Here's a "spot burn" for ya.

We just had a Marcellus Shale well explosion on Elk Creek (trib to upper Pine in Tioga Co. and just over the hill from Cedar Run) within the last hour or so. At least two injured with a Med-Evac helicopter circling the area for a safe LZ as I type.

Don't know extent of the injuries or if there will be environmental damage.

Terrible news! Lets pray for the best people.

We should organize something here through PA Flyfishingis to oppose this crap.

I'm afraid there's many more reports like this to come in the near future.

now that is not good.... best wishes to all involved...

Slate_Drake_9,

Any updates? Hope those folks are okay?

One trauma flown to Arnot Odgen Med Center and one flown to Robert Packer Trauma Center.

this is crazy! the first time ive even heard of this company was just a few weeks ago when my buddy was telling me that marcellus shale wanted to drill on his land in lycoming co. and since then ive heard of two disastrous events. ill be on the phone by the end of today telling him to strongly consider turning them down!

Quote:

Just sent to me on twitter from a friend.
http://bit.ly/93uavo

No updates from any reliable sources. One I've heard was "nothing happened" "just two guys got hit with a pipe" and another source is reporting an explosion. I didn't hear an explosion and haven't seen any flames. So I don't know anything, except two guys were med-evaced out.

Thanks

Thank you Dkile for your link. The "news article" I read earlier today indicated it was indeed an explosion. I guess I shouldn't always trust local "news reporters" and their ability to report factually all the time. I just know I watched the chopper flying around the area.

I hope this is the last time, but I doubt it will be.

BlkLgB,

Marcellus shale is not a company. It is a geologic formation that holds natural gas. A combination of modern drilling technology and better estimates of how much gas is there have made it economically viable to drill. We are now in the middle of a gas boom, and MANY companies are taking part. I don't know that the most recent explosion is the same company as the one in Clearfield County. It may have been, but the chances are that it isn't.

The method itself is technically similar to the old shallow gas well drilling of which we already have hundreds of thousands of wells in PA. The differences are that the Marcellus formation is at a much greater depth, and to be economically viable, the drill hole must be turned horizontal at depth. Technically those differences aren't huge but the real world implications are significant. With wider, deeper, and much longer holes, much more water is used for hydrofracking, meaning any leaks or spills which do occur are of much greater volume. Pressure is higher, which means the likelihood of blowouts like these are greater and more damaging. Equipment is bigger, meaning well pads are much larger and take longer to drill. More water + bigger equipment + rapid exploration = considerably more road damage. Horizontal drilling means they can put multiple wells on one well pad, which means the drilling activities take much longer (if 1 well takes 6 months to drill, 8 wells on one pad means they'll be actively drilling for 48 months at that site before leaving to enter the collection stage). The "sudden" exploration of the formation means that more activity is going on at once rather than spread out over decades like the shallow wells did. And lastly, the Marcellus formation covers around 2/3 of PA, and includes areas that don't have experience with the shallow gas wells, so the people who live there are being exposed to the gas industry for the first time.

It has been a HUGE political issue recently, as it should be. I'm not against the drilling, but anything this large with this much potential for damage needs to be scrutinized very closely. I'm in favor of slowing them down. There's X amount of gas that we're going to get whether we get it all in 20 years or over 200 years. What's the rush? Do it slow so that the newer wells can learn from the mistakes of the ones that came before them.

They have to be lying when they say an explosion never occured. They are drilling for gas... to me drills and gas seem like a pretty explosive combo. The beginning of this Marcellus Shale drilling sounds horrible for the environment and I must ask is there any particular danger to people who may be living in the area of these wells or happen to be passing through?

Well the best news is it says in Dave's link that a DEP inspector is already at the well.

pcray gave a good explanation. One really important thing left out though is that this drilling can and does cross numerous aquafers and the process of "fracking" that takes places uses lots of very harmful chemicals that have to be "passed through" these aquafers. Something like 80% of the "fracking" fluid stays in the ground and is known to migrate into different aquafers. I've read this has happend up to 30 miles away from the actual well pad.

First, there's not enough details on this explosion for me to know for sure, but I believe the "explosions" generally are not of the fireball kind, though they may be flamable at the surface if they get a spark. I think they occur during hydrofracking, well after "drilling" has completed. The well is filled with frac fluid, capped, and pressurized to break up the rock at depth. Most explosions, including the one in Clearfield County I believe, occur when the cap fails. What happens is that the thing busts open violently and frac water mixed with oil and gas spews high into the air. When the pressure releases enough they can then fix the cap.

Frac water is 99% sand and water, but they do put a host of other chemicals in it which can be toxic, plus it picks up heavy metals, oil, gas, etc. from depth.

The immediate danger to people would be those who are on site, near the explosion. But the more realistic danger to people living in the area is from the frac water. Some is obviously released with the frac water "gusher", and the blowouts may also bust the well casing which protects the aquifer. Yes, they do employ well casings to below the depth of the aquifer, so assuming everything goes right, the aquifer is not contaminated. But things don't always go right. So in situations like this, beyond the immediate health concerns of those involved, the important questions are:

1. How much water was released above the ground and was it contained before it could soak into the ground or reach streams?

2. Is the well casing still intact, or did it break too (if it breaks, then the aquifer is left unprotected from frac water and methane).

Obviously frac water contaminating an aquifer can lead to longer term human, livestock, pet, wildlife etc. health issues.

Plus, there are some isolated incidents, at least 1 of which is in PA, where actual methane contaminates the aquifer. This too could be from a busted well casing that is neglected during the collection stage, or it's possible the act of hydrofracking released methane into natural faults which intersect the aquifers (and are not protected). We don't really know, though busted or incorrect depth on the well casing seems more likely than faults (those would have to be some really deep faults). All we know is that methane has contaminated streams and water wells, and methane in the plumbing can lead to a house explosion. The occurance of this is the extreme minority, but its not zero.

Yes, the gas companies say that the mixture is only 1% chemical, but that's because they hope we can't do the math and 1% doesn't sound too bad, does it. Lets do some math.

Several sources document that it takes upwards of 5 million gallons of fracking fluid to frack 1 Marcellus well. 5,000,000 times 1% (.01) is 50,000 gallons per well. Now, to the easier math. 1 well pad can have up to 8 wells drilled on it. 8 x 50,000=400,000 gallons per well pad. There's talk of having 11,000 wells drilled in Potter County in the next two years alone (1 pad every 1/4 mile or so). 11,000 wells x 50,000 gallons of very bad chemicals (they won't even tell us what all of them are because Dick Cheney worked to get some laws changed a few years ago as VP) = 550,000,000 gallons of chemicals going into the ground, which 80% or so will stay there and most likely migrate.

* 11,000 wells is the low end estimate for the next 2-3 years.

** gas company executives openly discuss being in this area for 30-50 years doing this.

OOPS...I forgot. They get all of this water out of our trout streams to mix with the chemicals, year around, low water or not. And they don't pull water when it's even the least bit cloudy.

The only part of that that I'll dispute is that the water left down there is likely to migrate. It is extremely unlikely to migrate for any given well, but it is likely that somewhere will experience it migrating. The only way it migrates is if something goes wrong, like a busted well casing. Of course, I'm not saying that never happens. There might be a 1 in 10,000 chance of a blowout and only a 1 in 30,000 chance a given well will blowout AND result in a busted well casing which could cause a serious pollution incident. But if you drill 10,000 wells in a small area, well, that area does indeed have reason for concern. If you drill 200,000 wells in a state, well, it's virtually assured that there's going to be a number of blowouts and several severe pollution incidents in that state.

But it does need a path to get to the aquifer. We're talking about stuff well below sea level here. Water thats deeper and isolated from the aquifer, stays deeper and isolated from the aquifer, forever. It's when you lose that isolation that you have an issue. Like, oh, I don't know, a big hole drilled to the surface, pressurization from gas at depth, and a busted casing near the surface water.

The impact that EVERYONE will see is development for the workers, water use issues, heavy equipment traffic and the resulting road damage, and new roads cut to well pads. Siltation and noise pollution (at all hours) will be issues during the drilling phase, which will last from months to a few years for a given pad. After the drilling operation finishes most of the pad will be let to grow back and the noise and siltation will die down, you'll be left with a rather unobtrusive condensation tank, but the dirt road to it will be maintained. When the drillers leave one pad, though, they're not gone, they'll just move a half mile down the road and make a new pad. So you're likely to have this increased activity going on in the general area for a period of 20-50 years, yes. It's not like the entire area will be paved and completely dead for all recreational use, we've used those condensation tanks as deer stands! But yes, there will be ugly spots on the landscape, road degradation, you'll get caught behind big trucks on 2 lane roads, stuff that you just don't want to deal with when you go to God's country.

Impacts that will be rare but WILL occur in several localities statewide:

Stream and water well pollution from frac water, which leads to degradated water quality, and if not monitored and taken care of, long-term health effects on people, livestock, wildlife, etc. Likely fish kill in the immediate area. Effects are likely to fade with time.

Impacts that will be extremely rare but are likely to occur (again) somewhere in the state:

Methane contamination of surface water and aquifers. Extreme danger to stream water quality, perhaps major fish kills. Forcing of people to drink bottled water in their homes and danger of home explosions. This situation may be somewhat permanent.

Quote:

That's a pretty bold statement. PA is unique with it geology, and this is new for here, so as of yet I am not sold that this stuff will forever be isolated.

Kinda like the phrase 'never, say never.'

im just saying, yea we may be in a fuel crisis right now, but i havent heard one good thing about the whole operation.

BlkLgbEaDheAd09:

Jobs man. JOBS!

then get a job that helps the environment not destroy it

^^^^^^

but where's the profit in that? The margins are too thin, gotta think about the $hareholder$.