quietly.
Most Ohio construction and trades business owners who operate permitted injection wells have no idea that SB219 just changed where their barrel fees end up. The shift is real, effective immediately upon enactment, and it affects how revenue flows—but not how much you pay.
If you own or operate an injection well in Ohio, you already pay per-barrel fees: 5¢ or 20¢ per barrel of injected substance, up to 500,000 barrels per well per year. Those fees have historically flowed into Ohio's Oil and Gas Well Fund at the state level.
SB219 redirects that money. Instead of going to the state fund, your barrel fees now go into a new Brine and Waste Substances Permitting Fund, which then disburses the revenue to the county general fund where your well is located. In plain terms: the state is out of the loop, and your county is in.
Your payment amount doesn't change. What changes is who ultimately controls and spends that revenue.
This applies to any Ohio construction, drilling, waste management, or related business that holds a permit for an injection well and pays the per-barrel fee. The provision is codified in Section 1509.22 on page 34 of SB219.
The impact is county-specific. A well operator in one county will see fees directed to that county's general fund; an operator in another county will see fees directed there instead. This could matter if you operate multiple wells across different counties, since each county may use that revenue differently.
The fee redirection is effective upon enactment of SB219. There is no phase-in period or delayed implementation for this provision.
Note: SB219 also includes a separate tax exemption for natural gas gathering that applies starting in tax year 2027, but that is unrelated to the injection well fee change.
If you're budgeting for permitting or compliance costs, your barrel fees remain the same. However, if you've tracked how state-level Oil and Gas Well Fund money has been allocated in the past—for example, toward statewide environmental oversight or infrastructure—you may want to understand how your county plans to use this new revenue stream.
County general funds typically support broad local services, so the money may be used differently than it would have been at the state level. If you operate wells in multiple counties, it's worth understanding each county's budget priorities.
For specifics on how your county will handle the new revenue, contacting your county auditor's office or county commissioners is the most direct route.
Source: Ohio SB219, Section 1509.22, Page 34. For a detailed, business-specific summary of SB219's provisions affecting construction and trades operations, contact your industry association or local chamber of commerce.