Bradford County shale well spews fluids
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This is the natural gas well site operated by Chesapeake Energy in Leroy, Bradford County.
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An equipment failure on a Marcellus Shale natural gas well in northeastern Pennsylvania late Tuesday night caused a blowout, allowing thousands of gallons of chemically laced hydraulic fracturing fluid to flow from the site for at least half a day.
More than 16 hours after the blowout began at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, frack fluid was still spewing out of the Chesapeake Energy well in Bradford County, county and state officials said.
Seven families who live adjacent to the site in Leroy were evacuated as a precaution, and a local farmer was told to not let his cows drink surface water on his farm, officials said.
The first sign of a problem Tuesday night was that the well lost pressure, which "means something broke," said Francis Roupp, deputy director of Bradford County Emergency Management, which was assisting the response.
The company began drilling this well Dec. 22, 2010, and it could be one of six wells on this well site, according to Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection records.
Subcontractors for Chesapeake, one of the state's larger Marcellus Shale drillers, were in the midst of "well completion," the company said.
After the lost pressure, thousands of gallons of fracturing fluid began bubbling up from the well, though it was never a geyser, said DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh.
The company said no one was injured and no natural gas had been emitted.
Exactly what caused the blowout won't be known until it is stopped and investigators can check out the well, Ms. Gresh said.
In hydraulic fracturing, up to 5 million gallons of fluid is injected into the well to help fracture the shale rock a mile below the surface, releasing the natural gas inside the rock.
Ninety-nine percent of the fluid is typically sand and water, with less than 1 percent of it made up of a cocktail of potentially hazardous chemicals that help in the fracturing process -- though with 5 million gallons, 1 percent could be as much as 50,000 gallons of chemicals.
Companies are required to notify state and local officials immediately of accidents such as this, but Ms. Gresh said DEP was not notified about the problem until 1:10 a.m., and Mr. Roupp said Bradford County didn't get a call until almost 2 a.m.
First Published April 21, 2011 12:00 am
