Truck Carrying Frack Water Loses Brakes: It Could Have Been Worse

LENOX TOWNSHIP — A water truck driver walked away from a crash with another tanker on Route 407 in Lenox Township on Thursday.
That crash in Susquehanna County might have saved both driver’s lives.
“I told her to hit me. I thought I could get her stopped, well. That didn’t work,” said Joe Delancy.
Delancy and a female driver were each carrying water from a gas site in their trucks.
State police said the brakes in the truck the woman was driving stopped working.
That’s when Delancy drove in front of her and let her hit him, so she could slow down.
“She kept picking up speed and she hooked me right here and over we went,” said Delancy.


Find out more about this accident here. Watch video.

My thoughts (Peacegirl):  In a rural area such as Lenox Township (PA) or Asylum Township (PA) where my family has its summer camp, trucks were not uncommon in days gone by. But now, with the virtual occupation of these areas by gas drilling companies,  trucks are seen all over the place every day, driving on little, narrow country roads that were not built for these heavy trucks in terrain that many drivers are not familiar with.  The roads are windy and treacherous in the best of circumstances.  In this accident, the brakes gave out.  People live on these roads often very close to the road.  There are children riding bikes.  The gas industry has brought a nightmare to these communities.  What a miracle that no one was badly hurt or killed in this accident yesterday (7/17/14). 

In addition, these water trucks are not always carrying just plain water.  The water may be laced with chemicals.  The water is going to be used for another frack job.  Where did it come from?  What is in this water?  Was there a spill in this case?  All good questions IMO.

Gas well truck slides off road, dumps water compound

In Pennsylvania, an accident involving a gas industry truck, which crashed a few hundred feet from a residence,  resulted in a spill which had to be cleaned up by local firefighters and PENNDOT. The driver, a Mr.Grenot, was not injured, but the state Department of Environmental Protection said he spilled 265 gallons of the ethylene glycol, which is used as pipeline lubricant for the gas drilling industry.

"Grenot was descending a steep grade on Pleasant Hill Road in a truck with a trailer containing a diluted ethylene glycol solution, the same chemical compound as anti-freeze. He was en route to the Hufnagel hydraulic fracturing well about a half-mile from the accident site.

As Grenot attempted to make a bend about a half-mile south of Route 488, the trailer began to slide, which pulled the entire vehicle off the road and into a nearby field, according to police.
Wurtemburg-Perry Township Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief Brian Partridge said the accident might not have occurred if Grenot had been more familiar with the road he was on...."

Read article here.

The article mentions that perhaps the driver was not familiar enough with the terrain and may have been driving too fast.  Also the road was slippery from the effects of heavy truck traffic combined with hot weather, causing the tar to bubble. In my opinion, gas industry trucks go too fast and do not know the roads well enough, or perhaps they are simply not using the proper caution.  I have witnessed what I would call unsafe driving first hand when I was almost driven off the road by a large truck.  It is very frightening.  These drivers work long hours and may feel under pressure to deliver their loads as quickly as possible.  Accidents are common.  Trucks add to the dangers of the natural gas industry, and are a constant worry to local citizens.

Gas Drilling: Deadliest Danger Isn't At the Rig, But On the Road

Truck traffic in Bradford County, PA

"After working 17 hours straight at a natural gas well in Ohio, Timothy Roth and three other crew members climbed into their company truck around 10 o’clock one night last July and began their four-hour drive back to their drilling service company’s shop in West Virginia.

When they were just 10 minutes from home, the driver fell asleep at the wheel. The truck veered off the highway and slammed into a sign that sheared off part of the vehicle’s side, killing Mr. Roth.

About two months before the fatal crash, Mr. Roth nearly died in a similar accident when another co-worker with the same company fell asleep at the wheel after a long shift and ran the company’s truck into a pole. In 2009, Mr. Roth’s employer was penalized in New York, Pennsylvania and Utah for violations like “requiring or permitting” its oil field truckers to drive after working for 14 hours, the legal limit.

Over the past decade, more than 300 oil and gas workers like Mr. Roth were killed in highway crashes, the largest cause of fatalities in the industry. Many of these deaths were due in part to oil field exemptions from highway safety rules that allow truckers to work longer hours than drivers in most other industries, according to safety and health experts.

Many oil field truckers say that while these exemptions help them earn more money, they are routinely used to pressure workers into driving after shifts that are 20 hours or longer."

Read the entire New York Times article here: Link

Truck Accident in Pennsylvania Results In Spill of Frack Fluid

Only a tiny article in the Star-Gazette mentioned this accident involving two trucks, tractor-trailers, and resulted in a toxic spill into a creek. The accident occurred early Monday afternoon, December 28, on Route 287 in Mifflin Township, PA. Accidents like this happen and will continue to happen over and over again. The natural gas industry is too dangerous to continue to grow and expand all over the country and the world.  It must be stopped.

Read the short article here.

Another Fatality Related To Gas Drilling: Bradford County, PA

Gas truck on a PA road

In a nutshell,  there was a fatal accident early Sunday morning (a few minutes after midnight) in Terry Township (Bradford County, PA), involving a 2008 Ford F-150 welding rig truck driven by a North Dakota man.  The man killed, the passenger, was from Arkansas.  It appears that speed and alcohol were involved.

My thoughts:
The two people involved were NOT local residents.  So this is an example of job opportunities for Pennsylvanians.  Just anecdotal, but interesting.  The workers are so often from somewhere else.

This accident was at night on a curve in the road, and the truck was allegedly going too fast.  a) Roads in rural PA are typically curvy. b) I have found through personal experience that gas drilling trucks do go too fast- ridiculously fast.  They scare me to death.

Alcohol was allegedly involved.  Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant among gas workers.  A gas worker I talked to last June told me that every worker has to take a breathalyzer test before being allowed to enter the drilling pads.  That is good.  However, there is still a problem with drinking and drugs, especially on the roads.

So send the comments in.  Will you tell me that I should not single out gas workers?  That accidents happen to anybody?  There is some truth in that.  However,  the occupation presence of the gas industry brings with it many more dangerous elements, including vehicle accidents.  And often it is a local citizen who dies or is seriously injured. 

Here is the article from the Daily Review (Towanda): http://thedailyreview.com/news/man-killed-in-terry-township-accident-1.1198104

Gas Drilling: More Truck Traffic Accidents, More Spills

Waste water truck line-up

Two people were sent to local hospitals August 7th after a water tanker truck rolled over on State Route 14 near Alba, PA, spilling 1,600 gallons of recycled water from gas drilling operations.  The truck driver was severely injured in the early morning crash.  After the truck came to rest upside down and partly in the road, a car came by and struck the trailer of the truck.  That driver was taken to a hospital as well.

Here is the strange part about this accident.
The PA Department of Environmental Protection were called to the scene and said that there was no "saline" in the truck and the treated water contained "no chemical contaminant."  This water was being transported from Williamsport, PA, after having been "treated" and was being taken to another well pad to be used again for another hydrofracking job.  According to the PA DEP, no clean-up was necessary except for some motor oil and hydraulic fluid from the truck itself.  The Bradford County Public Safety Director Robert Barnes said he did not know where the treatment facility was located- the one where this recycled frack fluid had been treated.

I have read that this recycled frack fluid becomes more and more salty every time it is treated for re-use and that eventually it becomes unusable and must be discarded.  Also I know that this frack fluid contains radioactive material brought up from the ground during fracking.  I do not believe this recycled frack fluid can be called water by any stretch of the imagination.  It could possibly be called recycled frack fluid, but not water.  That gives the false impression, in my opinion, that this fluid is somehow harmless, almost as if you could drink it safely.

I am also puzzled as to how the PA DEP got to the scene so fast and determined that there was no public health or environmental hazard at the crash site.  I know the DEP inspectors do a good job, but this is extraordinary!  Usually after accidents, samples are taken and sent to a lab and it takes a week or so to get the results.

The truck was operated by Principal Enterprises, LLC, of Canton, PA.  The gas drilling company was Talisman Energy USA, formerly known as Fortuna.

Read more.....

Interested in the business of treating frack water?  Go here. The industry makes some pretty amazing claims as to just how pure the treated "water" is.  Do we buy it?

I still maintain that, once fresh water is stolen removed from our rivers and streams and used for hydrofracking, it is no longer water, but rather produced water, or brine.  It will never ever be fit to drink or use in any other way as pure water.  It will never return to the hydrologic cycle as happens, for example, when water is used on golf courses.  This water is only useful to gas drillers and then only for a short while.  Then it becomes  useless even for fracking.  To read the advertisements for this water treatment process, you would think you could give the treated water to a baby.

Some interesting Reader Comments (Towanda Daily Review):

"I talked to one of these local water truck drivers earlier today and he said that he is putting in roughly 100 hours behind the wheel every week. Even working 7 days straight that is over 14 hours behind the wheel every single day. These drivers are being told to make as many trips as possible during their shift. So we have exhausted drivers racing from point A to point B and back - it's amazing we haven't seen more of these trucks involved in accidents."

"Amazing! The DEP was able to do all that testing & obtain the results in less than 24 hours???"

" I ran into one of these tanker rollovers on Sunday afternoon at near 5PM on Route 706 between the Frank and Mary's and the old Red House bakery. It was totally on its back, with wheels in the air, down from the road near a creek. There was lots of emergency services and another tanker (probably to pump the load of whatever out). Why hasn't this rollover been reported on by the Review? It did occur in Bradford County."

"There are too many crashes for the paper to possibly report them all. A couple weeks ago in Monroeton a water tanker ran completely over the front of a car. Squashed it flat. That was never in the paper. We would need a bigger paper."

"Within the past two weeks I have almost been hit head on by two tractor trailers in the Troy area. The first one broke my mirror and the second one would have hit me, but I swerved into the ditch. I encourage all truck drivers to remember that they are supposed to be professional drivers and should obey speed limits and avoid texting or talking on the phone."

"Excuse me for being suspicious, but I simply do not believe that EVERY time there is an accident and a spill by the gas industry, DEP almost immediately says there is no danger, no chemicals, etc. These trucks carry chemicals and highly toxic waste. This is why we need laws that require tracking this "stuff" from start to finish. I, too, wonder how it is they (DEP) can make such quick determinations and tell us it is safe? Each one of these accidents has the high potential to pollute our water. There are far too many of these incidents and too little reporting on them. I have heard these drivers work extremely long hours, often working 7 days in a row. This is insanity. Too much is at risk. I'd be interested in knowing that it was checked and double checked as to just WHERE this frack water was treated!"

And that's just a few of the comments at the end of the article! 

And here is another article related to this subject from the New York Times if you have a moment to check it out.                  

And finally, an interesting interactive graphic about wastewater chemicals.

I guess that's enough reading material for one day!


     

Another Truck Overturns in Towanda, PA

A truck carries residual waste in Hickory, PA

A driver of a truck owned by Texas Transco sustained minor injuries on Tuesday when the vehicle overturned at 4:30 a.m. as he drove on Bridge Street in Towanda.  The tractor trailer was carrying water, according to the Daily Review report, and the water leaked from the vehicle when it rolled over after leaving the north side of the road.  No other vehicles were involved.  After rolling, the truck went down a slight embankment. 

Truck accidents are not uncommon in areas where gas drilling operations are on-going.  Because of this, local citizens must use extra caution when on the roads of Bradford County.  Be ready to take evasive action at all times.  These trucks are often operated by people from Texas where the terrain is very different, and the drivers may be fatigued or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  In addition, time is of the essence, which may cause the drivers to speed.  This is not to say that most drivers operate these huge vehicles improperly and unsafely.  However, being alert is essential.  I have nearly been driven off the road in this area by gas trucks.  I have a friend in Texas who has ended up in a ditch more than once.

Here is the article from the Daily Review:  LINK