Regulators Investigate Blowout at Pa. Gas Well
Washington PA Observer Reporter
7 June 2010
HARRISBURG - State environmental regulators worked Sunday to get to the
bottom of what caused a natural-gas well to spew explosive gas and
polluted water for 16 hours last week before it could be brought under
control.
Neil Weaver, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection,
blamed a failure on the well's blowout preventer, a series of valves
that sit atop a well and allow workers to control the pressure inside.
Investigators are trying to figure out what caused the malfunction.
The Thursday blowout is the latest in a string of accidents connected
by regulators to the rapidly growing pursuit of the rich Marcellus
Shale gas reserve that lies beneath much of Pennsylvania.
It seems likely the Pennsylvania blowout will enter the debate in the
Capitol, where legislators are battling over the merits of an
extraction tax and tighter regulations on an industry that has spent
several billion dollars and drilled more than 1,000 wells in
Pennsylvania in just a couple years.
State Rep. David Levdansky, D-Allegheny, said such oil problems could
bring increased interest in a moratorium on leasing public land for gas
drilling and a severance tax that could largely fund existing
environmental protection and cleanup programs. Levdansky is a leading
environmental advocate.
Weaver declined to discuss whether investigators have found anything so
far or whether well driller EOG Resources Inc. of Houston committed any
violations that could lead to fines or any other penalties.
An EOG spokeswoman said Sunday the investigation into the cause is
ongoing, and the company had no light to shed on the blowout.
Crews evacuated the site Thursday night and didn't regain control over
it until just past noon Friday. No one was injured, the gas didn't
explode and polluted water didn't reach a nearby waterway, officials
said.
The blowout sent highly pressurized gas and polluted water 75 feet into
the air. Huge tanks were required to cart off chemical- and
mineral-laced water collected on the grounds of the private hunting
club where the well had just been drilled.
There are no homes within a mile of the heavily forested site,
officials say. However, some Marcellus Shale wells are within view of
homes, farmhouses and public roads.
A nonfunctioning blowout preventer also figured into the massive oil
spill off the coast of Louisiana.
The oil rig's blowout preventer was supposed to stanch the flow of oil
if a catastrophic failure occurred, but didn't.