![]() ![]() Fox, a Pennsylvania resident, had just returned from Leroy Twp., one of many sites he’s visited while filming Gasland II. ![]() Josh Fox, director of Gasland, a documentary exposing the environmental damage caused by the recent oil and gas drilling boom, spoke at Columbia University after a screening of his film Friday evening. That begs the question, if Chesapeake has logged 30 violations this year, how many have gone by undetected? The Pennsylvania DEP has less than 200 inspectors to keep tabs on the state’s expansive inventory of gas wells. The drilling boom has come at a time when state budgets stressed by a poor economy have been unable to keep up with the demands of gas well inspection. Despite industry claims that fracking is a clean, safe way to extract natural resources, the number of violations racked up by natural gas companies across the country over the past four years is close to 3,000. states - has increased exponentially since Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, exempting fracking from the provisions of the federal Clean Water Act. The number of wells in the Marcellus Shale - a massive natural gas deposit that lies beneath seven U.S. The company has been cited on nearly 300 violations by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection since 2008, 30 of them this year. In February, an explosion at another Chesapeake well site in Western Pennsylania injured three workers. hasn’t been the only one in Pennsylvania. ![]() That the spill occurred on the anniversary of one of the United States’ worst environmental catastrophies is a strange coincidence, but activists bent on keeping fracking from expanding into New York have been quick to point out that the accident in Leroy Twp. Chesapeake finally fabricated a temporary plug for the well with ground up tires and bits of plastic several days after the leak began, but the environmental damage assessment is ongoing.įire boats battle the blaze after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 21, 2010. In Leroy Twp., the well’s coupling failed after heavy rain, so the pits quickly overflowed. Typically a third to a half of the water pumped into the ground comes back up with the gas, and is usually contained in pits near the drill pad. Injection water is mixed with a slurry of chemicals which help break up shale to release tiny bubbles of natural gas embedded in the rock. Known as fracking, the process involves injecting large volumes of water - often millions of gallons per well - at pressures as high as 9,000 psi thousands of feet below ground level. No injuries were reported, but seven families had to be evacuated from their homes as Chesapeake Enegery, LLC, which operates the well, figured out how best to stop the flow of water, which contained heavy metals, lubricants, and other contaminants.Ĭhesapeake uses a controversial practice called hydraulic fracturing at the Leroy Township well - one of more than 80,000 natural gas wells in Pennsylvania. Last week, a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a steel coupling failed at a natural gas well in Northern Pennsylvania, gushing tens of thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water into nearby Towanda Creek. 2009, photo by Labenedict via WikiCommons ![]() Towanda Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |