What can we learn from the Greene County gas well explosion?

Southwestern Pennsylvania was propelled into the national spotlight last week when an explosion and fire broke out on a Marcellus Shale natural gas well site in Greene County. The fire burned for nearly an entire week, taking the life of one of the workers.

Foremost, I join with many others in sending thoughts and prayers to the family and loved ones of the deceased worker. The investigation of the accident is still ongoing, and early reports indicate it was likely caused when the well was being connected to a gathering line. However, it would be inappropriate to speculate further as to what went wrong until that investigation is complete.

We do know enough about the accident to come to an inescapable conclusion: It’s time for everyone to put aside the talking point rhetoric and get very serious about how we approach gas drilling in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

When the State Legislature passed Act 13, which was Governor Corbett’s “drill anywhere” law that has since been ruled unconstitutional by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, it established a setback of 300-feet for drilling from residential structures. This meant a driller could put a gas well, just like the one in Greene County, 300 feet from the front door of your house or your child’s school. To put that into perspective, authorities established a half-mile perimeter around the fire in Greene County, and no one was able to get within 1,500 feet of it for days due to the intense heat.

Officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection seemed content that the well was in a remote enough location that the damage was contained. This time. But what about next time?

This is the third large fire at a local Marcellus Shale site in four years, and there are many well sites within 1,500 feet of a residence throughout the region. Unfortunately, the explosion in Greene County served to demonstrate what could potentially happen if something does go wrong with a gas well near to people’s homes, schools, senior centers, or medical facilities.

I understand that it’s very difficult to talk about these types of things, but the reality is that we have to make safety the top priority when we’re looking at drilling in and around our communities. Aside from the fact that every window within a mile would likely blow out from the explosion, can you imagine the disaster of trying to keep parents from entering a school within a half-mile perimeter to get their kids? It took nearly ten hours to get a team of experts who deal with gas well fires to Pennsylvania from Texas, which may be the most disturbing detail of all. It turns out there is no rapid response team in Pennsylvania, or anywhere even close, to respond to a large gas well incident. With the sheer number of wells in our region, shouldn’t the industry be required to have an adequate safety response team less than ten hours away?

While our local firefighters and first responders do an amazing job protecting our communities, there is serious concern about the safety of our volunteers when they are forced into a situation far and above anything they should reasonably be expected to face. Emergencies such as this call for specialized equipment and training, and the current plan of “just stand around and wait until the guys from Texas get here” is unacceptable.

Amazingly, Governor Corbett is still spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to try to get the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling on Act 13 and reinstate the 300-foot setback for drilling. Meanwhile, other politicians - both Democrat and Republican who are more beholden to political donations from the drilling industry than to common sense - still refuse to acknowledge the simple fact that some reasonable regulation is necessary to protect the people living in close proximity to drilling operations. Far too much of the current Harrisburg policy on drilling is being driven by government-enabling of industry greed with virtually no regard for the health, safety and welfare of the people of Pennsylvania.

Despite what many in the gas drilling industry may want you to believe, demanding accountability does not mean you are anti-American, nor does it necessarily mean you anti-drilling. Instead, it means you care deeply about your community and the impact that industrial operations may have on it.

The emergency in Greene County should serve as a wakeup call to everyone in this region.

We need to learn from what happened, and not be afraid to ask the tough questions about why it happened and whether or not the response was adequate. So start asking those questions and demand answers now.