Bradford County Shale Well Spews Fluids
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
21 April 2011
By Sean D. Hamill
An equipment failure on a Marcellus Shale natural gas well in
northeastern Pennsylvania late Tuesday night caused a blowout, allowing
thousands of gallons of chemically laced hydraulic fracturing fluid to
flow from the site for at least half a day.
More than 16 hours after the blowout began at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, frack
fluid was still spewing out of the Chesapeake Energy well in Bradford
County, county and state officials said.
Seven families who live adjacent to the site in Leroy were evacuated as
a precaution, and a local farmer was told to not let his cows drink
surface water on his farm, officials said.
The first sign of a problem Tuesday night was that the well lost
pressure, which "means something broke," said Francis Roupp, deputy
director of Bradford County Emergency Management, which was assisting
the response.
The company began drilling this well Dec. 22, 2010, and it could be one
of six wells on this well site, according to Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection records.
Subcontractors for Chesapeake, one of the state's larger Marcellus
Shale drillers, were in the midst of "well completion," the company
said.
After the lost pressure, thousands of gallons of fracturing fluid began
bubbling up from the well, though it was never a geyser, said DEP
spokeswoman Katy Gresh.
The company said no one was injured and no natural gas had been emitted.
Exactly what caused the blowout won't be known until it is stopped and
investigators can check out the well, Ms. Gresh said.
In hydraulic fracturing, up to 5 million gallons of fluid is injected
into the well to help fracture the shale rock a mile below the surface,
releasing the natural gas inside the rock.
Ninety-nine percent of the fluid is typically sand and water, with less
than 1 percent of it made up of a cocktail of potentially hazardous
chemicals that help in the fracturing process -- though with 5 million
gallons, 1 percent could be as much as 50,000 gallons of chemicals.
Companies are required to notify state and local officials immediately
of accidents such as this, but Ms. Gresh said DEP was not notified
about the problem until 1:10 a.m., and Mr. Roupp said Bradford County
didn't get a call until almost 2 a.m.
Chesapeake released only a written statement Wednesday and did not
respond to interview requests.
Ms. Gresh said it took till mid-afternoon Wednesday for Chesapeake's
crews to stop the fracturing fluid from running into a nearby tributary
of Towanda Creek -- a state-designated trout stock fishery that
eventually flows into the Susquehanna River.
DEP staffers were on the scene all day Wednesday testing the unnamed
tributary and looking for environmental impacts.
"So far there's no evidence of an aquatic life kill," she said.
Chesapeake's crews eventually used heavy machinery to contain the spill
and direct the continual flow into a large impoundment, Ms. Gresh said.
The company said it had hired Houston-based Boots & Coots well
control specialists to come out and "respond if necessary."
DEP records show that Chesapeake has been fined seven times for a total
of $61,101 over the last three years -- which makes it tied with Range
Resources for the second-highest number of fines in the state next to
Chief Oil & Gas, which had nine.
Five of Chesapeake's seven fines were for problems at wells in Bradford
County, three of which were for different types of spills on well sites.
Despite that, Leroy officials said Chesapeake has been a responsive
company when there have been problems there.
"Chesapeake has been pretty good," said Harold Shedden Jr., a township
supervisor who also works part time grading the township's dirt roads.
"If something goes wrong, they fix it. They broke our roads and they
fixed it."
He said from what he has been told about Tuesday's blowout, "I don't
think it will really do any damage, other than pollute the stream."
Despite Chesapeake's responsiveness, he said the influx of Marcellus
Shale drillers -- he said there are at least eight well sites within
four miles of his home -- has been a double-edged sword.
"Everything has gone up [in price] since they moved in here, gas,
gravel, food. And no normal person could afford to rent a house up here
now," he said. "So, in a way it has helped and in a way it hasn't."
Sean D. Hamill: shamill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2579.