Blast at Natural Gas Well Kills 2 Workers

Texas firm puts out fire in Indiana Twp. and caps the well

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
24 July 2010
By Moriah Balingit, Jim McKinnon and Sean Hamill

First came the loud scream from the woods nearby, then a startled Darla Middleby felt her Indiana Township house shake Friday morning when a natural gas well exploded, killing two workers in Indiana Township.

"Originally I thought maybe they were doing the implosion on the turnpike [bridge] and I called a neighbor to see if she heard it and then we went outside and saw the smoke," she said.

The blast was so powerful that it lifted an oil storage tank, 12-feet by 8-feet, and flung it 70 yards away, said Allegheny County Chief of Emergency Services Robert Full.

About 200 emergency responders remained on the scene throughout the day Friday as flames continued to burn gas spewing from the uncapped, busted well.

The well was mere feet from another tank containing 3,500 gallons of crude oil. Both stood in the center of a wide circle of blackened ground.

Workers from Wild Well Control in Houston, Texas, eventually arrived to oversee capping the well. The fire was extinguished at 7:45 p.m. by pumping water into the well. It was capped two hours later. The entire process took about 12 hours.

Three firefighters were treated earlier in the day at UPMC St. Margaret for heat-related problems as temperatures soared into the 90s.

Officials have not released the names of the two victims, both of whom worked for Huntley & Huntley of Monroeville, which operates several gas wells on township-owned and private property. Autopsies were scheduled to be performed today, the county medical examiners office said.

The two workers were part of a three-member crew at the site. No other injuries were reported.

The workers had been welding equipment at the gas well site when the explosion was reported around 9:50 a.m. in a wooded area of the township off Rich Hill Road, the state Department of Environmental Protection said.

A Huntley spokeswoman said the workers were doing routine maintenance, but she didn't know what caused the blast.

Huntley extracts crude oil as well as natural gas from the wells.

The oil tank catapulted in the explosion was ripped apart and a truck the workers used was destroyed.

The explosion also caused some brush fires that were extinguished, Chief Full said.

Terry Claessens noticed a cloud of dark black smoke fill the sky just as he was about to cut the grass at the Teen Challenge facility on Challenge Lane, about a quarter-mile from the explosion site.

"And boy was it big. You could tell something bad happened," said Mr. Claessens, the facility's director.

Emergency crews had tried to use foam to put out the fire at the well, but when that failed they began sending tanker trucks to the site.

"The best thing about the fire is that it controls the gas flow," reducing the possibility of another explosion from an accumulation of escaping fumes, Chief Full said earlier in the day.

The property where the blast occurred is owned by the Rosedale Sportsmen's Association.

The wells the men were working on are considered shallow, having been drilled about 3,500 feet down. DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphreys said the well that exploded was 2 years old.

Huntley, a privately owned developer of gas, has more than 350 gas wells in the Greater Pittsburgh area, particularly in eastern Allegheny and western Westmoreland counties.

Several residents of the Rural Ridge section of Indiana Township said they have felt some angst in recent years as companies have increasingly tapped into a natural gas reserve on private properties.

They had smelled gas fumes in the air the past few days, and they heard whooshing sounds, like rushing water, from the vicinity of the blast.

Township Manager Dan Anderson said he's been concerned about the growth of wells on private property in recent years, noting the township has a couple dozen at this time. Township officials "don't have any control" over drilling, he said.

He said it's especially troubling if experts have to be brought in from out of state to respond to an emergency, he said.

Chief Full echoed those concerns.

"I'm saying from my perspective being here all day, having lost lives now here today, that we need to go forward here and have a significant plan in place to make sure the local municipalities that have wells, the counties that are involved and the state have a strong voice on how these things are operated," he said Friday evening.

Chief Full acknowledged that local emergency responders lack some of the training necessary to deal with an explosion of this type.

"Our public safety forces know how to put out house fires. They know how to handle certain chemical fires," he said. "Whenever you're dealing with this new entity with the gas wells here, right now we're a little bit behind the curve."

When five wells were going in two years ago within a half-mile of the Drischlers' home, they and other neighbors were worried about what would happen if there was an accident.

"We talked about what would happen. Who would we call? What was the plan if there was" an accident?, said Mark Drischler.

Mrs. Middleby said she goes into the woods sometimes to gather wood for her fireplace. She said she never worried when the three wells were installed near her four-acre property. But she said once they were drilled, "I was always afraid to go near it."

Neighbors are particularly concerned about the repercussions of Friday's blast.

The out-of-control well is the obvious threat. But residents also fear more possible explosions, leaking oil tanks and the excessive water run-off from the firefighting efforts on the steep, wooded hillside.

The shiny, green tank that was thrown, intact, from the site was left perched threateningly in a clump of trees up the hill from the Drischler family home.

County Executive Dan Onorato and Chief Full said the incident will be thoroughly investigated.

"We're treating it like a crime scene," Chief Full said.

"Indiana has the full support and backing of the county," Mr. Onorato added. "Wells have been here for hundreds of years. We're working to get this one safe."

Jim McKinnon: jmckinnon@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1939. Sean Hamill: shamill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2579. Moriah Balingit: mbalingit@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2533. Dante Anthony Fuoco contributed.