Cabot Drills Into Notoriety

By: Duane Craig

Well, pardon the pun, Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. is in the news again as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection investigates the problem of methane showing up in water wells in Susquehanna County. There is also some talk about a "bubbling pond" that contains combustible gas, although that is being disputed by the owner of the land -- a fellow who leased the land to Cabot so it could do some hydraulic fracturing there, or fracking.

Methane shows up in water wells

Cabot is being looked at because it is the company with the closest gas wells to the contaminated drinking water wells. Cabot's name was linked to the Dimock, Pennsylvania incident where a private water well exploded, ultimately making that community the poster child for the anti-fracking movement, according to this article in The Times-Tribune.com. Eventually Cabot was stopped near Dimock after the DEP linked gas in 18 water wells to its operations there. It's unclear how long Cabot will be allowed to continue drilling in Pennsylvania but the company has placed methane alarms in three homes near this incident and has vented its wells there to mitigate risks of contamination.

To see just how top-of-the-mind the environment is to Cabot you can read its 2010 annual report where its CEO writes for six pages about all levels of the company's operations but only gets close to any word remotely related to the environment, just one time. And that was to describe natural gas as an "eco-friendly fuel source."

Cabot made a net income in 2010 of a little more than $100 million.

PA DEP Probes Methane Bubbles

September 8, 2010 - The state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating the source of methane gas that bubbled up in the North Branch Susquehanna River near Sugar Run and six private water wells in Wilmot Township, Bradford County, last week.

The sites are in the same general location as two other instances of methane contamination involving a beaver pond and a residential water well, and Chesapeake Energy is evaluating its natural gas wells in the area, according to DEP Secretary John Hanger.

"This is probably gas that has migrated through the ground as a result of drilling in the area," he said.

Reports of gas bubbling up from the North Branch Susquehanna River came in to DEP late Thursday, with additional reports Friday. Hanger said DEP investigators were at the site all day Friday and are "running some pretty complex tests to identify what kind of gas it is and its source."

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Oil-soaked Soil and Its Cleanup Worry Carson, CA Residents

July 4, 2010 - Bill Dehart talked about the pools of aging oil in the ground under his neighborhood as he swept dried Elm tree leaves recently on the street outside his Carson home.

The beginning of a massive cleanup of the Carousel tract was outlined last week in a tentative government order to polluter Shell Oil.

Like hundreds of other residents in this community north of Lomita Boulevard, between Marbella and Panama avenues, Dehart got the order in the mail from his attorneys in their class-action lawsuit against Shell.

But he still can't imagine how it will be possible to clean gobs of oil-drenched soil and groundwater without first leveling homes, streets and driveways.

"How are they gonna get out all that oil?" Dehart wondered. "I don't particularly trust them."

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Toxic soil lurks beneath Carson CA. neighborhood

April 27, 2010- The discovery of methane gas and benzene has transformed a 50-acre neighborhood into an environmental case study — a reminder of Southern California’s history as a center of the oil industry.

When Ron and Belinda Oglesby moved into Carson's Carousel neighborhood in 2003, they saw a solid, middle-class area where homeowners set down roots and lived for decades, where Santa Claus paraded through the streets on a firetruck and children returned to buy their own homes.

Six years later, they noticed workmen drilling holes and leaving cryptic white marks on the streets.

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A Carson, CA. Neighborhood's Future is on Hold

December 21, 2009- About a year ago, Elizabeth Noriega's son started having migraines. She took him to the doctor, who referred him to a neurologist. His blood was drawn, but the results were inconclusive. Then, in August, she discovered that her home was built on top of an oil tank farm. She also learned that the soil underneath the Carousel tract in Carson is contaminated with high levels of methane and benzene. She wondered: Could there be a connection?

Since the contamination was discovered almost four months ago, most of the 275 homeowners in the Carousel tract have signed on to a lawsuit against Shell Oil. The Carousel development is north of Lomita Boulevard, between Marbella and Panama avenues.

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Methane gas at nearby landfill concerns Santa Monica, California residents

October 24, 2009 - The Pico Neighborhood Association recently raised concerns about the possible dangers of placing the maintenance facility across from Stewart Street Park, which was built on top of a former landfill that releases low levels of methane gas.

"The mixture of methane ground contamination with high electrical voltage could trigger an explosion," Maria Loya, co-chair of the neighborhood organization, said. "This is a residential community with families where there's a park, where there's an elementary school close by.

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Erin Brockovich goes after Shell Oil in Carson California

October 2, 2009 - Environmental activist Erin Brockovich (right) has agreed to pursue litigation against Shell Oil Co. for contaminating a Carson housing tract.

Shell recently discovered elevated levels of methane and benzene underneath the Carousel neighborhood. The contamination has been traced to underground oil tanks the company operated on the site until the 1960s.

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Erin Brockovich goes after Shell Oil in Carson California

September 22, 2009 - Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has agreed to pursue litigation against Shell Oil Co. for contaminating a Carson housing tract.

Shell recently discovered elevated levels of methane and benzene underneath the Carousel neighborhood. The contamination has been traced to underground oil tanks the company operated on the site until the 1960s.

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Illinois Neighborhood Warned of Well Contamination

May 27, 2009 - The Illinois Department of Public Health has issued an advisory about possible well water contamination in the Fox Lake area. Residents whose drinking water comes from private wells should seek private lab testing to check for possible groundwater contamination.

Routine testing turned up evidence of the chemicals benzene and dichloromethane. Long term exposure in elevated levels may increase risks for liver, kidney, bone and blood problems.

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Methane Found in Denver Well Water

April 22, 2009 - Jesse Ellsworth thought something was wrong with his water when it began to smell funny and popped out of his faucet in bursts. Then, in February, the Fort Lupton resident launched an experiment: He flipped on the kitchen tap and touched a cigarette lighter to the stream. As flint sparked steel, the water lit on fire like a torch.

Ellsworth is one of at least 29 residents in small farming communities northeast of Denver who have asked either the energy companies or the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to test for natural gas in their water wells.

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Contaminated wells spark controversy in Dimock, PA

March 19, 2009 - Until gas drilling began, residents of Dimock Township lived in fairly quiet obscurity in rural Susquehanna County. But when water wells along Carter Road became contaminated with methane, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) stepped in, garnering the attention of citizens, activist groups, other state agencies and regional and national media.

The spotlight intensified recently when the DEP issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) on February 27, charging that Cabot Oil and Gas Company’s drilling operations have caused one of the most troubling potential side effects of drilling—the contamination of fresh groundwater.

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Natural Gas Drilling Contaminates Private Water Wells in Pennsylvania

March 11, 2009 - Drilling by a natural gas extraction company caused methane contamination in private water wells in Susquehanna County's Dimock Twp., state regulators say.

The state Department of Environmental Protection notified Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. in a Feb. 27 letter the company is in violation of two state laws -- the Clean Streams Law and the Oil and Gas Act -- for allowing natural gas to contaminate groundwater in the vicinity of Carter Road.

The notice of violation comes amid an ongoing investigation into a New Year's Day explosion that shattered a concrete slab covering a private water well in the township. The company has until Friday to submit a plan to DEP to resolve the violations.

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Ohio home near gas well on brink of explosion

October 22, 2008 - For the past 10 months, Bainbridge resident Irvin Mesmer said, he and his wife, Joanne, have been living with the uncertainty of whether they will ever have safe drinking water.

They live on Scotland Drive, near where an Ohio Valley Energy gas and oil well leaked methane gas last December into the aquifer. That leak was cited in the explosion of Richard and Thelma Payne's home on English Drive and in the contamination of water wells in the area.

On Oct. 15, another possible explosion was narrowly averted at the Mesmers' house.

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Illinois Landfill's methane gas leaks pose worry to neighbors

January 20, 2008 - "Our lives are not our own. We live in fear and uncertainty."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started testing homes in Perez's neighborhood in November for methane, which can cause explosions or fires if trapped in confined areas such as basements.

The gas is seeping from the landfill at Schick and County Farm roads and has been detected underground, although not in any homes.

The dump has a history of pollution problems. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was aware in 1994 and 2000 that methane gas was found at unsafe levels near the perimeter.

And that's why Perez and others are asking tough questions about the state's accountability.

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Brooklyn Oil Spill May Be 30 Million Gallons

September 13, 2007 - The EPA, which spent a year looking at the environmental horror of the Exxon-Mobil oil spill in Greenpoint, has concluded that original estimate of 17 million gallons spilled underground "may have been low." How low? How does 30 million gallons sound?

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Methane contaminated ground in Colorado to be cleaned two years after home explodes

May 20, 2007 - DENVER - Cleanup efforts will begin next month on a methane-contaminated patch of ground near Bondad, where a home exploded two years ago.

An investigation blamed an old gas well known as the Bryce 1-X, which was drilled and abandoned before World War II. Methane had been leaking into the soil ever since, and in February 2005, it accumulated under the home of Charles Yoakum, causing an explosion that destroyed his house. Yoakum was injured but survived.

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