Kleese Development Associates sells Vienna injection well to Oklahoma company

Staff report

VIENNA

Kleese Development Associates, the Warren-based company that leaked thousands of gallons of oilfield waste at its facility on Sodom Hutchings Road in Vienna last April, has sold a proposed injection well just south of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport to an Oklahoma company.

KDA and KTCA Holdings LLC of Oklahoma City, Okla., notified the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on Oct. 9, 2015, that KTCA had acquired the well, which has been drilled but has not yet applied to ODNR to operate as an injection well.

Eric Heis, an ODR spokesman, said the filing of the transfer and $100 fee is all that is required to transfer ownership.

KDA drilled the well in late August and early September. People protested the drilling of the well, saying they didn’t want KDA to be able to operate another well after 2,000 gallons or more of “light waste oil” spilled from storage tanks at KDA’s injection facilities on Sodom Hutchings Road in April.

The spill fouled ponds, streams and wetlands nearby.

The ODNR shut down the facility, and it has not reopened.

KTCA Holdings was created in August 2015 by Keith Thompson of 5209 Southwest 23rd St. in Oklahoma City, which also is the address of Kat Industries Inc., whose president is Thompson.

Kat Industries is a fabrication shop that has served the oilfield industry for more than 15 years.

The company fabricates oil rigs and retrofits existing rigs, according to its website. Thompson did not return a call Wednesday.