An injection well in Southington Ohio is stirring up complaints. 

While some folks enjoyed the nice weather, some residents there say they couldn't, adding the stench is so bad you could smell the odor as you drove closer to the site, even with your windows up.

The NAACP and FracTracker Alliance are teaming up to identify problems and lack of testing about this environmental justice issue.

Some folks in Southington, have a problem with the injection wells that accept brine water from the fracking process to extract natural gas from the shale deep underground.

"In 2018 we started with various elected officials to see what we could do to have this location shut down because of the fumes," Annett McCoy, NAACP 2nd Vice President of Ohio Conference, & President of the Trumbull NAACP said.

The location of the deep injection well site on Highway 422 is half a mile away from the Leavittsburg High School and is closer to homes.  

Neighbors who didn't want to talk on camera tell 21 News the warmer it gets, or when there is rainfall the odor gets bad enough for residents to smell it from 2 miles away.

The Ohio NAACP wants support reclassifying brine water as a hazardous substance so the community members, including doctors and people, can know what they are potentially being exposed to. 

The organization says this is an environmental justice issue for people who live in Trumbull Counties, and other rural areas where the injection and deep injection brine wells are located.

If there is a chemical spill our first responders don't know what they're fighting against or how to protect themselves," McCoy explained." 

Dr. Ted Auch Midwest Program Director FracTracker Alliance says Ohio's lax state regulations and ODNR being a rubber stamp for the oil and gas industry need to be changed, so residents won't be left facing the fallout of potential earthquakes linked to or caused by deep well injection of the brine water.

"When it comes back it comes back oftentimes as quite nasty brine, often quite radioactive brine that has to be disposed of in some way shape, or form. And that brine is being taken by brine haulers across the region to class II injection wells saltwater disposal well," said Auch added.

No laws have been violated, but groups point out that is part of the problem, Ohio's lax laws that have made the state a dumping ground for Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

There is no state funding for testing for Volatile Organic Compounds.

"They need to have those kinds of air monitors, the instrumentation on site or downstream of these sites, down the prevailing wind of these sites and they don't," Dr. Auch said.

"We've been asking for the EPA to come in and sample the soil, and do some studies similar to what happened in Columbiana County, and their concerns, the same concerns are here. Ours have been going on for over 15 years since the site was built," Annette McCoy emphasized. 

They intend to take their concerns to Trumbull Commissioners to try and gain support for what they say are common sense changes to Ohio's laws.