Texas-based emergency response teams took more than 10 hours to respond to two gas well blowouts in Pennsylvania last year, so John Hanger, then secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, announced "that Texas-based CUDD Well Control would open a new facility in Bradford County and that 16 specially trained responders would be able to reach any well in Pennsylvania in five hours or so," Nicholas Kusnetz of ProPublica reports. After a January blowout, the new crew was on site and had the well under control in less than four hours.
But when a Chesapeake Energy team lost control of a well on April 19, the company called Texas emergency teams that did not arrive on the scene for more than 13 hours. By then "brine water and hydraulic fracturing fluids from the well had spewed across nearby fields and into a creek," Kusnetz writes. Where was the Pennsylvania team? Dennis Corley, CUDD's vice-president, says he offered Chesapeake the team's services but was told the company was already under contract with another emergency responder.
Under a new administration since January, the state DEP did not request CUDD's assistance, and DEP Secretary Michael Krancer did not respond to phone calls and emails from ProPublica for comment. Hanger said the state's agreement with CUDD was still in effect when he left office. The agreement "was put in place to make sure it was a matter of a few hours" before help arrived, he told Kusnetz. "That was the point." (Read more)
But when a Chesapeake Energy team lost control of a well on April 19, the company called Texas emergency teams that did not arrive on the scene for more than 13 hours. By then "brine water and hydraulic fracturing fluids from the well had spewed across nearby fields and into a creek," Kusnetz writes. Where was the Pennsylvania team? Dennis Corley, CUDD's vice-president, says he offered Chesapeake the team's services but was told the company was already under contract with another emergency responder.
Under a new administration since January, the state DEP did not request CUDD's assistance, and DEP Secretary Michael Krancer did not respond to phone calls and emails from ProPublica for comment. Hanger said the state's agreement with CUDD was still in effect when he left office. The agreement "was put in place to make sure it was a matter of a few hours" before help arrived, he told Kusnetz. "That was the point." (Read more)
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