COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a company that has been trying to restart an oil and gas drilling waste disposal well since it was shut down after a 2014 earthquake in Weathersfield.

In a 5 to 1 decision, the justices ruled Wednesday on a case brought by American Water Management Services, which claims the Ohio Division of Oil and Gas imposed unreasonable restrictions, prohibiting them from putting it's well #2 back in service along State Route 169.

AWMS was ordered to stop pumping brine into both of its injection wells at the site following a 2.1 magnitude earthquake on August 31, 2014.

Injection wells are drilled to hold waste liquids collected during the gas and oil exploration process known as "fracking".

The division allowed operations to resume at a shallower well but kept the second well-closed due to concerns over public safety.

In addition to citing the earthquake at the Weathersfield location, state officials cited other seismic activity at two other well operations in the Valley.

In support of its decision to keep the well closed, the division noted there were 12 earthquake events between March 2011 to Dec 2011, including a 4.0 magnitude tremor at the Northstar injection well in Youngstown and a 3.0 magnitude earthquake on March 14, 2014, at the Hilcorp wells in Poland. Both the Hilcorp and Northstar wells have since ceased operations.

The division cited a study that the Weathersfield well is located near a fault that is like the fault associated with the seismic activity of the Northstar well.

In its ruling sending the case back to the 11th District Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court note that AWMS tried on two separate occasions to give the state a plan to restart the well, but was either ignored of rebuffed.

The Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management did submit a plan they said would allow AWMS to restart the disposal well over time.

The justices concluded that AWMS was justified in pursuing compensation for the investment lost over the years, due to what AWMS believes was the state essentially “taking” their property during the well’s shutdown.

AWMS has estimated a loss of more than $20 million because of the closing of the well.

The appellate court has been ordered to reconsider the economic impact of the well closing, and whether the state’s suspension of AWMS’s operations constituted a “total taking” by depriving AWMS of all economically beneficial use of the well.