Just ahead of Earth Day celebrations around the globe and on the anniversary of the Gulf Oil Spill a runaway natural gas well has spewed thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into a feeder creek for the Susquehanna River that provides drinking water to millions. The well accident has occurred in Bradford County, Pennsylvania and is operated by Chesapeake Energy who contracts with Halliburton for fracking services. Efforts are underway to contain it.
An equipment failure allowed flowback fluids to wash onto the well pad in volumes that overwhelmed the multiple containment precautions in place. The official noted those containment features were already at least partially full because of several days of rain in the northern tier.
“The theory right now is it’s a cracked well casing,” said Roupp at the Bradford County EMA. But no-one knows for sure, he said, because “they don’t have it under control yet.”
Halliburton was implicated in last years Gulf oil spill when a cement provided by the company was included in a series of cascading failures that led to the worst environmental spill in US history. Boots and Coots (I did not make that up) are on standby if needed to come in and contain the well. The company claims to be integrated pressure control experts, “.. we’ve taken the expertise of the most experienced well response team on the planet—no matter how you measure—and carried that through into the levels of service, quality, and performance we provide through our pressure control and prevention services” and work with with “Halliburton’s global hydraulic workover and coiled tubing deployed technologies. These expanded capabilities create the world’s premier intervention company”. Halliburton acquired Boots and Coots last year.
One year after the Macondo well blowout the long term effects of the spill, environmentally and economically are yet to be determined.
A massive scientific effort is ongoing to precisely quantify the environmental damage caused by the oil spill—whether measured in oily sediments or missing generations of sealife. This is both part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment to determine what and how much BP will have to pay as well as an undertaking to understand a unique oil spill: one that happened more than 1,500 meters beneath the sea’s surface, spewed roughly 5 million barrels of oil before it was plugged.
This weekend in Roseburg an annual Earth Day celebration sponsored by Douglas County will, for the first time, deny opponents of LNG and natural gas a display table. The organizers have decided the topic is too political for an Earth Day celebration. (As if the environment is not a political issue).
