The Department of Environmental Protection Tuesday announced it has fined Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. of Pittsburgh $120,000 for a January storage tank explosion and production fluid spill at the Reynolds well pad in Jessup Township, Susquehanna County.
“This was a serious incident that injured an employee and resulted in a spill of approximately 2,835 gallons of production fluid from a 21,000-gallon storage tank,” DEP Director of District Oil and Gas Operations John Ryder said. “Some of this fluid escaped containment and impacted soil off the well pad.”
Ignited vapors in the headspace of the tank caused the January 11 explosion and subsequent rupture of the tank.
DEP Emergency Response staff responded immediately, and follow-up inspections and sampling were conducted. Samples from an interception trench off the well pad showed high levels of constituents associated with produced water.
The department issued a notice of violation letter to Cabot on January 17, citing violations of the Oil and Gas Act and regulations, Solid Waste Management Act, and Clean Streams Law.
Cabot remediated the spill with oversight by the DEP Northeast Regional Environmental Cleanup and Brownfields program.
For more information, call 570-327-3636.
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