It seems the news just keeps getting worse these days for those in the Marcellus Shale gas-fracking business. First there was the damning new Cornell University study which revealed the worse-than-coal climate impacts of the natural gas drilling procedure. Then, the Chesapeake Energy Corporation experienced the mother of all bad press days when one of its Pennsylvania wells experienced a massive blowout, spewing thousands of gallons of frack fluid into a nearby stream. In a poetic touch, the blow-out occurred on the one-year anniversary of the gulf oil spill.
While nowhere near the scale of the BP blowout, the Chesapeake Energy frack-up certainly echoed the massive gulf disaster in terms of the outrageous incompetence and recklessness of the well’s owners.
According to a Pro-Publica article it took the company a full 13 hours to respond to the accident. The reason for the egregious delay: despite widespread fracking activity in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale, the state did not have a single team of specially trained fracking accident responders, and instead had to fly in workers from Texas. In the end, thanks to the holdup, it took no less than two days from the time of the accident before workers managed to cap the spill.
Given Chespeake Energy’s ham-handed handling of the accident, it’s fortunate that the immediate impacts of the disaster were limited to the evacuation of a few families and the inundation of a few acres of farmland. As for the long term environmental effects of the spill, Chesapeake tells us to fear not. Despite failing to divulge exactly what types of potentially carcinogenic chemicals were present in the fracking fluid, company PR officials promise minimal ecological damage.
If you’re gagging in disbelief, you’re in good company. This past week, Maryland Attorney general Douglas F. Gansler, called Chesapeake Energy out on their ridiculous spin and shameless negligence by issuing notice of the Maryland government’s intent to sue for violation of the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Water Act.
The connection between the Pennsylvania spill and Maryland is the Susquehanna River which feeds Maryland’s already over-polluted Chesapeake Bay, and which provides a big portion of the state’s drinking water. The creek that the frack fluids contaminated is a tributary of the Susquehanna.
Gansler’s aggressive defense of the public interest against gas-industry malfeasance is a hopeful sign that the administration of Governor Martin O’Malley is determined to protect Maryland from the impacts of reckless fracking. Indeed, after the failure this year of a bill to prevent unsafe drilling in the state, the move strongly suggests that O’Malley and his team still intend to follow the aim of the bill and put the brakes on fracking permitting for at least two years while safety studies are conducted.
Please encourage them to do just that by signing the petition to the O’Malley administration now.
Photo credit: James Cridland via Flickr
This article originally appeared on Change.org
