Appalachian Ohio has been a primary dumping ground for waste created by drilling horizontal or fracked natural gas wells, according to Ohio Capital Journal. And the waste isn’t limited to only what’s created in Ohio, nearly half of it is coming from neighboring states.

Now a battle is underway to give the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ power to issue permits for these injection wells to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Environmental activists and community groups in Southeastern Ohio are pointing to the millions of barrels of fracking waste being injected into Ohio ground and continual pollution incidents as causes for the change in the permitting process.

“Ohio’s Class II well program contains numerous technical deficiencies that have allowed for under-regulated oil and gas waste disposal which has resulted in serious consequences to human health and the environment,” attorneys from EarthJustice, the Sierra Club of Ohio, and various community groups say in their petition to the EPA asking them to begin the rule-making process to revoke Ohio’s primacy over its Class II program “due to the longstanding and systemic failures.”

Learn more: Ohio Capital Journal > Alleging continual pollution, advocates ask U.S. EPA to take over Ohio injection well permitting