Source : Coudy News

After McKean County house explosions, Casey sends letter to Department of Energy asking for help and coordination with local and state officials.

March 28, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) today wrote U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu concerning gas migration-related incidents in Northwestern Pennsylvania. After the most recent house explosions in McKean County, Senator Casey called for federal help investigating the explosions and in coordinating with local and state officials to protect public health and safety.

“I am deeply alarmed to learn of yet another gas-migration-related explosion in Pennsylvania,” said Senator Casey. “According to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) Emergency Response Program, there have been dozens of gas migration incidents in northwestern Pennsylvania recently.”

Senator Casey continued, “I urge you to coordinate with local, state, and other federal entities to ensure that appropriate actions to protect public health are implemented.”

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Another important detail – sometimes, storage tanks catch fire and explode, and sometimes, wells explode – a blast (from a faulty gas line, ~Ed.) in Allentown, Pennsylvania earlier this month killed five people and destroyed eight homes.  Read more below. ~myles

Source : WPXI

Gas Well Explosion Rocks Avella

AVELLA, Pa. — An explosion and fire at a gas well injured three workers Wednesday night in Avella, authorities said.

The blast, at the Chesapeake Appalachia LLC Powers site was reported at about 6:20 p.m., Washington County emergency officials said.

Workers were transferring water used in a gas-extraction process called hydraulic fracturing, and several of the natural gas liquid storage tanks caught fire, said Katy Gresh, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection’s southwest region.

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Source : New York Times

Again, Joel Kirkland from ClimateWire has published a gripping article about the growing environmental concerns surrounding the process of producing shale gas.  That article begins:

Around suppertime on June 3 in Clearfield County, Pa., a geyser of natural gas and sludge began shooting out of a well called Punxsutawney Hunting Club 36. The toxic stew of gas, salt water, mud and chemicals went 75 feet into the air for 16 hours. Some of this mess seeped into a stream northeast of Pittsburgh.

Four days later, as authorities were cleaning up the debris in Pennsylvania, an explosion burned seven workers at a gas well on the site of an abandoned coal mine outside of Moundsville, W.Va., just southwest of Pittsburgh.

A serious 4-page article follows, please:

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