What You've Not Been Told About Chevron's Pa. Blown-Out Fracking Wells, 'It's Very Serious' New Video

Exclusive for Before It’s News: What you’ve not been told about Chevron’s Bobtown, Dunkard Township blown-out gas wells is more concerning than what has been disclosed. In this Before It’s News report, Deborah Dupré takes the reader to the disaster site area and behind the scene, where a spewing explosive fracking gas disaster, with scores of houses nearby, hangs in balance.

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A euphoric memory of hiking an Appalachian wilderness trail fifty years ago did not prepare reporter Deborah Dupré for Sunday, fifty years later, when visiting the region’s Bobtown in Dunkard Township where last week’s Chevron fracking blast resulted in criminal investigations, contradicting stories, a suspicious silence, and chemicals filling the air.

Off Highway 79, climbing hills through once lovely countryside toward the crime scene that left one man missing and contradictory numbers of onsite workers at the blow-out well pad, immense steel transmission lines and equally large structures this reporter had never encountered, towered over a narrow road in falling snow.

“Be prepared,” echoed Girl Scout’s motto in halls. In her youth, Dupré had hiked with scouts for days in Appalachians’ splendor. Reaching the summit, after days and miles uphill, was among the most spectacular and peaceful moments.  Memories of American pride in a pristine land were rudely jarred Sunday in the new normal for which few are truly prepared, not even proud owner of a gas mask.

“There are three [gas] wells on that pad, but they’re all over this place,” one official told Dupré Sunday, the only one who offered information in best interest of the public. 

A chemical odor grew increasingly bothersome, even with car vents closed driving toward Chevron’s crippled well pad.

“There was a big ball of flames that came right across the trees,” explained a Bobtown local in his driveway, pointing toward his house, surrounded by trees. He asked that he not be videoed. “We’re probably about 1700 feet from the well pad.”

“The well is in an isolated area, and no nearby residents had to be evacuated,” State Trooper Stefani Plume said at a 1:45 P.M. news conference at Bobtown Polish Club press conference on Feb. 11, the day of the blast one week ago today.  “The area is a very desolate area.”

“Very desolate” was far less than accurate and seemed to be a term to dismiss the hundreds of people living in the accident fallout area. This reporter found Chevron’s crippled well pad less than ten miles from Highway 79, a major highway. From there, homes and businesses dotted the road to the well pad area and a large coal mine with a large parking lot is less than half a mile away. Circling all the way around the hill, still smelling like burning chemicals, numerous houses were within a fraction of a mile of the disaster site.

“My family’s like in this whole block,” the man talking to Dupré said, pointing toward a few of his brothers’ homes, including one up the hill behind his house, even closer to the well pad.

“My one brother was actually standing outside when it blew up, so he saw the big ball of flames, too,” he said.  “He wasn’t sure what was going on, because all the deer were running away from there and the birds were flying in the opposite direction.”

State Trooper Plume’s media story included, “There’s a house, you know, at the main entrance of the property and then, another one at the other end of the property, Plume had said, “but nothing, you know, that’s immediately close to that area that would pose a threat. (Video posted by Observer Reporter)  

Given the scores of homes in the area with a strong chemical odor that clouded skies over Morgantown, 15 miles away, clearly a health hazard existed.

“Considering the magnitude of gas sites in this area,” Plume said the day of the blast, “Fire departments are trained how to respond to situations like these.”

First responders immediately saw a situation beyond fighting that day. They aided workers still onsite to leave, helped get an injured worker to hospital, and established perimeters around the massive chemical fire.

That morning, around 6:45 A.M., the fire department had received a call for help. One of Chevron’s three LANCO 7H Marcellus shale pad wells and a propane truck parked on the pad, had both exploded. Gas was burning at the out-of-control well.  Around 7:00 A.M., according to State Trooper Plume, their department was notified about the blast.

One worker was missing. State police have withheld identities of both the injured and missing men for a week today, saying this is due to their investigation.  State Trooper Plume had said at the 1:45 p.m. news conference on the 11th that emergency personnel were unable to enter the site to search for the missing man. The inferno’s heat had kept responders 300 feet away.

The missing man was an employee of Houston-based Cameron International. The company gained fame in April 2010 due to its failed blowout preventer (BOP) that BP blamed for the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. It settled with BP for $25 million and was never held accountable.

The morning of Chevron’s Bobtown explosion, state police interviewed all “20 to 30” workers who’d been at the scene and escaped unharmed, according to Plume. Police set a half-mile perimeter around the site “as a precaution.” They’d soon designate that perimeter as a crime scene and ban media from it.

Reporters ‘chased out’, Freedom of the Press right denied

Dupré soon learned Sunday that the man’s house shot over with flames was the closest she’d get to the crime scene.  State police and traffic control roadblocks prevented media from viewing the crime scene, even from afar, despite, according to Chevron’s spokesperson, the fire being extinguished the day before.

“[Press] was here and they chased them out,” the only helpful official guarding a roadblock explained. “It’s just an unfortunate thing.”

Repeatedly Sunday, workers and officials stopped Dupré from seeing the sight, violating the right to freedom of the press, according to the Constitution, guarantees:

“To protect the right to gather and distribute news; to keep government accountable by ensuring access to public records, meetings and courtrooms; and to preserve the principles of free speech and unfettered press, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” (See: www.rcfp.org/#sthash.MlLuidOt.dpuf)

Chevron calls this access denial something else in its statement: “We are dedicating considerable resources to maintaining and clearing the roads due to weather conditions to help assist personnel traveling to the site and equipment being delivered.” 

Officials’ Popular 3-Word Mantra: ‘I Don’t Know”

A crater had formed where the first well exploded, so the fire was much greater than an ordinary well fire, according to John Poster, Department of Environmental Protection staff spokesperson. He said probably a large amount of a fire suppressant (chemical) would used.

Meanwhile, however, one of two other frac wells sharing the well pad with the wild well, also began to blaze, spewing more chemicals.  For five days, explosions continued every few seconds, burning, hissing and emitting purplish pink haze visible miles away in between heavy snowfalls.

Silence about chemical releases continued Sunday, as did an equally obvious silence among new workers around the well pad hill.  A crew of workers wearing hard hats had gathered near the staging area on the roadside, near Dana coal mining company’s operation, also adorning Appalachia’s new landscape. They knew nothing about the accident or any workers there, they said.

“We don’t know” was a three-word mantra heard throughout the afternoon, used by workers and officials.

About a dozen trucks, marked with various company and state logos and one laden with large pipes, parked along the road and in nearby parking bays. A security guard sat in an SUV, seemingly busy with paperwork. Asked if he knew anything about the explosion, workers onsite at the time, and directions to the site, he seemed clueless.

“I don’t know,” he answered each question, refraining from identifying the company for which he worked, but saying it was a private security company. “I couldn’t tell you.”

When asked further questions, he continued his refrain.

“I get called out and get my instructions and that’s about it,” he said. “I just get told what I need to know.”

“I know nothing, Ma’am,” said another worker.  “I don’t know. I was just given the order to come down here. That’s all I know.”

“I don’t know anything,” said another further down the road, this one carrying an air of authority near the staging area, appearing to have been directing a crew. “I’m not allowed to say if I did.”

Asked with which company he worked, he answered before briskly walking away, “No comment.”

A man in a red truck drove by me, stopping in the road for a friendly hello. He confded that this was the third oil and gas event to blast the community.

“Randy Pritchard, the fire chief, was the first one at the site after the explosion,” he said, then offered to guide Dupré to Pritchard’s house to introduce her.  Pritchard, fire chief of the Bobtown and Dunkard Township Volunteer Fire Company, said he wasn’t allowed to say anything about what he saw when he arrived at the scene nor anything else about the event.

“The state police got there the same time I did,” Pritchard said. “They’re conducting the investigation. Only they can issue statements about the scene.”

Locals, workers contradict official stories on number of onsite workers, propane truck

Further up the road, a local described the blast as it violently shook his house, frightening his wife and him.

“It was a real loud roar, he added. “Sounded like a big jet taking off.”

Asked about the number of workers at the scene when the explosion occurred, he said, “I don’t know anything except for what I read in the papers.”

Word around the neighborhood, however, is that 23 workers were on site when the blast occurred, one local told this reporter. He scoffed at the latest reported number, 19.

First reports on Feb. 11^th, the day of the blowout, including by State Trooper Plume, stated 20 to 30 onsite workers, employed by several contractors providing well services to Chevron when the blast occurred and were interviewed by police. 

By late that evening, Chevron stated, “Nineteen workers were on the well pad site at the time of the incident.’ ()

Each of the five locals near the well pad with whom Dupré spoke as she circled the well pad hilltop said that none of the onsite workers at the time of the blast were locals: all were from out of town.  

The exploded well had been drilled over a year ago and fracked last spring, according to workers at the scene the day of the blast and who’d “worked at the site but did not want to be named,” according to the Observer Reporter the day of the blast after the press conference.

That night Chevron issued a statement at 10:50 P.M. EST, including   “The wells were in the final stages of preparation before being placed into production. There was no drilling or hydraulic fracturing taking place at the time. At the time of the incident, preparations were being made to run tubing, which is often done prior to bringing wells into production.” 

A large propane truck parked on the well pad exploded first, followed by the well, according some of the workers interviewed by state police. The DEP, also conducting an investigation, suspected the explosion and fire occurred on the surface, not inside the well itself, according to DEP’s John Poister. 

Ongoing explosions continued every few seconds, possibly attributable to the propane truck still there, according to some reports.  Chevron, however, said the ongoing explosions were “par for the course.” Days later, Chevron claimed a nearby hot crane was responsible for the ongoing explosions.

According to state police the day of the accident, the 20-30 onsite employees or contractors worked for several different companies associated with Chevron.  One of those companies, it is speculated, was the Chevron-associated company GASFRAC Energy Services Inc, that uses propane in the fracking process.  Chevron licensed a type of liquefied propane gas (LPG) to GASFRAC, according to a company document. 

“LPG became a clear choice, and after sev­eral years of research, testing and patenting, Chevron commercialized the fluid,” the document says. “Chevron licensed the LPG fracturing fluid technology to GASFRAC, headquar­tered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.”

GASFRAC Energy Services developed a pumping process using a closed, pres­surized system, according to Tim Magner, general manager of reservoir and production engineering. “While water has been used for decades with much success, it has drawbacks for ultralow-permeability… “[W]ater can damage the reservoir rock, resulting in decreasing yields.” (Author emphasis)

“At moderate pressure and ambient temperature, the LPG—mostly propane—can be gelled and viscosified. This enables the LPG to carry proppant farther into the hydraulic fracture than water typically can… The LPG eventually vaporizes, mixing with the formation’s natural gas and returning to the surface.” (Author emphasis)

Stacey Walker of Chevron Energy Technology Co. said, “Dollar for dollar,” when LPG gasifies and flows back through the well, it saves substantial cleanup and disposal costs. 

“By using LPG, we are able to realize a higher yield of gas or oil,” another expert boasts in the document. (Author emphasis)

Five days later, the flames and explosions subsided, according to Chevron’s statement Sunday afternoon at 5:00 P.M. EST: “The two wells are no longer burning as of 3PM Saturday.” 

Not so, according to that one helpful official encountered Sunday, who told Dupré, “It’s still burning up there.” 

If the adage, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” holds true, it’s possible that the fire is not out. Thick smoke and/or vapors spew from the pad, as observable in a video taken earlier Sunday, that has been disabled, so cannot be embedded. The video also shows no worker activity at the site while the shot was taken.

Blake Loke is incident commander for the fire and a company operations manager. He said workers will try capping the wells but officials plan to treat the fire as if it’s still burning. 

One traffic control officer told Dupré that trucks were transporting rocks up to the site Sunday. His understanding was that the rocks were for building a new well pad.

On Feb 17, Chevron stated about the status of the two-well blowout something it had not previously disclosed: ”The situation at the Lanco well site in Pennsylvania remains serious.”

Copyright 2014 Deborah Dupré. All Rights Reserved.

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