The June 3 well blowout at a Marcellus Shale drilling operation in rural Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, has attracted the ire of lawmakers and locals worried about the safety of the industry. Those fears were exacerbated last week when drillers near Moundsville, W.Va., "hit a pocket of methane in an inactive deep mine, causing an explosion and fire that flared 50 feet high for four days, destroyed a drilling rig and burned all seven workers on the well pad," Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
"We're horrified by the possibilities of that happening here," Debbie Borowiec of Upper Burrell, Pa., where two gas wells are planned near 67 homes, told Hopey. "The more research we do the more horrific it is, and I don't think a lot of people know what's going on." The state Department of Environmental Resources said wastewater that escaped during the Clearfield County blowout contaminated a nearby spring, but did not affect any creeks or streams. "We now have a worst-case scenario at the Clearfield County site where there is evidence of a catastrophic release of gas and contaminated water from Marcellus well drilling," Conrad Dan Volz, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities, told Hopey.
The blowout's "silver lining, which will likely not reassure locals, is that it happened in a rural, relatively unpopulated area, Volz said. "If that accident had occurred in a populated area, like Lincoln Place in Pittsburgh, it would have had a serious impact on human health without a doubt," he added. Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, cautioned against any rush to action following the accidents saying, "To call for a moratorium at a time when family incomes are in decline and they need a good supply and a fair price on gas to heat their homes is not a good policy, especially when there are good people developing the resource." (Read more)
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