Reply #27: 35-mile fluid leak: another fracking accident [View All]

[Earth_First]

In what is but the latest in an all-too-long and frequent string of environmental accidents involving natural gas drilling, a section of highway near the town of Hughesville, Pa., located in the upper Susquehanna River Valley was closed Oct. 9 after a low-boy trailer leaked an undetermined amount of frack fluid.

According to police the spill extended as far as 35 to 40 miles. Fluid was leaking from one of a dozen 100-gallon containers on the trailer as it traveled on the highway from Dimock, Pa.

In fact, the gas drilling industry frequently dismisses growing public concerns about the danger of the chemicals used in their drilling process, claiming that the chemicals are only 1 percent of the mix of million of gallons of water and sand used in hydraulic fracking. In the case of the Hughesville spill, the chemicals were 100 percent.

The Hughesville spill occurred on the same day that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined a Marcellus Shale driller $40,000. The driller, Seneca Resources Corp., had illegally built a nearly one-acre impoundment for used drilling fluid on “exceptional value” wetlands in the Tioga State Forest near Wellsboro, Pa. The company was also cited for causing “sediment runoff by failing to institute erosion control best management practices.” (Sun-Gazette, Oct. 9)

http://www.workers.org/2010/us/fracking_1021/

YOU fu*king drink it!