Plugging of a Chesapeake Energy natural gas well in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, is scheduled to start later Friday, according to a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Flows from the well, whose wellhead connection ruptured Tuesday and spilled thousands of gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid onto surrounding farm land, were halted late Thursday, DEP spokesman Dan Spadoni said Friday.
Halting the flows required multiple junk shots and drilling mud from well control specialists Boots and Coots, Spadoni said, adding that it "appears to have been successful."
The well will be plugged with a mixture of concrete and heavy mud, he said.
A specific reason for the accident and subsequent spill, which overran existing containment structures to then pollute a nearby unnamed tributary of Towanda Creek, has yet to be determined.
Chesapeake said construction crews built a secondary containment system Wednesday to divert the flow of liquids from the Towanda Creek. While some of the water entered the waterway, Chesapeake spokesman Rory Sweeney said Thursday tests indicate little, if any, significant effect to local waterways.
The creek empties into the Susquehanna River. The issue of drilling in the Marcellus Shale, which overlaps with much of the river's watershed, has been a hot button issue in the states that rely on the Susquehanna for drinking water, particularly in New York and New Jersey.
Chesapeake has blamed the rupture on "equipment failure," but has not provided any more details, Spadoni said Friday. Sweeney said Thursday there is no evidence of a failure in the downhole casing. Company spokesmen were not available for an update Friday.
After the well is plugged, Chesapeake will be responsible for remediation of the site, Spadoni said, adding that DEP would need to sign off on the company's plan for such efforts. The Oklahoma City-based company will also need to send the DEP a sampling plan, he said.
DEP itself has sampled seven home water wells and eight additional surface locations, but does not have any results yet. Spadoni said the samples have been sent to a laboratory in the state capital, Harrisburg, and the results were expected in the coming week.
A field check Wednesday revealed no impacts to the Susquehanna River, which is 16 miles from the well site. Spadoni said the agency said this was still the case Friday.
DEP, meanwhile, will be issuing Chesapeake a "notice of violation" for the blowout, he said.
Chesapeake on Thursday halted all well completion operations in Pennsylvania until it can determine what went wrong at the Bradford County well site.
It is already in the DEP's bad books after "improper management" caused a February fire at a gas well site in the state.
The fire at the well near Avella in Washington County "was caused by improper management of condensate," the agency said after an investigation concluded in March. DEP is still mulling what punishment it should impose. Three workers were injured as a result of the fire.
The DEP shut another Chesapeake operation in March after it failed to implement the required erosion and sediment controls at a Beech Flats well pad in West Branch Township, Pennsylvania.
As a result of said failure, a significant amount of sediment and silt discharged from the site into a stream that is a tributary to a water source serving Galeton Borough Water Authority's system. The company blamed snow melt for the discharge.
