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 : ProPublica | by Nicholas Kusnetz | Jan. 5, 2011, 9:20 a.m.

The McKeesport Sewage Treatment Plant, one of nine plants on the Monongahela River that has treated wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling operations. (Joaquin Sapien/ProPublica)

As gas-drilling operations proliferated in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale over the past couple of years, most of the hundreds of millions of gallons of briny wastewater they produced was eventually dumped into the state’s rivers. Much of the rest is unaccounted for. That news, from a detailed look at the state’s management of drilling wastewater by the Associated Press, should come as no surprise to readers of this site.

As we reported in October 2009, Pennsylvania was largely unprepared for the vast quantities of salty, chemically tainted wastewater produced by drilling operations in the Marcellus, the gas-bearing shale formation that stretches under that state and into West Virginia, New York and Ohio. While the state Department of Environmental Protection called for the fluids to be sent through municipal treatment plants, those facilities are largely unable to remove the salts and minerals, also known as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), from the waste.

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Source : New York Times

Pittsburgh became the first city in gas-rich Pennsylvania to ban natural gas drilling after City Council members unanimously approved the measure Tuesday. The council, which cited health and environmental concerns, received a standing ovation after voting 9 to 0 to approve the ban within city limits. Pittsburgh sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a large rock formation that spreads across parts of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Drilling companies have been flocking to those states to tap into the vast natural gas reserves. The companies use what is called fracking to break up the rock; opponents say the chemicals used in the process can contaminate water and air.

Source : WHYY

Thirteen families in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania have sued a Houston-based natural gas driller, claiming their wells were contaminated with fracking fluids. Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial method used to extract natural gas from the deeply buried gas reserve known as the Marcellus Shale.

Susquehanna County borders New York state in northern Pennsylvania, where drilling for natural gas has hit like a gold rush. After the Houston based Southwestern Energy Company drilled a well in Lenox Township, nearby residents complained of dark sediment in their well water, and clogged wells. Then they say they began to suffer from stomach complaints, seizures and broken bones that did not heal. The state department of Environmental Protection tested their water and found high levels of strontium, barium and manganese. They were told not to drink it. This week 13 families sued.

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Source : PressConnects

Much has been written, and will continue to be written, about the Marcellus shale; on one side about how much money and jobs it will bring, and on the other, about how much environmental damage may result. But this battle of words, being waged by gas development’s proponents and opponents, is mostly speculative. There is probably some truth as well as exaggeration coming from both sides, but the argument may be missing the point. Here in Susquehanna County we are beginning to experience the reality – and the reality is very disheartening.

If you own land to which you are not particularly attached, or which represents only an investment – something to log, or quarry, or exploit in some other way – the Marcellus is just another opportunity. But if you live in the country because you love the rural aesthetic, because you seek solitude, or the joy of experiencing the natural world, you are in for a very unpleasant surprise.  You are going to be living in the middle of an industrial zone.

In Dimock over the past year, gas well pads have been installed or are being planned at a rate of one for every 80 acres or so, meaning roughly eight gas well pads per square mile. You will inevitably be within eyesight and ear shot of at least one gas well, and will have numerous well sites in and around your community. Each well pad is a prominent graveled work yard of three to five gated acres, including large pits, tanks, pipes, valves, generators and exhaust stacks. Each has a heavy-duty gravel access road, and each has a 30- to 40-foot-wide pipeline swathe going to the next well pad in a continuous network across the countryside. Your rural landscape will be transformed by bulldozers into an industrial complex. Everywhere you look you will see their handiwork.

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Source : The Times Leader

SCRANTON – U.S. Sen. Robert Casey  returned to his hometown Thursday to extol the economic benefits of a present-day “gas rush” and, recalling the devastating effects of coal mining on the environment, called for more safeguards and federal oversight of natural gas drilling to prevent a “repeat of the mistakes of the past.”

The Democrat from Scranton joined five other panelists at a forum convened at Marywood University to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by development of the Marcellus Shale.

Noting that nearly 600,000 Pennsylvanians are unemployed and 70 percent of the workers employed at Marcellus Shale drilling sites are not state residents, Casey said his Marcellus Shale On-the-Job Training Act would fund training programs to help ensure gas drilling jobs go to Pennsylvanians instead of out-of-state workers.

Recalling a well blowout in Clearfield County in June, Casey said a proper emergency response plan was not in place. His Faster Action Safety Team Emergency Response Act would authorize additional regulations to enhance response procedures as gas and oil wells, he said.

His Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, Casey said, would repeal some exemptions for the oil and gas industry and require disclosure of all chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing – the process of injecting millions of gallons of water with sand and chemicals added into a well bore to stimulate the release of natural gas.

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