Casey Calls for Federal Help With Gas Explosions in NW PA, After McKean County house explosions, Casey sends letter to Department of Energy asking for help and coordination with local and state officials

Casey Calls for Federal Help With Gas Explosions in NW PA, After McKean County house explosions, Casey sends letter to Department of Energy asking for help and coordination with local and state officials
by Sentaor Bob Casey, March 28, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) today wrote U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu concerning gas migration-related incidents in Northwestern Pennsylvania. After the most recent house explosions in McKean County, Senator Casey called for federal help investigating the explosions and in coordinating with local and state officials to protect public health and safety. “I am deeply alarmed to learn of yet another gas-migration-related explosion in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) Emergency Response Program, there have been dozens of gas migration incidents in northwestern Pennsylvania recently. Some of those have led to explosions, leading to injury and the destruction of at least two homes. The belief that the source of the explosions is some type of thermogenic gas migration caused by extensive drilling appears to be widespread. Two homes in McKean County (the state leader in drilling permits for oil and gas wells) were destroyed, the first on December 12, 2010, and the second on February 28, 2011. … The McKean County homes were located about two and half miles from each other in neighborhoods bordering Hedgehog Lane, where oil and gas drilling activities had caused methane gas infiltration into drinking water wells, leading to taste and smell impacts. Schreiner Oil, the company involved, was ordered by the PA DEP to restore the water and has been providing bottled water to the impacted neighborhood. The explosion of the two houses in close proximity to this troubled area certainly appears to be more than coincidence, yet the phenomenon is poorly understood and there is currently no way of preventing or even predicting when such incidents may occur.”

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