ADAMS TWP — The controversial Marcellus Shale gas wells planned for Denny Road have received state approval, and work is expected to begin on them in two weeks.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued the permits on Friday morning to Rex Energy for five wells on the Bob and Kim Geyer farm. The initial number was six, but Rex Energy spokesman Patrick Creighton said Rex has decided to reduce that number to five.

A group of Mars School District parents has attempted to prevent the wells from being developed because they will be within a mile of the district’s five schools. The parents say the wells will present safety and health hazards to the students and staff at the schools.

While those attempts have failed to gain the support of local government or the school district, the DEP has included additional safety measures in the Geyer permits because of the group’s concerns.

They are:

• No flaring of gas at the well sites.

• Rex Energy will work with the school district to schedule completion operations during nonschool hours.

• Rex will use federally-approved green completion technologies to capture excess gas.

• Sound abatement walls will be used to reduce the noise of operations.

• Rex Energy will communicate with governing bodies and the school district throughout the project.

• Rex will consult with first-responders and “provide additional training, if needed.”

• Rex will evaluate the use of additional air monitoring equipment.

Creighton said Rex will also pipe water to the site for fracking, which will reduce the number of trucks using the site. Vehicles will be able only to turn right from Route 228 East or West onto the lane leading to the wells.

He stressed that in addition to the site enhancements, Rex officials will regularly talk with Mars Superintendent Jim Budzilek as well as firefighters and police.

“We will continue to keep those stakeholder groups informed about everything,” he said.

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to this process and to working together with the community as we move forward to develop this location in a safe and responsible manner.”

But the enhancements do not impress Amy Nassif, who is a leader of the parents group.

Nassif said that at the July 15 meeting between the parents group and Rex Energy at the DEP office in Meadville, Rex officials said that they already are using the additional safeguards in anticipation of a 2015 requirement to do so.

“To say now that a part of the permit is going to be (sound abatement) walls and green completion is a joke,” Nassif said. “That is not special consideration for the Mars parent group or for the schools.”

Nassif also was disappointed at the nine-page letter DEP officials sent to her listing reasons why the Geyer permits could not be denied based on the assertions of the parents group.

“It is obvious to me and the group that they didn’t read the research that we sent them,” Nassif said.

She said the group’s research on the effects of unconventional gas drilling on children and potential incidents and violations at well sites is from doctors, research scientists and engineers.

“It’s a total, blatant disregard for the information we brought or the work we’ve done over the past several months,” she said.

Nassif also brought up the recent incident on Sept. 6 that caused a one-mile evacuation around a gas well in Mercer County as an example about the safety issue regarding the schools.

“Thanks to the DEP, and our state and local officials, especially in our township, the Mars School District is now within the evacuation zone of a (five)-well unconventional gas well pad,” Nassif said.

The parent group contends that it would be impossible to evacuate all 3,200 students, plus staff, from the schools in the event of a problem at the well pad site.

But Kim Geyer, who is the former president of the Mars School Board, said she has no worries about the wells affecting the schools.

“We’re very pleased (that the permits have been issued), and we know that Rex will continue to do everything in their capacity to operate at the highest degree of integrity,” Geyer said. “We have every confidence in them.”

She said the access road to the wells will be on Route 228 east of the middle school, and trucks will drive one mile through her property to access the wells.

“That way it keeps the trucks and traffic off the local roads and negates any inconvenience for our neighbors,” Geyer said. “It also will not interrupt the school bus flow.”

Geyer said the normal turnaround time from application to the DEP and issuance of the permits is 45 days. She said the permits for her property took more than six months to be approved.

“We had people throughout the county, everywhere we went, asking if the permits had been approved,” Geyer said. “They couldn’t believe it when we said ‘not yet.’”

Creighton said Rex workers will begin building the access road and the well pad site in about two weeks. He said it will take four to six weeks to develop the site.

After that, a rig will set the wells’ casing before a large rig is brought in to drill and then hydrofracture the five wells one-by-one.

Creighton could not say how long the entire process will take.