PA DEP Says: "We can't tell you yet..."

Towanda Creek was contaminated by this spill.
Photo credit: Don Williams

Remember the 30,000 gallons of wastewater that spilled at the Atgas 2H well in Leroy Township, Bradford County, PA, April 19th?    PA DEP sent a violation notice to Chesapeake Energy demanding answers.  The deadline for a response from the gas company was April 29th. However, DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni said:

We are not making this information available at this time as we need to carefully examine it as part of our on-going review of the blowout.

Chesapeake Energy is supposed to supply information as follows:

1)what chemicals and other materials were used at the well, 2)what failed at the wellhead and caused the spill, 3)what exactly spilled into the environment, and 4)why it took Chesapeake 12 hours to bring a well control specialist to the site from Texas when a similar firm is located in Pennsylvania.

In my opinion, chemicals used during fracking should be right on the computer and should therefore be available at any time for any reason.  Many of these chemicals are toxic for humans, animals, and plants.  We should know what we have been exposed to without waiting for weeks.  Are we being kept in the dark unnecessarily?

Read the article from the Towanda Daily Review here.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE IS A MUST!

Leroy (PA) Well Spill: Update?

Here is an excerpt from the Daily Review article published today:

Progress has been slower than anticipated due to the adverse weather conditions that were experienced throughout the weekend, hampering work efforts, according to Chesapeake spokesperson Brian Grove.

The Atgas 2H has remained in stable condition since late Thursday and is expected to continue in this state through final preparations.

Katy Gresh, community relations director for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, reported that DEP personnel remained on the scene Monday, testing the water of Towanda Creek, as well as an adjacent tributary, and where Towanda Creek empties in the Susquehanna River in Wysox 16 miles away. Gresh reported that not all testing results are back yet from the scene, but no adverse effect has been detected at this time.

My questions are several.

•  Do gas drillers NOT realize that Pennsylvania has actual weather which can actually be adverse, especially in winter and spring?
• What is "stable condition"?  Is this like a report on a sick patient who is expected to pull through given time?  Does it mean that no more spillage is occurring?
• What are "final preparations"?   Is that like getting ready to kill and bury this well?
• Why is a premature report of "no adverse effect detected at this time" even put in print?  This statement can conveniently be lifted out of context and reprinted anywhere, possibly giving people the impression that this actually caused no adverse effect at all.  Once people read that, they can feel free to go back to their lives and forget about it.  It leads to a false security which can be deadly. 

Another way to put it is this:  Media can create a baseless sense of optimism, and worse, a belief that spills and blowouts are fixable.

  When accidents happen at gas wells,  reports so often use wording like this, very vague and also bordering on or actually misleading the public.  Readers want to believe that there were no adverse effects of 30,000 gallons of frack fluid spilling out on the ground and flowing out over farmland and into streams and rivers.  We know in our heart of hearts that such a wish will not be granted in the real world.  But when the media provides only general information based on very little actual fact, or at least not enough facts, it is a disservice to us all. Will the public take the time to follow up and keep abreast of what is happening, or will people just console themselves that all is well because they saw an article in the paper or, for that matter, heard an interview on NPR?
 
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FRACCIDENTS HAPPEN

Protest in Towanda (PA) April 22nd

God bless the people of Bradford County and others who stood in solidarity on Friday, Earth Day, across the road from Chesapeake Energy's headquarters in Towanda, PA, to protest the environmental and human costs that they have suffered from the gas industry so far.  We stand with them.

More on this event from The Morning Times (Sayre)....

Fraccident in PA: Popular Mechanics Weighs In

We're not supposed to drink what?

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Popular Mechanics featured an article on Tuesday's well spill in Leroy Township, Bradford County, PA.  The well operated by Chesapeake Energy erupted just before midnight April 19th, sending thousands of gallons of contaminated frack fluid over the earthen berms surrounding the well pad and down through farmlands to a nearby creek which flows into the Susquehanna River.  The well is Atgas 2H located about 175 miles northwest of Philly.  The mishap occurred while the crew was in the middle of a "frack job."  Although the investigation into this accident is not complete, officials believe a steel coupling located beneath the well's blowout protector, but above ground, failed, allowing the flowback to gush out.  This blowout protector is the same technology as the device that failed in the Gulf oil spill one year ago this week.  What happened in Leroy is not being described as a blowout which would have involved an explosion and methane release into the air.  However, there was no way to immediately stop the flow of water.  As the PM article siad, "there was a lot of water."  Normally this flowback is collected in pits or tanks, processed to remove some of the contaminents, and then partially reused in other wells.  However, some of the waste is trucked out of state or worse, diluted and released by treatment facilities into rivers and streams.

Prior to the incident this week,  there had been days of steady rain which had partially filled the containment pits, causing the pits to overflow when the accident occurred.  Then the berms failed as well.  DEP officials have warned farmers  to stop their cows from drinking surface water. [And we know how easy it is to monitor cows.]

Investigators did not immediately disclose the chemical make-up of the fracking fluid that escaped.  Some of the chemicals are proprietary, making it impossible for emergency workers to know what to test for or treat for.  Popular Mechanics said,

If initial estimates are accurate, it would make Wednesday's incident the most serious fracking accident in the history of Marcellus Shale development.

That is quite a claim to make. 

Methane bubbles in the Susquehanna in Sugar Run
Credit: Don Williams