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FAA approval of Vienna drilling rig enables injection company to meet deadline
By ED RUNYAN
VIENNA
The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday gave permission for Kleese Development Associates to erect a drilling rig on state Route 193 just south of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.
The approval apparently makes it possible for KDA to meet a Thursday deadline to drill a brine injection well before KDA’s state-issued permit to drill expires.
The FAA permit means KDA is allowed to erect a 105-foot drilling rig and keep it there for 20 days. The rig is 16 feet higher than normally allowed that close to the airport because it “penetrates the initial climb area” of airport runways, according to FAA documents.
But the rig will have a red light and flag on it, and pilots will receive information on the electronic Notice To Airmen system about adjustments they should make while flying, said Dan Dickten, director of aviation at the airport.
If the additional injection is allowed to begin commercial injection operations, it will be KDA’s sixth injection well in Vienna Township.
KDA has five wells on Sodom Hutchings Road, but they have been shut down since April, when “light waste oil” leaked from the site and fouled a stream, ponds and wetlands nearby.
KDA’s permit from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to drill the injection well expires Thursday, but an ODNR spokesman said KDA has enough time to erect the rig and begin to drill the well before the deadline passes.
KDA only has to begin drilling Thursday and continue to drill “every day” after that to meet the ODNR permit requirements, said Eric Heis, ODNR spokesman.
It takes only a few days to erect a rig, and it takes a couple of weeks, on average, to drill an injection well, Heis said.
Protesters showed up at the KDA site on Route 193 Monday to protest the possibility that KDA would drill another injection well in Vienna in light of the problems at the Sodom Hutchings site.
Heis said if KDA meets the drilling requirements, another permitting process will begin after that before KDA would receive permission to start commercial injection there.
That process includes ODNR inspections to make sure the well casings are safe, Heis said.
Heis said he’s not sure of all of the requirements the well will have, but it’s likely there will be a requirement for 30 to 60 days of seismic monitoring to establish a baseline of seismic activity.
That would be followed by additional seismic monitoring to determine whether test injections are having any effect on seismic activity – earthquakes – near the well.
Heidi Brown, a Vienna Township trustee, hopes that the public-comment period will be successful in stopping the well from being able to start operation. She said she opposes allowing KDA to start another injection well because of the problems the leak caused.