Gas Drilling Accident Goes Virtually Unreported in PA

A fracking blowout in a state forest in PA (Tioga County) occurred January 17th, 2011.  Did you hear about it?  I didn't.  The location of the blowout was on PA State Forest lands in Ward Township about nine miles southeast of Mansfield. 

According to an article in the Ithaca Journal (http://www.theithacajournal.com/), the accident caused an uncontrolled discharge of sand and fracking fluids onto state forest lands in Tioga County.

This was a serious incident that could have caused significant environmental harm had it not been brought under control....Talisman Energy began having problems controlling the well in the early afternoon of January 17th. A needle valve on a casing wing valve failed, which caused a loss of well control.

During the blowout, fracking fluids and sand discharged from the well into the air.  There was no fire or explosion, and no one was injured.

There were three violations identified to date:
Potential pollution of fresh water streams near the well site

Releasing fracking fluids onto the ground

Failing to contain hydraulic fracturing fluids

Talisman said it had modified the design of the failed component.  (Question: They haven't got it right yet???  Are they practicing on us?  Of course, they are.)  They said they strive to continuously improve well site operations.  So reassuring.

In 2010, PA DEP conducted 187 inspections of Talisman well sites.  Ninety-one of these inspections found 151 violations.  In my opionion, that is way too many violations.

G. Jeffrey Aaron wrote the source article for this post.


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