MEINERS OAKS : County Could Have Restricted Drilling

A well-drilling operation in the Ventura River would not have been allowed to run day and night if county officials had realized the noise was going to carry throughout Meiners Oaks, an official said Wednesday.

“This is a lesson to us,” said John Crowley, senior hydrologist with Ventura County Water Resources Department.

“When a well-drilling permit is issued in a city or urban area, we usually condition it to operate within certain hours,” Crowley said.

“With this one, we thought the nearest residence was three-quarters of a mile away. We didn’t anticipate any problem.”

Instead, the river channel amplified the sound like a drum, Crowley said, as the large rotary rig drilled around the clock since last Thursday.

Rotary drills usually operate 24 hours a day to prevent cave-ins, he said, but the operator, Midway Drilling,could have been asked to stop work at 9 p.m.

On Tuesday, after the holiday weekend, a local water company received more than a dozen complaints, while the Sheriff’s Department told residents that its hands were tied because the county permit did not restrict operating hours.

“We issue 300 permits a year and get a complaint of noise about once every five years,” Crowley said.

Drilling the 200-foot-deep well for Farmont Corp. to irrigate citrus groves and water cattle also took longer than expected due to the number of boulders in the dry, rocky riverbed, Crowley said.