Fracking Truck Runs Off Road; Contents Spill

Washington PA Observer Reporter
21 October 2010
By Kathie O. Warco, Staff writer
kwarco@observer-reporter.com

The driver of a tanker truck hauling liquid used in the Marcellus Shale hydraulic fracturing process was forced off a rural Chartiers Township road Wednesday morning and rolled down an embankment, spilling much of the 5,000 gallons in the tank.

Joshua M. Duell, 28, of Johnstown, was driving north about 6:45 a.m. on Plum Run Road about a mile from Brigich Road when he was reportedly forced off the road by a speeding Jeep traveling in the opposite direction, said Officer Rob Sumney. The other vehicle, driven by a woman, did not stop. Police were notified about 45 minutes after the crash occurred.

"Once the wheels went off the right side of the road, the tanker rolled down the embankment and emptied its contents into the field," Sumney said. "The side of the road gave way. There is no question he was forced off the road."

Duell was driving the tanker for Highland Trucking of Somerset. Representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection, along with Weavertown Environmental Group and Range Resources, responded. Sumney said the fracking material was being hauled from a Range Resources site.

Responders quickly built a dam and put down booms about a mile downstream in Plum Run to catch the leaking substance, also known as flowback, said Katy Gresh, DEP spokeswoman.

The substance is used for fracking wells. Water and chemicals are mixed together for the fracking process, in which the liquid is forced at high pressure into wells drilled into the Marcellus, Gresh said. About 10 to 30 percent of it flows back out of the well and into a fracking pit where minimal treatment is done and then hauled to another site, where it is reused.

Vacuum trucks also were being used to remove some of the liquid. Gresh said the DEP is waiting for a report from the trucking company to determine how much of the liquid leaked from the tank, but a representative at the scene believed that much of the contents leaked out.

Several dead minnows were spotted in the creek. Gresh said a DEP biologist will assess the effects of the spill on the stream today. Samples will be taken before determining appropriate enforcement action.

Sumney asks that anyone who might have information on the other driver call police at 724-745-8030.