Kentucky Administrative Regulations › Title 805 - ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CABINET › Chapter 1 - Division of Oil and Gas › Section 805 KAR 1:110 - Underground injection control

Current through Register Vol. 51, No. 1, July 1, 2024
RELATES TO: KRS 353.180(3), 353.510, 353.520, 353.550,
				353.570(1), (2), 353.590, 353.992,  40 C.F.R. 146.6, 42 U.S.C. 300j-6
NECESSITY, FUNCTION, AND CONFORMITY: KRS 353.540 authorizes the
				Department for Natural Resources to administer and enforce the provisions of
				KRS 353.500 through 353.720. KRS 353.520 prohibits the waste of oil and gas;
				the unreasonable damage to underground fresh or mineral water supply, workable
				coal seams, or other mineral deposits in the operations for the discovery,
				development, production, or handling of oil and gas; the unnecessary or
				excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or gas or their constituents; and
				the drowning with water of any stratum or part thereof capable of providing oil
				or gas in paying quantities, except for secondary recovery or disposal purposes
				or in hydraulic fracturing or other completion practices. KRS 353.592
				authorizes the department to develop a regulatory program for the purpose of
				accepting primary responsibility for the administration of the Underground
				Injection Control Program. This administrative regulation establishes
				requirements for the drilling, casing, operation, plugging, construction,
				conversion, and maintenance of Class II wells and the protection of fresh water
				zones from contamination associated with the production of oil and gas.
Section 1. Definitions. Terms defined by KRS 353.510 and this section shall apply to this administrative regulation.
(1) "Administrator" means the regional
			 administrator for Region IV of U.S. EPA.
(2) "Aquifer" means an underground geological
			 formation, group of formations, or part of a formation that is capable of
			 yielding a significant amount of water to a well or spring.
(3) "Area of review" means that area within
			 not less than a fixed radius of one-fourth (1/4) mile around an injection well,
			 except that at the request of the permit applicant and approval of the
			 director, the area of review may be deemed to be the zone of endangering
			 influence calculated in accordance with  40 C.F.R. 146.6.
(4) "Casing" means a pipe or tubing of
			 appropriate material, of varying diameter and weight, lowered into a borehole
			 during or after drilling in order to support the sides of the hole and prevent
			 the walls from caving, to prevent loss of drilling mud or fluids into porous
			 ground, or to prevent water, gas, or other fluid from entering or leaving the
			 hole.
(5) "Cementing" means the
			 operation in which a cement slurry is displaced around the casing's
			 annulus.
(6) "Class II well" means
			 a well that injects fluids:
(a) Brought to the
			 surface in connection with natural gas storage operations, or conventional oil
			 or natural gas production and could be commingled with waste waters from gas
			 plants, which are an integral part of production operations, unless those
			 waters are classified as a hazardous waste upon injection;
(b) For enhanced recovery of oil or natural
			 gas;
(c) For permanent disposal of
			 produced brine water; or
(d) For
			 storage of hydrocarbons that are liquid at standard temperature and
			 pressure.
(7)
			 "Commercially producible" means a well that could be used commercially for the
			 production of oil and gas or for Class II injection.
(8) "Confining zone" means a geological
			 formation, group of formations, or part of a formation that is capable of
			 limiting fluid movement above an injection zone.
(9) "Contaminant" means any physical,
			 chemical, biological, or radiological substance or matter in water.
(10) "Date of primacy" means the effective
			 date of the Administrator's approval of Kentucky's Underground Injection
			 Control (UIC) Program made pursuant to  42 U.S.C. 300h-4, Section 1425.
(11) "Division" means the
			 Kentucky Division of Oil and Gas.
(12) "Endangerment" means that an injection
			 operation could result in the presence of a contaminant in ground water, which
			 supplies or could reasonably be expected to supply any public water system, and
			 the presence of that contaminant, or any contaminant, could result in violation
			 of any national primary drinking water regulation or could adversely affect the
			 health of persons.
(13) "EPA" means
			 the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
(14) "Flow rate" means the volume per time
			 unit given to the flow of gases or other fluid substance that emerges from an
			 orifice, pump, or turbine or passes along a conduit or channel.
(15) "Fluid" means any material or substance
			 that flows or moves in a semisolid, liquid, sludge, gas, or other form or
			 state.
(16) "Formation breakdown
			 pressure" means indicated values from data recorded prior to and during squeeze
			 cementing, acidizing, or hydraulic fracturing treatments performed by service
			 companies. These breakdown pressure values are frequently reported as the
			 surface gauge pressure that shall, through appropriate engineering
			 calculations, be modified to reflect the pressure at which an exposed formation
			 fractures and allows fluid to be injected into the formation.
(17) "Freshwater zone" means an underground
			 source of drinking water.
(18)
			 "Ground water" means water below the land surface in an aquifer's zone of
			 saturation.
(19) "Injection well'
			 means a well into which fluids are being injected.
(20) "Injection zone" means a geological
			 formation, group of formations, or part of formation receiving fluids through a
			 well.
(21) "Mechanical integrity"
			 means a condition of injection wells that exists if there is not leakage in the
			 well's casing, tubing, or packer and if there is not fluid movement into an
			 underground source of drinking water through vertical channels adjacent to the
			 well bore.
(22) "Owner or operator"
			 means the company or person having secured a permit for:
(a) A new or converted well; or
(b) A rule authorized well in operation prior
			 to the effective date or primacy, as defined by subsection (10) of this
			 section.
(23) "Packer"
			 means a device lowered into a well to produce a fluid-tight seal.
(24) "Plugging" means the act or process of
			 stopping the flow of water, oil, or gas into or out of a formation through a
			 borehole or well penetrating that formation by the placement of cement plugs in
			 the wellbore.
(25) "Project" means
			 a group of wells in a single operation.
(26) "Public water system" means a system for
			 the provision to the public of piped water for human consumption, if the system
			 has at least fifteen (15) service connections or regularly serves at least
			 twenty-five (25) individuals.
(27)
			 "Underground source of drinking water or "USDW" means an aquifer or its
			 portion, which is not an exempted aquifer and that:
(a)
1.
			 Supplies any public water system; or
2. Contains a sufficient quantity of
			 groundwater to supply a public system; and
(b)
1.
			 Currently supplies drinking water for human consumption; or
2. Contains less than 10,000 mg/l total
			 dissolved solids.
(28) "Well" means a borehole drilled, or
			 proposed to be drilled, for the purpose of:
(a) Producing natural gas or petroleum, or
			 one through which natural gas or petroleum is being produced; or
(b) Injecting water, gas, or other fluid or
			 one into which water, gas, or other fluid is being produced.