Natural Gas Accidents

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Unfortunately, the Gulf Coast Oil Spill is not the only recent drilling disaster.

From Change.org:


Our Next Disaster? 3 Natural Gas Accidents in 1 Week
By Tara Lohan
June 08, 2010

With all eyes on the Gulf oil catastrophe, you may have missed news reports this past week about several accidents involving the natural gas industry.

These incidents in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Texas add to the growing list of reasons why drilling -- for oil or gas, on land or offshore -- is unnecessarily hazardous to people and the environment.

The human toll of these latest explosions, two at gas wells and one at a pipeline, is one dead and almost a dozen injured.

Last week Change.org's Jess Leber wrote about threats to the Upper Delaware River, thanks to gas drillers who are rushing to tap deposits in the expansive Marcellus Shale, which runs under the Allegheny Plateau and includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

Residents of Pennsylvania, the site of one of this week's explosions, have long been battling the gas drilling industry over their practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, an extraction technique that forces out gas using a potentially toxic ****tail of chemicals, sand and water. Communities there are now suing over groundwater and surface water contamination and related health effects. Treatment of their health problems is made difficult because companies keep the chemicals they inject into the ground a secret.

Nearby, in New York, a massive battle has been brewing over the potential opening up of large expanses of the Marcellus Shale, despite problems in Pennsylvania and more than 30 other states. What's more, thanks to a loophole in the Clean Water Act, fracking takes place with little to no regulation.

Fears about fracking were further realized last week when on Thursday a well in Pennsylvania had a 'blowout' (basically the same thing that caused the Deep Horizon disaster), causing drilling fluid and gas to shoot 75 feet into the air and gush for up to 16 hours.

Then on Monday, another Marcellus Shale well, this time in West Virginia, exploded. Seven workers were hospitalized. Later that very day, Texas was also rocked with an explosion at a natural gas facility. One worker died and four were injured.

Clearly the environmental and human toll of our addiction to dirty energy is mounting (don't forget the 29 miners killed in West Virginia in April, and the 11 workers on the Gulf platform).

As our country tries to reduce foreign oil imports and pressure mounts to stay away from our domestic offshore resources, let's not run to the embrace of natural gas sources that can be equally as dangerous when their extraction is not properly regulated. When it comes to coal, of course, we should be running the other way, for so many reasons.

In evaluating the nation's future energy policy, threats to the environment, especially water sources, should be carefully considered. All workers and nearby residents need to be safeguarded.
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