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The Bleeding Edge of the Marcellus Shale |
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Written by mike bernhard
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Wednesday, 18 March 2009 |
A Dimock Townsip journal...
Tues, Feb 17
| The well that I said that Cabot claimed came up clean, was the Fiorentino well that exploded. After they left, and the well was again covered, the DEP came and tested, 20 minutes later. Their test showed the presence of large quantities of natural gas. As for our well, one of the first Cabot employees to check the well water said it had methane in it, "not natural gas." As I'm sure you know, that was intentionally misleading, because he probably guessed I was gullible and didn't know that natural gas and methane are the same thing. Also, there was another near explosion a day or two later at a gas leak at Ken Ely's well. Mike and Bill Ely have brown, oily, bubbly water from their kitchen sink that lights with a lighter. Another lady on our road lit a bathtub full of water on fire when she tried it. Ron and Jean Cabot are the ones with water that has strong, solvent-like fumes* Cabot doesn't test for fracking chemicals, and will not even reveal what they contain. [*note: R&J Carter live in the mobile home visible in some of our photos; due to its proximity to the fracking waste pit some people might mistake their home for a construction site office, but Cabot really put a drill pad that close to a dwelling] | Wed,
Feb 18
| Julie was the first to notice water contamination, hers was most obviously sediment. It ruined her well pump and new washer...[She] was given some sort of alternate supply, and her well was vented after the Fiorentino eruption. She has children at home, too. I believe she is one of the 4 given water. My guess is it was the two Fiorentino houses, the Bill Elys, and Julie that received water. Jean and Ron Carter did not,or the other Ely's, or the Huberts, or Todd and Jeannette Carter, or Dusty Carter, or us. Cabot did not take the blame for Julie's, exactly, but I think her husband works for Cabot now.
| Fri,
Feb 27
| [In response to a membership letter from Sierra Club - which promotes switching to natural gas from coal:]
Dear Mr. Nilles, I am responding to your letter concerning switching from coal power to "clean" natural gas. Although I live near Scranton and the PA coal region in general, I am concerned when I hear of natural gas touted as a clean fuel. At this moment, Cabot Oil and Gas are extracting or pumping natural gas from two rigs on either side of my house, both about 500 feet away. The DEP has been investigating Cabot's work on Carter Rd., Dimock Township PA, because natural gas has migrated into nine or ten water wells on our rural road in Susquehanna County. The process of hydrofracturing underground rock layers has contaminated the water sources for at least 12 homes in Dimock....One of our neighbors wells exploded on New Year's Day, and Mrs. Fiorentino has no water supply. Cabot has refused to provide her with a new well, or to provide her and her relatives with drinking water or even non-potable water for washing. Her water well, according to her son, is 1,001 feet from a gas well, and PA law says they are responsible for water wells less than 1,000 feet away. The explosion had enough force to blow a 10x10 foot concrete slab off of her well. My next door neighbor has both methane and coliform bacteria in her water, and had to pay for her own $6,000 filtration sistem. Several of my neighbors have flammable water. One of our neighbors has water that still tests as 65% methane after her well has been vented for a month. Kids have been sick, and pets have developed liver damage and had their hair suddenly fall out. Forests that were part of our rural landscape have not only been cleared, but all their stumps removed, and all their soil taken away, to make drilling pads and pipelines and access roads to gas wells. We have had three fuel oil spills, one of 800 gallons and two that were 100 gallons, all within view of our home, all of which were the result of accidents by Cabot employees. None of us think of natural gas as clean these days.
| Sun, Mar 1
| [Elaborating on her letter to the Sierra Club:]
I agree with eliminating coal as a power source, but before everyone starts patting each other on the back for switching to "clean" gas, they should check its source, including my back yard. None of us knew how much razing of our woods and fields would be involved. We were told that the disturbance to our property, trees, etc. would be minimal, and that the landscrape would be returned to its original appearance. They did not say that at each drilling site, a large piece of property would have all of its trees completely removed, to the roots, and that all of the native plants would be destroyed, including wild columbines, laurels, rhododendrons, dogtooth violets, ferns and trilliums, and that all of the soil would be scraped away and replaced with gravel and sand. They did not say that the pad would resemble a cut-off volcano or flat-topped pyramid, surrounded with blaze orange plastic, or that the acreage would be full of heavy equipment on wheels, including numerous, leaky tanks. Most importantly, they described the fracking water as "sea water", not mentioning toxic or carcinogenic water pollutants.
| Tue,
Mar 3
| I definitely need to test for bacteria. Today I accidentally drank some water and got violently sick. That's how it was for the months of December and November last year, for our whole family, which was when they were drilling and fracking the gas well 500 feet from our water well. We stopped drinking the water after our next door neighbor noticed her water smelled strongly of solvents or formaldehyde.
| Wed, Mar 4
| [re a visiting reporter]
I mapped out Dimock for him, showing which houses had bad water, explosions, methane in the well, newborns on formula, old guys on dialysis, gas wells drilling or on pipeline, where they dumped frack water in the Messhopen Creek, etc.. I showed them all the visible gas wells I know of, probably thirty, and showed them the access roads to the ones you can't see from roads
| Thu, Mar 5
| Last night, the noise was way over the top from the well that was due for fracking this week. From about 1 a.m. to 3 a.m., the noise level was unbelievable. We were inside our house, which has fairly good windows, and we literally had to shout to hear each other inside. The booming and crashing, what sounded like alarms going off, and loud honking were incredible. I don't know if they had another equipment malfunction, but we couldn't sleep. I let my kids sleep in and drove them to school (the bus comes at 6:45) and the other moms bringing kids in at 8:00 or so were all complaining about the noise.
| Mon,
Mar 9
| I noticed water from my sink was bubbly, later on Saturday. We aren't drinking it, don't worry. Tuesday I accidentally swallowed some pills with tap water and felt like I had appendicitis! ...It was a good thing the Reuters guy took that picture Saturday morning, because by Sunday morning, the rig was gone. That means they are fracking. I don't know what the ruckus was, but the DEP guy said the next day that it was probably celebration over getting that broken bit out. He said the last month of 24/7 Cabot work has been fixing mistakes they made before. He said methane was very low in my water well that day, but it could go up after they frack the other well.
| Tue, Mar 10
| Saturday my husband and I took our dogs for a walk down the road, and there was a major equipment influx. As the trucks, bulldozers, tankers and backhoes drove past us, they were all beeping and waving, like it was some kind of parade! Then I noticed the rig was gone Sunday morning. ... [Speaking of a visitor:] I took him on the Dimock tour, but this time, because it was not a reporter, the Elys and Huberts were much more open about the situation, and demonstrated water flammability, showed him their water samples (bottles labeled with dates and what happened that day: Jan. 19: well blew up. Oh, there was another water well explosion: Mike and Andrea Ely's water pump exploded right after Cabot told them it was ok to use the water for their cows turkeys, etc. ...Their water looks like unpasteurized apple cider, brown, bubbly, and with sediment on the bottom. Two [men in the Ely family] work for Cabot, or actually for the company hauling off the frack water, and their skin on their faces and arms are turning a weird color, according to Sheila.
| Tue, Mar 10
| [Re my inquiry about the source of replacement water:]
According to Sheila Ely, the water they provide is coming from Lake Montrose, right in the middle of town and a golf course, known for adding chemicals to water. It is then overly chlorinated and given out for washing water. The bottled water for drinking is from a commercial source. Funny, Cabot has not called to let us know we need gas monitors, vents, etc. nor has DEP. If they are so concerned about us*.....We still don't get water. Neither do most of our neighbors, including Norma Fiorentino, whose well is kinda busted. [In response to the following quote: "Asked whether the state is sending a message to the natural gas industry that has intensified drilling throughout the Appalachian basin in pursuit of gas in the Marcellus Shale, Carmon replied:'I think the only message is we have concern for the residents on Carter Road.'" http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200903091625/NEWS01/903090341 ] | Wed,
Mar 11
| I went to girlscouts with my daughter, and one of the leaders told me two of her kids were very nearly run over by a Cabot tank truck about two weeks ago. The bus driver was also at girl scouts, and she said she had slowed down, put yellow flashing bus lights on, put out the red stop sign, stopped, put the red lights on, honked, and then screamed, and the guy never stopped. The two kids were on the line in the middle of the road by the bus stop sign, and if their mom had not run at them screaming stop, don't move! the truck would have run them over. The other girl scout leader told me that her dog was run over by a Cabot truck, too. The dog, a border collie...survived, but has a broken pelvis.
| Thu,
Mar 12
| I just got back from the Cabot field office in Dimock. I went in and asked for drinking water for my family. I told them who I was, where I live, and that the water on both sides of my house is contaminated, and that I don't want to wait for it to become flammable. I told them I have been buying water at Price Chopper for two months because drinking our water gives my kids wicked intestinal cramps, etc. I told them that our family is on food stamps and I can't afford to spend food money on water, and that we don't receive royalties yet. They gave me a number to call in Arkansas. Basically, they blew me off. So I'm getting a little sick of this.
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Addendum, Monday, 3/16: Cabot saw the article online, so someone from Charleston WV called and said that they will try to get another sample from us. I told him that right now, the water looks okay, but it was bubbly during the fracking process next to my house. I think because of the number of children and my location, we should at least get drinking water, because the water could go bad at any time. I'm sure you noticed the post in Marcellus Gas Forum about the latest well in Dimock going bad. [see MGI post, 3/15, 12:23: "just found out last night; friend, Sue Roos's, water well was recently tested and found to have high levels of methane gas and needs to be vented and she is waiting now for this to happen and afraid of a gas explosion. She's in Dimock on Meshoppen Creek Rd. and about a 1/4 mile from the nearest gas well. her well was tested by Quantum Labs in Scranton set up by Cabot. Vera] |
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