The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) on Tuesday issued a temporary supersedeas, or stay, stopping Catalyst Energy Inc. of Pittsburgh from commencing wastewater injection operations at a McKean County well until a full hearing can be held.

Catalyst secured a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection permit Jan. 11 to dispose of more than 30 tanker truckloads per day of hydraulic fracturing wastewater via a Class II injection well in Cyclone, Keating Township.

The permit allowed Catalyst to convert the Lot 580-1 well, just off Route 646 leaving Cyclone heading toward Ormsby, from a conventional to an injection well. Residents believe neither Catalyst nor the DEP provided sufficient notice of the intended injection well and are pursuing an appeal.

To date, Catalyst has not responded to The Era’s requests for comment.

Prior to the stay issued Tuesday, Catalyst would have been free to begin injecting hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater as soon as the permit’s prerequisites had been met, even as the appeal process is ongoing.

The order, signed by the board’s Chief Judge and Chairperson Steven C. Beckman, precludes Catalyst from “dispos(ing) fluids produced in association with oil and gas production into the well at issue” and “engag(ing) in any earth disturbance activities.” The company is permitted only to prepare the site for injection, should the EHB ultimately deny the impassioned appeal from approximately 40 residents of the tiny Hilltop village.

Their concerns are myriad and extend far beyond the, perhaps obvious, drinking water issue — a problem with which Hilltop-area homes have struggled for decades — to include noise and light pollution, damage to area roads with increased heavy truck traffic and its proximity to the upper reaches of both Kinzua Creek and small tributaries to Cole Creek. Kinzua Creek and Potato Creek, into which Cole Creek flows, both ultimately lead to the Allegheny River.

Joshua Morgan, who lives right next door to Lot 580-1, said the company’s lights illuminate “(his) backyard like a stadium.”

The biggest issue, according to Cyclone native and Ormsby resident Joe Cole, are the scores of abandoned wells — 103 — within the quarter mile area of review (AOR) for Lot 580-1.

“I still struggle with the fact they’re ignoring the unplugged wells,” Cole said. “I don’t understand that at all.

“On the EPA website the older wells, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, they will have them marked as plugged. They are not plugged to modern standards; they’re plugged, essentially, with wooden corks.”

Cole is intimately familiar with the Hilltop oil field, having shot or fracked, operated and plugged wells there for more than 50 years.

“There are a number of wells (within the AOR) that I found and turned in pictures of them along with GPS coordinates that they (the DEP) haven’t even bothered to go out and look at,” Cole said. “They’re not plugged. I’ll put my reputation on that. I don’t have any money, but I’d bet a million dollars if I did, that they’re not plugged.

“I would love the opportunity to walk (DEP officials) out there and show (the wells) to them because for the life of me, I can’t understand how we can be closing our minds to lack of due diligence.”

DEP officials would, Cole said, find “methane rolling out of them,” which he believes is indicative of improperly plugged wells.

Still, Cole said, the EHB’s temporary suspension “is very good news, because I doubt very much that’s common practice in the state of Pennsylvania. Normally it’s such an industry-favorable state that they don’t put a stay on their activities. We think that’s a really good thing.”

He explained the EHB will hear cases Dec. 4 to 10 in Erie, but it remains unclear when exactly their appeal will be heard or who might be called to testify. The group hopes Cole gets the chance.

He continued, “I thought it was an actual law that we (Pennsylvania residents) had the right to clean air and environment. I thought it was part of the DEP’s mission statement — which, they take an oath when they’re put in charge of these government programs, to uphold that mission statement.”