Chevron Fracking Pipe Leak In Pennsylvania Worse Than Previously Thought, Company Says

MCDONALD, Pa. (AP) — A Chevron Corp. natural gas drilling unit says a leaking pipe at a southwestern Pennsylvania well site contaminated more soil than initially thought.

The state Department of Environmental Protection says Chevron-Appalachia reported a leak of about 100 gallons from the underground pipe at its well in Robinson, Washington County in December. But the company has since raised their estimate to as much as 4,000 gallons spilled.

A 2-inch pipe carrying condensates from the hydraulic fracturing well is the source of the leak.

Chevron spokesman Trip Oliver says it's harder to assess the damage caused by the leak because the pipe is buried. He says there's no evidence the nearby Bigger Run Creek has been contaminated.

A DEP spokesman says Chevron has dug up at least 1,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil.

Comments

[Alerte Schiste]

08:42 AM on 03/05/2012

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[Genders]

05:22 PM on 03/03/2012

We need to have surprise inspection and sampling of all wells.

We need to require chemical tagging of all wells so we can find the polluters.

[WESmith]

08:14 AM on 03/02/2012

Condensates don't come from fracturing wells. Wells cannot produce natural gas while they are being fractured. Condensates can be produced in any natural gas well, whether they were fractured or not. And this has nothing to do with natural gas wells, this has to do with pipeline safety. We can just as easily blame homeowners for Demanding natural gas to heat their homes. We need to face each risk associated with supplying natural gas separately. The answer might be as simple as pumping the condensates back down wherethey came from. But then, we consumers want many of the products that are made from condensates and we don't want to pay a lot of money for them. The bottom line is that this is strictly political rhetoric and science is thrown out the door in favor of political religion.

[D-Driller]

04:44 AM on 03/01/2012

How is this story related to "fracking"? I'd like to sit in on a HuffPo writers meeting one day. I envision a corporate setting, with the head editor, who's yearly bonus is linked to new membership numbers, tasking the freshly journalism-school minted writers around the table to find "bad" things to write about the oil and gas industry, and to make sure to link it to "fracking". So, mindless as the young tend to be these days, they follow orders, and one of them finds out about a 95 bbl leak in a production pipe. Automatically, this becomes a leak from a "hydraulic fracturing well"(???), whatever that means, as if the production line would be different if it was not a "hydraulic fracturing well", or that a 95 bbl spill would be, what, less than a 95 bbl spill if the well had not been "fracked"?...

[energydem]

09:24 PM on 02/29/2012

I cannot believe there is a story on this site on a two inch pipe carrying condensate (which has zero, nothing to do with fracking). Get a grip people.

[Jacob Brandt]

03:32 PM on 02/29/2012

Ladies and gentleman, this is indeed one of many travesties in accordance with coal, oil and natural gas yet what can be done to alter these states of affairs? I continually hear of regulation or work through the political system yet these inconsiderate beings concern themselves with how much they gain. Is there any potential that WE THE PEOPLE can reclaim land that once, and occasionally still today, instills awe in visitors and reminds us of our connection with our actual home; namely, Earth? I encourage those who want a better life for future generations to make a stand against any and all who propose progress to society via emphasis on monetary cost/benefit.

[rjhuntington]

02:32 PM on 02/29/2012

This article was posted over 24 hours ago and has amassed all of 19 comments. Where are the fracking proponents now? They've run for cover. Invisible and silent when the evidence is clear that they are wrong wrong wrong.

This incident is one more in a long list of incidents that prove safe fracking is impossible and suggests that it can't ever be made truly safe.

[energydem]

07:16 AM on 03/06/2012

I have to respond to your ridiculous comment. I actually read it a few days ago but not carefully and I thought it said "where are the OPPONENTS of fracking" which it could just as easily have said based on the number of comments to this story.

Also, this incident proves nothing, zero, nada about fracking. It is not even about fracking. It is about a very small leak from a two inch (very, very small) gas condensate pipe. Your comment makes one thing clear: you have no idea what you are talking about.

[rjhuntington]

07:40 AM on 03/06/2012

Your claim that "It is not even about fracking." is ridiculous. You didn't even read the story.

From the article: "A 2-inch pipe carrying condensates from the hydraulic fracturing well is the source of the leak."

[Kommonman]

10:38 PM on 03/08/2012

flaming water from peoples faucets disclaims your post

[energydem]

02:10 AM on 03/09/2012

You believe the propaganda you see because you have no technical understanding. Go get an education. Gas is ubiquitous. I have a friend who put geothermal heat pumps in his house and got gas in his faucet. Shallow gas has nothing, zero, to do with fracking which occurs thousands of feet below the water table. I repeat -- get an education before you form opinions based on propaganda from advocates. We need gas to help manage climate change and you are listening to people who are the unwitting tools of the coal industry. And do not accuse me of being from industry, I am not. I do however have a technical understanding of gas production, gas emissions, the costs of renewables and the need for scalable, immediate reductions in CO2 -- the only two options are switching from coal to gas in power generation and energy efficiency.

[D-Driller]

09:31 AM on 03/10/2012

There is no flaming water here. This is a production line, a transport line, that links the well, of any type, to a gathering system. There is no "fracking" involved here, other than what the marginally-literate author believes is a fracturing issue, which is not the case at all.

[Kenz300]

01:42 PM on 02/29/2012

It always seems like when the oil, coal and gas companies have an environmental problem it is worse that previously thought.

[jensengirls3]

02:29 PM on 02/29/2012

And their current statements will be revised later...... Over and over again without ever releasing the real amounts spilled.

[WESmith]

08:23 AM on 03/02/2012

And We The People continue to use (and waste) oil, coal and gas products. We demand these products and we Demand that the prices be low.
We The People are the main environmental problem. And We are worse than previously thought. We refuse to look in the mirror. We point a finger at the Evil Entities, but forget that three fingers are pointing back at us. There would be no oil, coal and gas companies if it weren't for We The People. And the ironic thing is, We The People make far more profit from these natural resources than the Evil Entitiies do. We The People own most of the oil, coal and natural gas in the US. We The People make more than all of the Evil Entities combined.

But it feels good to say, "The Devil (industry) did it. I am innocent. I am a Believer in AGW."

[fisher65]

06:08 AM on 02/29/2012

there will be no more america the beautiful!

[farmilyman]

12:47 AM on 02/29/2012

This is the way the GOP creates jobs.

[josh85]

08:26 PM on 02/28/2012

Nearly all wells fracked, it's been going on over 50 years, it raises so much attention because no one has ever seen fracks on the type of scale that they are doing them now. This particular instance seems like it has nothing to do with the actual fracking of the well.It seems like a shoddy job on the hook-up of the production equipment,which is no excuse, but to somehow tie it to the frack, other than the fact that the frack job enabled those liquids to come out of the ground to the surface and through the pipe ,is just the someone skewing a story to promote their agenda. Not to mention that 100 barrells is right around 4000 gallons. The fault here seems to lie with whoever ran the pipe under the ground and Chevron for not making sure everything checked out before it was turned in.

[cosmicdart]

07:49 PM on 02/28/2012

Pennsylvania used to have the best ground water aquifer in the Nation. As the worldwide water shortage intensifies people shall curse the day that they ever decided to frack. If they want to save energy, don't they know that it takes 8,000 BTU of heat to distill one gallon of drinking water from seawater. The indirect energy potential in our drinking water lakes and aquifers is astronomical. It takes one gallon of fossil fuel to make four gallons of distilled water.

[farmilyman]

12:46 AM on 02/29/2012

I grew up there. The drinking water used to be fantastic.

[mmsuki]

05:34 PM on 02/28/2012

This is why there was so much opposition to the proposed pipeline from Canada through some of our nation's aquifers.

Pipes leak.

[tjconkster]

08:34 PM on 02/28/2012

And Oil Companies Lie...

[WESmith]

08:30 AM on 03/02/2012

The aquifers are deeper than 10 feet. Ever seen salad dressing? Doesn't the oil separate from the vinegar and float on top? So, unless these asphaltenes can defy science, they aren't going to get into the aquifers. We have been using asphaltenes in construction for 40,000 years. Why haven't we seen asphaltenes contaminating aquifers before this very year? Is this year special? Besides being election year and leap year.

[brutusmojo]

05:22 PM on 02/28/2012

Its amazing to me when the oil companies pursue there there agendas , knowing full well the dangers of the particulars involved in fracking.Ground pollution leads to water table pollution and this they cannot fix.The land owners were aware of this ,but the money was more important than the possibilities of mishaps.It takes water to frack, this water inevitably drains somewhere along the line, there guarantee to the public that they were incapable of carrying out to begin with ,was accepted to quickly by the councils.Anybody know how to clean up ground water?The Chevron company should know how before hand,wouldn't you think.Drink up.

[Oginikwe]

08:36 AM on 02/29/2012

Why should the oil companies care? They are never held accountable: we privatize the profits and socialize the liabilites. If they were made to pay to clean up their own messes, then they would care.

[WESmith]

08:40 AM on 03/02/2012

Oil companies don't fracture their wells. Fracturing oil wells almost always damages the formation.
The nasty chemical that fracturing companies use to fracture GAS wells is the same as K-Y Jelly. It is real thick and slippery. This way it can widen the fractures from 1/1000 of an inch to close to 1/4 inch. The thickness of the fluid helps keep the sand (or ceramic proppant)moving at the same speed as the fluid. If the proppant gets to the perforations 30 seconds too early or too late, the GAS company just wasted $100,000. It take several minutes to pump two miles under the ground.
How do you clean up fracture fluid water? No need, bacteria will eat it up in short measure. Fracture fluid is made from food filler, cellulose, the stuff celery is made of.
Now oil, natural gas and condensates is an entirely different subject. We (government agencies) need to monitor these activities. The worst polluters are the users; us.

[Peace Walker]

05:22 PM on 02/28/2012

100 or 4000; yep i see how one could easily confuse the two.

[mijjy]

12:02 AM on 02/29/2012

Minimize, minimize, minimize. No, fracking won't ever cause us unfixable problems, either.