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Gas-well accident draws trustee's fire
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - April 22, 2011)
Gas-well accident draws trustee's fire
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
A Chester Township trustee is calling for action after a release at a gas well last week sent brine and crude oil into a pond and then a stream.
"This is a fight I'm willing to take on," Trustee Judy Caputo said last week in the aftermath of a gas well explosion south of Mayfield Road (Route 322) in the township.
Mrs. Caputo said the accident occurred around 7 a.m. April 13 just behind a commercial property known as the Kirby Building. She said she plans to fight to get more regulations in place to prevent such accidents in the future.
She said she planned to call on state Sen. Timothy Grendell, R-Chester, for help. She said she planned to ask him at a meeting scheduled for last night (April 21) to discuss what may be done. In addition, she said, she may invite Gates Mills Fire Chief Thomas Robinson, who has been vocal on the failings of the drilling industry in that neighboring village.
On the morning of April 13, Mrs. Caputo said, she was awakened by what sounded like a shotgun blast. That was followed by a high-pitched whistling, she said.
It turned out that the sound came from the gas well a mile away from her home on Lynn Drive when a relief valve blew, she said.
She said she later learned of the blowout that sent a yellow mixture 20 to 25 feet in the air. For about an hour, the wellhead spewed an estimated 80 to 90 gallons of the mixture of crude oil and brine, a well-drilling byproduct, into the nearby pond and down an area stream.
She said, while it is easier to remove the crude oil, which does not mix with water, she remains concerned about where the brine will end up. "It's the brine I'm worried about," Mrs. Caputo said.
Because Chester residents depend on well water, she said, such accidents can threaten people's homes. While the purchase of bottled water may eliminate one worry of contaminated water, people still have to bathe and wash clothes in it, she said.
She said she is particularly angered because state officials took away local authority to regulate gas and oil wells throughout the township, including residential areas.
"We were lucky; we could have been Bainbridge," Mrs. Caputo said.
In December 2007, a gas-well leak in Bainbridge Township caused one house to explode and contaminated water wells throughout the neighborhood.
Mrs. Caputo said, when it came time to handle the accident last week, it was the local Chester Fire Department that was called on to handle it, not the state or the well company.
She credited the fire department with doing a "fantastic job" of responding and shutting down the well. But she said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which handles permitting and inspection of wells, does not provide the training it should for such incidents.
Mrs. Caputo said there is technology available which could have stopped the blowout, but it is not being required or implemented. Remote contol shutoffs are available on the market, which would have allowed the company to respond more quickly.
She said, if the state had not removed local controls, such safeguards could have been implemented. Now, she said, she will likely have to take her fight to state officials to win those types of protections.
The township has over 200 wells, and, without additional protections put in place, Mrs. Caputo said, residents are essentially are sitting on a "time bomb waiting to happen."
She said she remains particularly concerned because there is more discussion about tapping into the deeper Marcellus and Utica shales by well drillers. In addition, she said, two abandoned wells in Geauga County are now being used to inject waste byproducts of the drilling process.
"More needs to be done," Mrs. Caputo said.
Trustee Michael Joyce also expressed concern. "That 'rabbit' receiver should have lasted over 30 years, but failed in about four years," he said. "It makes me wonder what else the company bought on the cheap list."
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