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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS
<br />UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS
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<br />developed a crack allowing methane to seep underground and fill a residential
<br />basement.
<br />
<br />• On January 1, 2009, a water well at a home in Dimock, Township, Susquehanna
<br />County, PA, exploded. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
<br />(“PA DEP”) documented elevated levels of methane in numerous drinking water
<br />wells near Cabot natural gas wells and concluded that the elevated methane in
<br />drinking water was a result of Cabot’s failure to properly case and cement several of
<br />its gas wells, which allowed methane to migrate from the wells into drinking water.319
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<br />Other known and suspected adverse effects of drilling and fracking operations include:
<br />
<br />• Garfield County, Colorado, Commissioners recently expressed their health and safety
<br />concerns regarding natural gas drilling and fracking by stating in a legal filing that,
<br />“No agency…can guarantee Garfield County residents that exposures to oil and gas
<br />emissions will not produce illness or latent effects, including death.” They cited the
<br />cases of three people – Chris Mobaldi, Verna Wilson, and Jose Lara – who died after
<br />suffering from drilling-related illnesses in Garfield County.320
<br />
<br />• In April 2008, a nurse at a hospital in Durango, Colorado, became critically ill and
<br />almost died of organ failure as a result of second-hand chemical exposure acquired
<br />while treating a drill rig worker who had fracking fluid on his clothes.321
<br />
<br />• In Texas, which now has approximately 93,000 natural-gas wells, up from around
<br />58,000 a dozen years ago, a hospital system in the six counties with some of the
<br />heaviest drilling reported in 2010 a 25 percent asthma rate for young children, more
<br />than three times the state rate of about 7 percent.322
<br />
<br />Freeman, D. C., & Senko, J. M. (2010, June). Expert Panel Technical Report, Subsurface Gas
<br />Invasion Bainbridge Township, Geauga County, Ohio, available at:
<br />https://oilandgas.ohiodnr.gov/portals/oilgas/pdf/bainbridge/DMRM%200%20Title%20Page,%20
<br />Preface,%20Acknowledgements.pdf (attached as Exhibit 179). 319 Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. (2009, November 4).
<br />Consent Order and Agreement between Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation and the Pennsylvania
<br />Department of Environmental Protection, available at:
<br />http://files.dep.state.pa.us/oilgas/OilGasLandingPageFiles/FinalCO&A121510.pdf (attached as
<br />Exhibit 180) (hereinafter “Cabot Consent Order”). 320 David O. Williams, GarCo officials blast state gas drilling rules in case requesting more well
<br />density, THE COLORADO INDEPENDENT, January 19, 2011, available at:
<br />http://coloradoindependent.com/72246/garco-officials-blast-state-gas-drilling-rules-in-case-
<br />requesting-more-well-density. 321 Eric Frankowski, Gas industry secrets and a nurse’s story, HIGH COUNTRY NEWS, July 28,
<br />2008, available at: http://www.hcn.org/wotr/gas-industry-secrets-and-a-nurses-story. 322 Ian Urbina, Regulations Lax as Gas Well’s Tainted Waters Hits Rivers, THE NEW YORK
<br />TIMES, February 26, 2011, available at:
<br />http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?pagewanted=all.
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