Wetterling Well- short lived & leaky

photo provided - Wetterling well, Owego

Back in October, Owego residents living near McHenry Road were surprised to see a well rig in their neighborhood. The well was drilled, the rig and truck traffic disappeared, and that was the end of it - or so people thought.


By late October, Carrizo had their exploratory data and were preparing to plug the well. That's when they noticed some bubbling. Gas was leaking between two of the casings.

This new information comes from a pair of DEC inspection reports obtained through a Freedom of Information request submitted by an Owego resident. It makes for interesting reading.

On Oct 25 the DEC inspector notes that gas was leaking at a rate of 15-20 cubic feet a day. The well operator, Carrizo was  concerned about Hurricane Sandy and proposed monitoring the gas leak. A couple weeks later, on November 13, Al Owings of Carrizo calls DEC and asks whether they can abandon the well with a vent pipe.

Notes from DEC investigator: "I told him that I did not know and that NY has no specific regulatory guidelines about the matter."

Now there's a rig back on the pad, and it appears that Carrizo is going to plug the well - the first real "Marcellus" well in Tioga County. Granted, it was a vertical well and drilled primarily to extract data, not gas. Vertical wells, while allowed under current permits, are not the most efficient way to exploit shale gas - but they serve well for exploring the new formations.

The Wetterling well was drilled to 4745 feet, not as deep as some of the wells around the area (some go deep into the Trenton Black River formation around 10,000 or so feet below the surface). There was no horizontal drilling, no hydrofracking. And yet it still sprung a leak.

Methane leaks are not unusual for shale gas wells in Pennsylvania. In fact, citizen reporter Vera Scroggins recently compiled a stack of "Letters of Determination" from PA's Department of Environmental Protection advising homeowners that they have methane - and other contaminants - in their water wells, and that gas drilling activities in the area may have affected their water supply. This is not the kind of letter anyone living near a well wants to receive - whether they live in Bradford County, PA or Owego, NY.

Tom Wilber has posted more about this on his excellent blog, Shale Gas Review.

Another Malfunctioning Pennsylvania Well

Last night an equipment failure happened during well-completion activities on the Yarasavage 1H northwest of Tunkhannock, PA. The well, drilled into Marcellus shale well, is owned by Carrizo Oil & Gas. An equipment failure led to release of completion fluids – at an initial rate of 800 gal/minute. About 5,400 barrels were captured in tanks, and other fluid running off the pad was captured by a catch basin set up near the road.

The waste fluid leak was only part of the problem; natural gas also leaked from the well. So last night officials asked four families living within 1500 feet of the well site to evacuate. Three more families voluntarily evacuated to a local hotel.

By this afternoon well crews managed to cap the malfunctioning well, and residents were allowed to return home. State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) crews told the press that they did a “sweep” of a mile-and-a-half wide circle around the well to detect volatile organic chemicals and/or methane in the air. They found none. They also reported that they tested for radiation but didn’t find any.

Video Field Trip to Well at night

Intrepid video-journalist Vera Scroggins headed out with her camera to record what it sounds like when a well is drilled close to a road. The well she photographed is on Bush Road, in Bridgewater Township, just down the road apiece from Montrose (Susquehanna County, PA). The operator is Carrizo, the very same outfit that started exploratory drilling in Owego, NY (Tioga County).

Now, the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has put out some new regulations for high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing - but the new rules do not upgrade or replace the old rules.
The new regs. specify that there will be no drilling:

• within 500 feet of a residential water well, domestic supply spring or water well or spring used to supply water for livestock or crops;
• within 500 feet of an inhabited dwelling or place of assembly;
• within a primary aquifer and a 500-foot buffer from the boundary of a primary aquifer;
• within a 100-year floodplain;
• and within 2,000 feet of any public water supply including reservoir, natural lake or mane-made impoundment (except those constructed for fresh water storage associated with fracking).

The new regulations don't address distance from roads (they remain 75 feet) nor do they address setbacks from barns, fields or pastures.

So if you live near a well, this is what you'll likely hear all day and all night for at least a few weeks.

Wetterling Well Under Way in Owego, NY

The other day a resident in Owego was out for her morning walk. She knew a gas well was planned for the area - but was surprised to see the top of a drilling rig poking above the treetops.








Apparently, drilling for the Wetterling Well, just off McHenry Road (North of Bodle Hill Rd) is underway. Carrizo Oil and Gas (out of Houston, TX) filed a permit application for a vertical Marcellus well on a 43-acre unit back on May 17 of this year. A couple months later - August 9 - the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) approved the application and issued a drilling permit. According to the DEC records, Carrizo began drilling on September 18; at least that's the "spud date" reported.

But, say the locals, the drilling rig just went up a couple days ago, complete with stadium lights that can be seen at least a mile away. This is supposed to be a "test" well; given that the industry insists that Marcellus is all over the place, we're not too sure what exactly they're testing for - unless it's for local resistance.

Ironically, even as Carrizo was moving their rig into New York, Pennsylvania Senator Jim Ferlo and other PA lawmakers were calling on their state to "enact a drilling moratorium during which a comprehensive study on the effects of fracking would take place." Ferlo's concerns: impacts on public health, environmental impact, and the erosion of infrastructure needed to support PA's commerce including agriculture, tourism, hunting, fishing and recreation.