Now what's going on at Chesapeake's Bruder Gas Drill Site?
On Tuesday night, September 17th residents called 911 when they heard a loud whoosh and a boom. Here's an e-mail one neighbor sent to Chesapeake:
"I wanted to let you know that we had an
incident tonight at the Bruder Site. I did
call 911. I've never heard a sound like this before. It was a very,
very loud whoosh and then a find of [sic] boom or something like
that. The fire department came out. It happened a
little after 11:00. I can't
imagine that no one else called it in because it was so loud."
Here's Chesapeake's response to that neighbor's concerns:
"I wanted to let you know that what you heard last night were two wells coming
online. Chesapeake had personnel on the site during the day and during the
night to handle these operations and they met with the Fire Department when they
arrived. We had a sufficient compliment of operations personnel and equipment
to handle this activity and the Fire Dept. was satisfied that Chesapeake had all
aspects of the operation very much under control. As you know the Bruder
padsite is home to a number of very excellent and good producing wells and
sometimes when strong wells come online they can initially make the whooshing
sound that you heard.
I am
sorry that you were concerned but happy to report what you heard was the sound
of gas filling the pipeline after coming online. Please let me know if there is
any additional information that I can provide as I am happy to help whenever
possible."
WOW, THEY HAVE "STRONG WELLS"?
These are "good producing wells"?
As one of the lessors said, "Someone is getting some money, but it isn't us."
It seems the Fire Department provided a totally different response about this incident to this resident Here is the e-mail the resident sent to Chesapeake:
"I was told by the fire department that what I heard was the gas well water in
the gas lines causing pressure. Water caused pressure to build up and the
pressure detection system shut down the wells automatically. So i don't know
who told you the noise was from the wells coming back on line. It seems the
info I was given by the Arlington fire department was different than the
information you were given. I'm going to see if I can get a copy of the report
from the fire department to clarify."
Here's the next e-mail from Chesapeake. Sounds like they're attempting to cover their tracks:
"I have done some further checking after receiving your second email. Indeed
there were two different things that transpired last night and I initially only
reported on one of them. What you heard about 11:00 p.m. was the result of the pipeline valve closing
automatically because there was a large volume of water coming out of the well.
This resulted in a high water level in a vessel and the subsequent shutting of
the pipeline valve. These valves close very quickly and although loud in volume
our safety system worked as designed. Unfortunately, there is no way to
accurately predict exactly when the water will begin to flow and how much water
will flow when we bring wells online. The system is designed to shut down
automatically if the volume of water flowing to the tanks is too great – that is
what happened and what you heard.
After the wells were
shut off automatically Chesapeake worked to get them back online and that
occurred about 2:30 a.m. Each of these operations created the sounds that you
heard. However, as I mentioned in my previous email the systems worked as
designed in a safe and efficient manner. The Fire Department was on site with
our operators and reviewed the status of the operations and saw them to be safe
and secure. My apologies for not providing the entire explanation in my
original email. Although it was my desire to get you an explanation as quickly
as possible this morning that resulted in me sending an incomplete summary of
what had occurred."
Perhaps there is a whistleblower out there who can tell us the real story...
In the meantime, here is the official incident report from that night:
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