Gas Company: Well Flaring Finished

Industrial park operation will supply city

Morgantown Dominion Post
20 December 2011

Northeast Natural Energy completed the flaring process for two wells at the Morgantown Industrial Park well site Monday morning, said company President Mike John.

Flaring, he explained, is the “controlled, safe and temporary combustion of natural gas from the well. This temporary process is designed to accommodate the initial flow of water and gas from the wells in the safest manner possible.”

The two wells were flared for just more than 24 hours, he said, and will now be connected to Dominion Hope’s system.

The natural gas from the wells will serve the Morgantown market.

Northeast drilled the two wells during the summer and began fracking during the last week of September. The city of Morgantown had attempted to prevent the fracking, but a Monongalia County circuit judge overturned the city’s ban in August. City Council never reached a consensus on appealing the ban to the state Supreme Court, and the question became moot when the city missed its deadline to appeal.

The Morgantown Utility Board has been monitoring the work at the site, and regularly testing the Monongahela River water below the site and at its water intake, and has reported no problems. Air quality tests performed by the Environmental Protection Agency at Skyview Elementary in October also revealed no problems.