Area oil firm under investigation
standardspeaker.com/news/area-oil-firm-under-investigation-1.1332769
An investigation is under way at an oil recycling firm south of Hazleton where vehicles of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection were parked and an excavating machine was at work Wednesday afternoon.
At Hazleton Oil and Environmental on state Route 309 in Banks Township, workers congregated inside a fence around a tank farm where they set up two blue canopies as protection from the sun. Some workers donned hard hats, and at least one man wore a protective suit of shiny yellow.
The company issued a statement saying it was cooperating with investigators.
“Working with government inspectors and agents is not uncommon in the highly regulated business of used oil recycling,” the statement said.
Hazleton Oil will comment further after learning more about the focus of the investigation, the statement said.
DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connelly said in an email that search warrants were served at the company on Tuesday.
The search is part of an investigation by the Environmental Crimes Section of the Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General, which is the lead agency, Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, spokesman for the office, said in an email.
Last year, a DEP inspector visited the company to investigate a complaint that petroleum contaminated with waste was dumped outside fences.
The inspector found “an old pile of fill material with scrap metal and land clearing and grubbing waste mixed in,” but saw no illegal solid waste disposal nor smelled any petroleum, according to the inspection report of June 10, 2011, that is on file in the department’s regional offices in Wilkes-Barre.
In March 2011, the company received a notice saying that an storage tank hadn’t been inspected or an inspection report hadn’t been sent to the DEP.
Hazleton Oil and Environmental paid a civil penalty of $750 in for discharging stormwater after a permit expired, according to a consent decree of Oct. 1, 2010.
On July 20, 2005, a fire broke out inside a garage at Hazleton Oil and Environmental when a pilot light on a propane heater ignited vapors from floor cleaners and degreasers.
The fire spread to a roll-off container for debris contaminated with oil, to empty boxes and to boxes holding computers, a DEP inspector wrote a week later. Firefighters contained 6,000 gallons of water used to extinguish the fire inside the garage to prevent the possible spread of contamination.
After the fire, the company submitted a list of actions planned to prevent other fires and revised its fire prevention plan.
In February 2005, the DEP found total halogens in oil retained at the company exceeded permitted limits in one of 10 samples taken. In response, the company said a driver who failed to test contents of two drums before hauling them was fired. Also, the company stopped using a device referred to as a sniffer to test for halogens because the sniffer gave a false reading.
In 2004, the company also paid a civil penalty of $5,500 for accepting hazardous waste from a supplier in Harrisburg in violation of its permit.
The violation happened in May 2003 under previous owners.
Sloan R. Six and her husband, Scott Clemens, purchased the company in August 2003. The company started in 1961 as Hazleton Oil Salvage.
A remedial investigation conducted after the sale on behalf of the previous owner, Umbriac Enterprises, said benzene and other components of gasoline released from a gas station and bulk storage facility at the site in the 1980s entered soil and shallow groundwater. State law exempted Six and Clemens from responsibility for environmental damage that occurred before they purchased the property, the remedial investigation by Patriot Environmental Management of Douglassville, Berks County, said.
Hazleton Oil and Environmental has a mailing address of 300 Tamaqua St., Hazleton, and state records point out that the site is on the border of Carbon and Schuylkill counties.
The company recycles used oil, used anti-freeze, oily water, non-hazardous liquid sludge, oil filters and soil contaminated with petroleum, according to the annual report for 2010 that it submitted to the DEP.
Previously, the company helped the Hazleton Area School District and Hazleton General Hospital manage recycling programs. Hazleton Oil and Environmental also raised money and awareness about preventing breast cancer through public events and by painting one of its tanker trucks pink.
By KENT JACKSON (Staff Writer)
Published: June 21, 2012
kjackson@standardspeaker.com
US DOE testing for links between faults, groundwater pollution
Federal researchers are testing whether hydraulic fracturing fluids can travel thousands of feet via geologic faults into drinking water aquifers close to the surface, a US Department of Energy official said Friday.
A fault from the Marcellus Shale formation, which is thousands of feet below the surface, could provide “a quick pathway for fracking fluids to migrate upwards,” said Richard Hammack, a spokesman for the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.
The experiment is being carried out at a site in Greene County in southwestern Pennsylvania where conventional shallow wells were drilled and long since capped, NETL said on its website. Drillers are now actively drilling in the county in the Marcellus Shale formation.
The study will provide regulators, landowners and the general public “an unbiased, science-based source of information which can guide decisions about shale gas development,” NETL said.
The study also will help the industry “develop better methods to monitor for undesired environmental changes” and develop technology or management practices to address the changes, NETL said.
Speaking at a congressional briefing in Washington, Hammack said faults “form a plane that allows fluids to move up through the frack.” Some faults can be easily seen and avoided, but Hammack said some faults are not easily detected and could extend from the Marcellus Shale formation into other formations close to the surface.
The testing “is taking place right now,” Hammack said. “It should be completed next week. Within a month, we will have the micro-seismic data that will show how high fracture fluids have migrated upwards” toward the surface.
He said that Pennsylvania has a long history of oil and natural gas production and thousands of wells were drilled before the state mandated drillers map their locations in 1921. There is a concern if these well bores penetrated faults they also could be a means for fracking fluids to travel to the surface, he said.
All of these “vulnerabilities” are present at the Greene County site where researchers can “examine and quantify” all of these factors, he said.
www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/NaturalGas/6370255
Washington (Platts)–8Jun2012
–Rodney White, rodney_white@platts.com –Edited by Keiron Greenhalgh, keiron_greenhalgh@platts.com
Pipeline company won’t pay for Dallas Twp. well testing
www.timesleader.com/stories/Pipeline-company-wont-pay-for-Dallas-Twp-well-testing,159997
SARAH HITE
June 6, 2012
Drilling operations resulted in drilling mud spills at sites in early May.
DALLAS TWP. – PVR Partners will not pay for water testing at sites where a contractor of the company spilled drilling mud within the township, supervisors announced Tuesday.
Jeffrey Malak, attorney for PVR Partners, formerly Chief Gathering LLC, stated in a letter the company would not provide water testing for property owners in the vicinity of two drilling mud spills that occurred near Kunkle-Alderson and Upper Demunds roads in early May.
Supervisor Bill Grant, who lives on Hildebrandt Road and plans to test his own water, said the township will provide interested residents with information about water testing.
Supervisor Liz Martin said she spoke to George Turner, a professional geologist, who estimated the tests required for the chemicals involved in the spills would cost between $450 and $500 per sample.
Martin said the boring for the pipeline should be done soon, and those kinds of issues are not likely to occur again.
Supervisors also addressed residents’ concerns about PVR Partners’ contractor working at the pipeline work site after hours.
Grant said he received one complaint and another official received three complaints about the pipeline contractor working beyond normal hours of operation last Sunday.
Malak wrote that the company’s work hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week, but because of deadlines, some work during off-hours has been necessary.
Grant said he understands the company will be finishing up the work soon and will not be working out of normal operating hours again.
PVR Partners is in the process of building a 30-mile pipeline to flow natural gas from wells in Susquehanna County to the Transco pipeline, located near the Dallas School District campus.
The company will also build a gas metering facility off Hildebrandt Road.
Washington County families sue over fracking, water testing
www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/washington-county-families-sue-over-fracking-water-testing-637631/?p=0
By Don Hopey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 26, 2012
Three Washington County families claim in a lawsuit that they face serious health problems, including a heightened risk of cancer, due to exposure to toxic spills, leaks and air pollutants from a Range Resources Marcellus Shale gas site.
The 182-page lawsuit, filed Friday in Washington County Common Pleas Court, alleges that Range and two commercial water testing laboratories, Microbac Laboratories Inc. and Test America, conspired to produce fraudulent test reports that misrepresented the families’ well water as good and contributed to their exposure to hazardous chemicals and a multitude of health problems.
Filed by attorneys John and Kendra Smith, the lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages and is based on information contained in hundreds of pages of water test reports and documents, many subpoenaed from Range and other defendants. In addition to Range, defendants named in the suit include 12 of the drilling company’s subcontractors or suppliers, two individuals and the two water testing laboratories. A jury trial is requested.
According to the lawsuit, Range Resources knew its shale gas development operation on the Yeager farm property on McAdams Road in Amwell had contaminated the groundwater with chemicals from a leaking drilling waste pit and a 3 million-gallon hydraulic fracturing fluid flowback impoundment as early as November 2010. But, the suit states, the company told the plaintiffs that tests showed their well water was safe to drink, shower and bathe in, cook with, and provide to farm animals and pets. Some of those animals were sickened, and some died.
The suit says the plaintiffs developed health problems that included nose bleeds, headaches and dizziness, skin rashes, ear infections, nausea, and numbness in extremities.
“It’s unfortunate that our clients had no choice but to file a civil action due to damage not only caused to their water and property, but to their health,” said Mr. Smith in a written response to a request for comment. “Had the [state Department of Environmental Protection] protected these people, it may have been a different outcome.”
Mr. Smith said the lawsuit is the first he knows of in Pennsylvania to allege that a Marcellus Shale gas drilling company didn’t provide complete and fully accurate water test results to residents and state regulators.
Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella issued a statement saying the company cares about the quality of its operations and stands by testing that “has repeatedly proven that our operations have had no adverse impacts in this instance.” His statement went on to attack the motives of the law firm and attorneys representing the Amwell residents, and its tactics, which he characterized as “fear-mongering.”
“This isn’t about health and safety; it’s unfortunately about a lawyer hoping to pad his pockets, while frightening a lot of people along the way,” he said.
Mr. Smith said it’s easier to attack the messenger than to refute facts.
Range Resources has maintained for years that its Yeager operations, which include one “fracked” well and two drilled wells, condensate tanks, the flowback fluids impoundment and drill cuttings pit, have not contaminated groundwater.
The suit says full and complete test results, subpoenaed from Range but never revealed to residents near the Yeager well site, show that chemical contaminants similar to those found in the fracking flowback impoundment and the drill cuttings pit were also found in water samples from wells and springs.
Range showed or sent to the plaintiffs and the DEP less detailed test reports but, the lawsuit claims, omitted results for others, including several semi-volatile organic compounds that were present in the groundwater samples and the company’s impoundment and pit, and that showed the water was contaminated.
DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday declined to comment because the matter is in litigation.
Due to continuing health problems, three of the plaintiffs, Stacey Haney and her children have, on the advice of their doctor, moved out of their home on McAdams Road, about 1,500 feet from the Yeager flowback-water impoundment.
Toxicity testing of urine from all the Haney family members has measured higher than safe levels of toulene, benezene, arsenic, cobalt and cadmium. Benezene and arsenic are known carcinogens.
Plaintiffs Beth, John and Ashley Voyles, who live about 800 feet from the impoundment and drill site, and Loren Kiskadden and his mother, Grace Kiskadden, who live in separate homes about 3,100 feet from the Yeager impoundment, have had similar health problems and urine test results.
The filing alleges that in September 2011 Range provided incomplete drinking water test results from Test America to the DEP that omitted findings showing a high concentration of nitrate — which can cause cancer — plus fracking fluid, flowback water, uranium and silicon.
Mrs. Voyles sued the DEP in Commonwealth Court in May 2011, claiming the department wasn’t properly investigating odor and water complaints related to the Yeager impoundment. That case is pending.
Today both the Voyles and Haney properties are receiving replacement water supplied by Range.
But Range has denied Mr. Kiskadden’s request that it supply him with an alternative water source, based on the water test results that the company and the DEP said shows his well water was not contaminated by its drilling operations. He has appealed that determination by the DEP to the state Environmental Hearing Board.
The lawsuit also says Range used the Yeager drill cuttings pit to dispose of hazardous drilling waste from at least three other gas drilling sites in Washington County, and the pit leaked and contaminated groundwater.
In April 2010, DEP issued a notice of violation against Range for “failing to control/dispose of production fluids properly,” and a month later Range drained the pit, replaced the pit liner and excavated contaminated soil. Range has not been fined for that violation.
It’s the only violation DEP has issued to Range for its Yeager operations or to any of the defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges the defendants committed various violations of the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law, the state Solid Waste Management Act, and the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First Published May 26, 2012
Bradford County water wells tested for methane
www.stargazette.com/article/20120521/NEWS11/205210388/Bradford-County-water-wells-tested-methane?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE&nclick_check=1
May. 21, 2012
Pa. officials, Chesapeake try to determine cause of gas migration
Pennsylvania officials and Chesapeake Energy are investigating a possible methane gas migration issue in Leroy Township in Bradford County.
The Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Program received the initial report on Saturday evening, said Daniel Spadoni, the agency’s community relations coordinator.
Methane was detected in the headspace of two private drinking water wells. Both wells have been vented, DEP says. There have also been reports of gas bubbling documented in nearby wetlands.
Chesapeake’s Morse well pad — which contains two wells — is about one-half mile from the affected private wells. DEP has sampled four private wells in the area and a Chesapeake consultant is screening all private wells within a 2,500 foot radius of the Morse pad.
Brian Grove, Chesapeake’s senior director of corporate development, said the company was alerted Saturday to a complaint regarding residential water supplies and nearby surface water. The company, Grove said, is “working cooperatively with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the situation.”
More information will be released as the investigation proceeds, the company said.
Methane migration, when methane gas leaks into water wells, happens when a gas well hits a pocket of naturally occurring methane gas in the earth, allowing the methane to seep into the soil. In the cases where it can be proved the contamination has been caused by natural gas drilling, gas companies can be made responsible for any remediation methods — installing new water wells, providing bottled fresh water or installing equipment to vent the methane.
Although the DEP strengthened its drilling regulations in February 2011 by mandating a higher grade of cement be used in the well casings, pressure testing the wells and more inspections, the methane migration problem has persisted.
In May 2011, DEP fined Chesapeake Energy for a series of water contamination incidents and a well-site fire that injured three workers. The company agreed to pay $900,000 for allowing methane to migrate up faulty wells in Bradford County and contaminate 16 families’ drinking water beginning in 2010.
In January, DEP sent a violation notice to Chief Oil & Gas for three gas wells in Wyoming County’s Nicholson Township saying there is 100-percent combustible gas between the cemented steel casings, which the agency uses as a sign of flaws in construction of the well. The investigation began after a nearby resident complained of high methane levels in well water supplies.
Methane levels above 28 milligrams per liter are a cause for concern because at that point, water can no longer hold the gas and it begins to escape to the air.
Meanwhile, DEP’s Spadoni said, and no methane has been detected inside any of the homes near the Morse well pad.
One of the wells being tested provides drinking water for a niece of Patricia Klotz, of Rome, Pa. Her niece lives near Rockwell Road in Leroy Township, and Klotz said her niece’s water is being tested every 12 hours and that the testing has been going on for a couple of days.
“But she and her neighbors are afraid to say anything, for fear of repercussions,” Klotz said.
The investigation is continuing and no determination has been made as to the source or sources of the methane, DEP says.
Residents: Pa. health dept. lacks in investigating claims of illness.
www.timesleader.com/stories/Residents-Pa-health-dept-lacks-in-investigating-claims-of-illness,149927
By KEVIN BEGOS
May 13, 2012
Inquiry finds several other shortcomings by agency concerning gas drilling.
PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Department of Health says it investigates every claim by residents that gas drilling has caused health problems, but several people say the agency’s actions don’t match its words.
Two western Pennsylvania residents told The Associated Press that health officials have fallen short in responding to their health complaints.
The AP also found that the toll-free number the agency gives out for gas drilling complaints doesn’t mention the issue in its automated menu, and the agency’s website doesn’t have a specific place for people to file such complaints.
And the AP inquiry showed that the agency didn’t begin keeping track of possible health complaints tied to gas drilling until 2011, several years after a surge of activity in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale.
“Everybody kind of just passed the buck,” said Sheri Makepeace, a northwestern Pennsylvania resident who said that starting last year she tried calling the Department of Health and other agencies over fears that nearby drilling created health problems. “I’ve talked to so many different people and have gotten so many different stories.”
Christine Cronkright, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the agency stands by earlier statements that it responds to, investigates and issues a formal response to all complaints about gas drilling and public health. Officials are working on how and where to share information on the issue with the public and expect to release details in the near future, she said.
The AP also found that previous responses from the Department of Health about the numbers of complaints it has received about drilling and health have been at best confusing and at worst misleading.
The agency first told the AP that it had received a total of about 30 complaints, and then modified that to being 30 over the last year. Now, the agency says it didn’t even begin recording such complaints until 2011.
Cronkright also told the AP that the agency has no current investigations regarding people who claim gas drilling has impacted their health.
That puzzles Janet McIntyre, one of Makepeace’s neighbors.
She made a formal complaint by phone in late February and said a health department employee replied that he would get back to her in a few days. McIntyre said she purposefully waited 30 days for a response but none came.
“He sounded as if he wanted to get right on it. And that I would have people calling me,” she said. “I was very frustrated. I was getting nowhere. That was disheartening.”
The AP started asking the health department about problems in responding to complaints in April, and then in early May McIntyre sent a letter to the agency, outlining her experience.
On Thursday, a health official called her to apologize, she said, adding that “they dropped the ball. But at least they picked it up again.”
One public health expert who’s working on gas drilling complaints in Pennsylvania said the health agency is in a difficult position.
“I’m not surprised that their protocols are a little difficult to get in place. The response to something like this is really hard,” said David Brown, a former head of environmental epidemiology in Connecticut who is now working with the nonprofit Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project to examine complaints about gas drilling.
Until a few months ago, Pennsylvania health officials had expected to get a share of the revenue being generated by the state’s new Marcellus Shale law, which is projected to provide about $180 million to state and local governments in the first year.
But representatives from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s office and the state Senate cut the health appropriation to zero during final negotiations, so now the agency is left with a new workload but no funding for the job.
About one-third of drinking water wells are contaminated with bacteria
www.publicopiniononline.com/ci_20566632/about-one-third-drinking-water-wells-are-contaminated/
By Jim Hook
Penn State Extension ups awareness of testing
CHAMBERSBURG — Homeowners often don’t know the quality of the water they are drinking, and an estimated one third of their wells are contaminated with bacteria.
About one quarter of homes in Franklin County get their drinking water from private wells.
Typically only half of homeowners ever have their water tested, and then only once, according to Penn State Extension Educator Thomas Richard McCarty.
“The major risk for most people is contamination from bacteria,” he said. “This is hidden both from sight and taste. Health effects may be hidden too by building resistance to the presence of bacteria, which suffices as long as bacteria counts are low and the householders are in generally good health. Symptoms properly due to poor water may easily be blamed on something else.”
Penn State Extension is offering discounted water testing kits this week.
According to Penn State Extension data for well water in Franklin County:
— About 35 percent of private wells have coliform bacteria in their water. Coliform bacteria come from soil, sewage, or manure and enter groundwater from heavily fertilized areas – home lawns, farm fields or septic systems.
— One in 10 has fecal coliform levels exceeding safe drinking water standards. This branch of the coliform family includes the dreaded E. coli.
— One of every six have nitrates above the limit for drinking water. Nitrate is of concern when infants under six months drink the water or older people with stomach problems.
— One of every 13 homes supplied by a well has lead levels exceeding the maximum allowable concentration. Children absorb more of the lead in their diet than adults do. Lead in water comes primarily from solder joints in copper pipe. Exposure to high levels of lead can result in delays in physical and mental development, along with slight deficits in attention span and learning abilities. Adults exposed to lead over a number of years can develop high blood pressure or kidney problems.
“The lack of testing by well owners is not for a lack of concern over their water quality, but instead, a lack of awareness and understanding of what testing should be done,” according to a 2009 Penn State study Drinking Water Quality in Rural Pennsylvania. “The great majority of well owners that were told of health-related water quality issues in their water supply had voluntarily solved the problem within one year.”
A deeper well does not always have purer water. Limestone bedrock has more to do with bacterial contamination of wells than does the depth of the well, according to a 2001 U.S. Geological Survey study of wells in south-central Pennsylvania. Bacterial concentrations actually increased with depth to the waterbearing zone in limestone. Many of the wells in Franklin County are drilled in limestone geology.
Franklin County lacks current data on the use of private wells.
“The 1980 Census reported that 63 percent of homes were on public water,” said Phil Tarquino, chief of the county planning department. “The remaining 37 percent were on drilled wells, dug wells or cisterns. It would seem that the percent of homes on public water has increased in the last 30 years as most new development has occurred in areas where public water is located. In addition public water has been extended to areas that were previously on wells or cisterns.”
Pennsylvania has more residents using private wells than any other state, except Michigan, and each year another 20,000 are drilled, according to Penn State’s manual for well owners.
McCarty said he is at a loss to explain why interest in Penn State’s water testing program has declined of the years. A steeply discounted program in Adams County attracted few participants.
State investigating methane in water near Dimock Twp.
citizensvoice.com/news/state-investigating-methane-in-water-near-dimock-twp-1.1307137#axzz1t9VLaOeL
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 28, 2012
State environmental regulators are investigating a possible case of methane migrating into water supplies just north of the 9-square-mile box in Dimock Township where the state halted a gas driller’s operations because of methane contamination in 2010.
Regulators with the state Department of Environmental Protection emphasized that they have not determined the source of elevated methane discovered in two Susquehanna County water wells and whether it is caused by Marcellus Shale drilling or a natural occurrence of gas in the aquifer.
One focus of the investigation is Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s Greenwood 1 well, where the company recently squeezed additional cement between steel barriers that are meant to seal off gas and fluids from the aquifer.
The work in late March was an effort to stop the problem, DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said, even though inspectors have not pinpointed the well as the cause.
“The next step is to determine the effectiveness of the remediation work and to continue water well sampling,” he said.
Regulators began investigating the elevated methane levels in August 2010 after a resident complained about water quality.
The gas wells being evaluated are less than 400 feet from the northern boundary of a section of Dimock where Cabot’s drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations have been on hold since April 2010, when state regulators blamed faulty Cabot wells for allowing shallow methane to channel into 18 private water wells. Cabot disputes the state’s findings in that case.
The current investigation is separate from the ongoing review of Cabot’s wells in the off-limits area.
Cabot spokesman George Stark said Friday that the company “always investigates landowners’ concerns as they are brought to our attention. Cabot has been working closely with the Department of Environmental Protection on this matter and will continue to do so with the best interest of our landowners in mind.”
Neither of the two water wells involved in the current investigation has been vented because one well is buried and has not been located and inspections of the other have not found gas trapped in the open space above the water in the well, Sunday said.
Methane in drinking water is not known to cause any health risks, but at high concentrations it can seep out of water into the air and create an explosion hazard in enclosed spaces.
The state has not reached a determination 20 months into the investigation because a number of factors need to be considered, including the construction of nearby gas wells and identifying features of the methane, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said.
“It’s not different from any case,” she said. “There are just many issues to deal with.”
The Greenwood 1 well was the first Marcellus Shale well drilled by Cabot in Dimock, in September 2007, according to state records.
Three horizontal wells later drilled on the same pad in November 2009 and May 2010 were among the top-producing wells in the state early last year.
Those wells, the Greenwood 6, 7 and 8, have also been evaluated as part of the investigation. Cabot was cited by DEP for a “failure to case and cement” the three wells “to prevent migrations into fresh groundwater” in January 2011 but Cabot has argued in a letter to the state that the wells were properly constructed and the violations should be rescinded.
Connolly said that DEP is addressing the violations with Cabot. The defects cited by the department “could have been a means of allowing methane to migrate into the fresh groundwater, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the water supply has been impacted,” she said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
1.8 million gallons of sewage leaks into river in Tamaqua
republicanherald.com/news/1-8-million-gallons-of-sewage-leaks-into-river-in-tamaqua-1.1306715#
By KENT JACKSON (Staff Writerkjackson@standardspeaker.com)
Published: April 27, 2012
TAMAQUA – Contractors on Thursday finished patching a concrete pipe through which workers accidentally drilled, causing up to 1.8 million gallons of sewage to spill into the Little Schuylkill River in Tamaqua a day earlier.
The state Department of Environmental Protection will continue to investigate how the accident occurred about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday during construction of the bridge on state Route 309 and whether any penalties will be assessed, Colleen Connolly, the department’s spokeswoman, said.
Fish didn’t appear to have died from the spill, said Connolly, who estimated the amount of sewage that leaked into the river. She also noted that the section of the river near the bridge is tainted by acid water from mine workings.
Workers pierced the concrete pipe, which is 24 inches wide, while sinking a caisson for a temporary bridge, said Ronald Young of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
At the Tamaqua wastewater treatment plant a short distance from the bridge, workers noticed flow in the plant plummeted from 1,700,000 gallons a day to 200,000 gallons per day, said Tamaqua Borough Manager Kevin Steigerwalt.
Their observation led to the discovery of the broken pipe.
Steigerwalt heard what happened at the treatment plant at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and went to the bridge with a supervisor from the plant.
“I had a suspicion that the bridge was involved. The plant is just a short distance south of the bridge,” he said.
No workers were on bridge when they arrived, but discharge was flowing from a combined sewer overflow that should have been quiet.
The overflow provided an outlet for the sewage, which otherwise would have backed up into cellars of people’s homes, Steigerwalt said.
He and the plant supervisor contacted the project inspector from PennDOT and telephoned the emergency number for the Department of Environmental Protection.
Early Wednesday morning, officials from the state departments and the borough planned how to make repairs with workers from the contracting firm, Clearwater Construction of Mercer, Mercer County.
Workers built a coffer dam – an enclosure that kept the river water away from the sewage outfall. They rigged pumps to push the sewage to a manhole downstream, Steigerwalt said. That was complete by about 9 p.m. Wednesday, he said.
Young said tanker trucks also hauled away some of the sewage from the broken pipe. Meanwhile, other workers dug a trench to uncover the broken section of the pipe.
They affixed a new section of pipe about 1 a.m. Thursday, Steigerwalt said after checking a timeline prepared by Tamaqua’s public works director, Rob Jones, who stayed at the bridge through the night.
State officials told Clearwater Construction’s crew to remain on the job until the leak stopped. Attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful Thursday. A voice mailbox for a project supervisor was full, and a message left with a receptionist wasn’t returned.
Connolly said DEP wants to know more about how the accident occurred and why four hours passed before the department was notified.
By 10 a.m. Thursday, workers encased the new section of pipe with cement. They let the cement harden and filled in the trench to finish the repairs.
Replacing the bridge is a $3.18 million project for which the contract was awarded in July 2011.
Young said workers will erect a temporary bridge, demolish the existing bridge and build a new permanent bridge.
The work is scheduled to end in May 2013.
Relax, It’s Just a Run-of-the-Mill Nuke Spill
www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/26/relax-its-just-a-run-of-the-mill-nuke-spill/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=relax-its-just-a-run-of-the-mill-nuke-spill
by DAVE LINDORFF
April 26, 2012
The Limerick Incident Wasn’t an “EPPI”
A little over a month ago, back on March 19, at 3:00 in the morning, the Limerick Nuclear Power Station, which runs two aging GE nuclear reactors along the Schuylkill River west of Philadelphia, had an accident. As much as 15,000 gallons of reactor water contaminated with five times the official safe limit of radioactive Tritium as well as an unknown amount of other dangerous isotopes from the reactor’s fission process blew off a manhole cover and ran out of a large pipe, flowing into a streambed and on into the river from which Philadelphia and a number of smaller towns draw their municipal water supplies.
No public announcement of this spill was made at the time, so the public in those communities had no idea that it had occurred, and water system operators had no opportunity to shut down their intakes from the river. There was no report about the spill in Philadelphia’s two daily newspapers or on local news programs.
Only weeks later, after the regional office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was finally sent an official report by Exelon, the owner of the plant, did a public notice get posted on the NRC’s website, after which some excellent reporting on the incident was done by Evan Brandt, a reporter for a local paper called The Pottstown Mercury.
We contacted the NRC regional office with oversight over Limerick and were told that Exelon had only reported the incident to state authorities — the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). A call to the DEP elicited a response that the state agency, now in the hands of a Republican governor who has shown open distain for environmental concerns ranging from nuclear waste to regulation of natural gas fracking chemicals, that it did not feel it was necessary to issue any public report on the spill. “Exelon assured us that it was not an EPPI incident,” explained DEP regional office spokeswoman Deborah Fries.
“What’s an EPPI?” she was asked. “It’s an Event of Potential Public Interest,” Fries replied.
In other words, Exelon and the state’s DEP and PEMA officials, meeting behind closed doors, agreed that the spilling of up to 15,000 gallons of radioactive isotope-laced reactor water into a river that supplies drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people was not an event of “potential public interest,” and so they didn’t make it public, thus insuring that it would not become a matter of public interest, or even of public knowledge! The logic is impeccable, though the NRC subsequently protested that Exelon should have reported the incident to the commission, which would automatically have posted it on its website as public notice of a spill.
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