Oops! Reported 11/6, Stopped 11/16, Massive PA Gas Well Leak Up & Running Again 11/20
Late Thursday, Equitrans Midstream announced that its contractor had managed to flood a well at its Rager Mountain storage site and stop the leak of natural gas. But on early Friday, the company reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection that “overnight pumping operations of brine ceased and the well returned to releasing gas to the atmosphere,” said Lauren Camarda, a DEP spokeswoman, in an email.
The leak was first reported Nov. 6. State records indicate the DEP conducted a routine inspection of the well just 10 days before that, on Oct. 26. The inspector wrote that no gas was detected, and all appeared in order. “The wellhead is secured behind a locked fence. No leaks or spills were observed,” oil and gas inspector Ivan Virruet reported.
The company reported “a preliminary, conservative estimate” that the well was losing 100 million cubic feet a day. That would put the leak in the company of other major gas leaks in recent years. It is the same rate of gas flow for a 2018 incident in which a well in Belmont County, Ohio, blew out. It is higher than the rate of loss from the 2015 methane leak at the Aliso Canyon gas storage site near Los Angeles, the largest methane accident in US history. That leak took four months to close. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a highly potent greenhouse gas, 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over short time periods.
Equitrans says it doesn’t know what caused the leak. Residents near the site were warned about the leak, but there were no evacuations. A no-fly zone was established within one mile of the site, north of Johnstown, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
EDIT
https://www.alleghenyfront.org/natural-gas-leak-storage-facility-in-cambria-county-leak/