Bradford County Fracking Spill Stopped After Two Days Of Leaking Chemicals In Pennsylvania

CANTON, Pa. -- Workers have stopped the flow of drilling fluids from a natural gas well in rural northern Pennsylvania that leaked the chemical-laced water for two days following an equipment problem.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. says the drilling fluid leaking from a well near Canton in Bradford County was stopped Thursday afternoon.

Thousands of gallons of brine water used in the hydraulic fracturing drilling operation leaked from the out-of-control well following the equipment failure Tuesday night. Some of the drilling fluid crossed farm fields and entered a stream, but company officials say there was minimal environmental impact.

The cause of the equipment failure hasn't been determined. Chesapeake suspended some operations while the spill is investigated.

Critics say hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could poison water supplies. The gas drilling industry says it's safe.

Comments

[thundermummy]

07:04 PM on 04/24/2011

Aside from the this spill, here is another side of the gas boom not getting attention. Crime is up, idyllic and pastoral Bradford County looks like crap now and in The Daily Review (Towanda paper) houses are being listed for rent at $5000! Makes you want to barf.

[knappAP]

11:06 PM on 04/24/2011

The dramatic raise in rental prices is indeed an unanticipated consequence of Marcellus drilling. It will subside as additional housing facilities are built.

[thundermummy]

09:26 AM on 04/25/2011

Better do it soon to help the locals who are already affected. I'd like to see the gas companies re-purpose existing buildings rather than build new housing which down the road will be unused. They built a man camp at the Blue Swan airport but if they need more they can always find land/housing in Sayre at the old railyards. That would solve their problem and keep the grumbling down.

[jjcountrylips]

08:36 AM on 04/24/2011

According to our Senator Big Bad John Cornyn,the natural gas industry is doing a fine job at environmental self regulation.How about they drill a well next to his house and foul his water source.wonder if he'd change his tune?

[kmeccat]

07:43 PM on 04/26/2011

I second that!

[Tara Mcclure]

08:12 PM on 04/23/2011

of course it's safe! as long as they can make a buck....

[kmeccat]

07:47 PM on 04/26/2011

LOL...it's like Big Oil, Coal, or Nuclear...it's safe and harmless, unless it's you that's affected.
Wonder how many Gas CEO's have their water supplies next to a fracking site....

[Gottlieb]

05:33 PM on 04/23/2011

Private Profit with the public paying for the risk. This is the new Corporate Welfare State. Corporations are now treated like citizens with the right to directly buy as many politicians as necessary by cutting out the middlemen. This is the new efficiency of the "free market." Large corporations now write the laws and regulations that ensure their continued profitability by killing off innovation, competition, and new technologies which would be competitive except for Corporate Welfare. Small businesses do not have a chance to grow and create new jobs when trying to compete with large corporations who use their power to continue business as usual under the Corporate Welfare State.

[SAdams1987]

05:04 PM on 04/23/2011

This certainly points out the need for alternative fracking methods. However, we cannot simply walk away from shale oil and gas development.

[kmeccat]

07:45 PM on 04/26/2011

"However, we cannot simply walk away from shale oil and gas developmen­t."
Sure we can.

[SAdams1987]

08:33 PM on 04/26/2011

How do you heat your house? How does your food get to the store?

[DevonTexas]

12:47 PM on 04/23/2011

Free Market and De-regulation at it's best! Now the citizens will get the priviledge of paying for the cleanup!

[SAdams1987]

05:05 PM on 04/23/2011

In a truly free market, the industry would be responsible for any damage.

[knappAP]

11:07 PM on 04/24/2011

The industry is responsible for any cleanup. Just ask BP. $20 Billion.

[Bobio]

12:20 PM on 04/23/2011

Thank God these companies are not controlled by environmental oversight or this could have been a horrible disaster.

[knappAP]

11:08 PM on 04/24/2011

You're absolutely correct. Good regulations WORK!

[Jim8]

12:18 PM on 04/23/2011

As long as the gas drilling industry says it's safe, what could possibly go wrong?

[DevonTexas]

12:48 PM on 04/23/2011

It's funny.... not in a comical way... that in another related article, someone made the comment that fracking was "safe" and "harmless". Needless to say, I took that comment to task.

[msjimmied]

12:02 PM on 04/23/2011

The universe will be patient while we struggle with our inertia to keep this old paradigm alive. Fossil fuels are finite, accept that.

http://vimeo.com/15477088

[apogee2perogee]

11:43 AM on 04/23/2011

There is a part of this concern with frac chemicals that I don't understand. Tthe complaint that benzene, toluene and xylene are in the frac fluids doesn't make sense to me. They are constituents of crude oil and the rock that is being fraced has some petroleum crude along with the gas, sometimes referred to as condensate. Returning frac fluid, after the frac job, is going to have those chemicals no matter what happens, because they come from the shale zone.

Now, that said, fracing does offer potential failures when an aquifer is very close to the producing horizon, when casing is not properly cemented, and when fluids and gases are poorly managed at the surface. These are real concerns, but expressing some of the hyperbolic ideas doesn't help the environmental case, and can actually hurt it.

[Danny Morris]

12:07 PM on 04/23/2011

Spot on! Way to much BS floating around on this subject.

[INDIVIDUALTERRY]

12:28 PM on 04/23/2011

Its much more sensational to pull your hair and scream "the end is near" than to look at something alien , like a drilling rig or a frac job , with a modicum of commonsense.

[apogee2perogee]

12:51 PM on 04/23/2011

Insight helps a lot. I'm a former petroleum engineer, environmental engineer for that past 20+ years.

[blytzd]

12:48 PM on 04/24/2011

A modicum of common sense is to invest in our future, renewable resources.

[MiddleAmericaMS]

11:39 AM on 04/23/2011

More fun from GOP deregulation.

[FarginIcehole]

11:33 AM on 04/23/2011

Hey, Bradford County, PA.,

Drink up those corporate profits and vote for the Republicans. Soon they will pass laws that prevent the media from even telling you that those chemicals are in your water. Don't worry about birth defects. If you are able to get pregnant and carry till term then, you will be one of the lucky ones and you won't mind that we removed your options to control your body. Since the corporate profits will make the world a better place, there won't be any problem getting an insurance carrier to sell you a plan which makes them more money than ever before. You'll feel so American with the corporate good will you spread that you won't mind if the insurance you bought for your special chemically enhanced offspring does not cover anything. Thank Gawd we, as a nation, have the freedom to frack without interference from regulations which drain CEO bone-us's.

[Dead Che]

12:54 PM on 04/23/2011

Fargenbastages

[iam99]

11:27 AM on 04/23/2011

Alternative generation at point of use is reasonable.
So, the idea of this doesn't get much funding.
And, the grid owners don't have everybody by the
short hairs with the monthly bill and increases.

[Mitchman57]

11:15 AM on 04/23/2011

In the 70's 80's 90's I removed underground oil tanks and cleaned up the leakage - after the home was converted to nat gas heat. A few houses were torn down to get at all the oil spilled. Sometimes the neighbors' basements collected spilled oil from other's tanks.

We've just moved the spill to someone else's back yard while going for the gas.

No more leaking oil tanks. Feel better?

[knappAP]

11:09 PM on 04/24/2011

Funny you bring that up. Underground oil tanks are a far greater threat to drinking water than gas drilling.

[Billy Jack]

11:12 AM on 04/23/2011

If they need gas they should just tap all the wind coming out of Republicans a$$es