Have you noticed how often the industry and its sympathizers repeat the refrain that fracking happens so far below the water table from which drinking water is drawn that there’s no danger of frack fluids getting into drinking water?  This despite the evidence that stuff really does get around, even if they don’t understand how.

There’s another way drinking water gets contaminated:  surface spills.  Spilled substances can seep down to groundwater.  Or, as at Buckeye Creek, a town’s drinking water can be contaminated by spills that find their way into surface waters.

In late November the Sootypaws website and blog posted an extensive update on the mysterious spill at Buckeye Creek, in Doddridge County, WV.

Make yourself a cup of coffee and settle in for an excellent and thorough account of what is known.

Buckeye Creek Update

Timeline and links to more

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“Downstream Strategies, the company I used to analyze the water forwarded the WVDEP report to me and they said that all of their questions were not answered from the WVDEP which they requested under the FOIA.  The just sent a second FOIA request to get the info they originally asked.  Sen. Rockefeller’s office out of Fairmont called me last Thursday (I sent a letter and pictures to him in D.C.) and said they wanted to make sure the Governor had responded to me (he did) and that I had  received the answers I had been seeking.   After I found out they had to do a 2nd FOIA request I called them back and left a message, suggesting a phone call from them to James Martin would be helpful.
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“The creek cleaning consisted of the drilling company spraying the rocks and gunk downstream into cachment areas and then being vacuumed up.  My concern was the high orange marks in the sandy soil going up the banks and being imbedded into the soil.  I don’t know if they addressed that or not, they may not have even seen that.  Also they had pulled the used filters out of the creek and had left them on the soil for some time also.  Those were recently picked up though.    I am coming back from Colorado and will be there Wednesday for a week and will spend some time going up and down the creek looking closely.  I guess the lack of rain and low water has hindered the process.  My new beef is that if a drilling company, the ones who produce this toxic waste, will be cleaning up their own mess, they really need to know what they are doing and have a plan in place.  According the report from officer Scranage, per the DEP report I just read, he found that a new crew was on the job the second day and was going about it backwards. If the water is low and there is a lack of rain to help move the water down into cachment areas, they need to be doing something else, rather than waiting for rain.  For the first  2 weeks the creek languished with oil covering the water and smelling acrid. I believe they improperly ‘limed the area’ on our property.  When I questioned the inspectors and also asked James Martin about all the lime put down along the stream banks, changing the ph of the water, he only said ‘there won’t be any more liming’.
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“Thanks again for the support.”
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Louanne Fatora

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Copied with permission from http://sootypaws.livejournal.com/

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Buckeye Creek

In late August the pit holding fracture flowback “water” for natural gas well 47-017-05815 was breached near Sherwood in Doddridge County (the north central part of the state). The pit was constructed within feet of Buckeye Creek (the state has no requirement for a minimum distance between ground or surface water for pits — see our Pits post) so the “water,” at least 2500 gallons, went into the creek.

The red gelled liquid has had a negative effect on wildlife. People were told “it was ‘just oil’ and hadn’t killed any fish and okay to be in” — kids swim and play in the Creek. Already, before the spill, a decline in fish and mussels had been noted by residents and some of the fish had raised nodules on the skin.

Here are some photos:

		Buckeye Creek was a good place to fish for bass and muskie. The contamination is plainly visible from fracture flowback chemicals and formation material (the color may be due to high iron) from a Marcellus well. Gels are created by chemicals which can include diesel fuel or ethylene glycol, neither of which is good to swim in. A similar fracture gel release in Pennsylvania caused a fish kill.
		A high chloride concentration is a feature of fracture flowback but we don’t think chloride killed this muskrat near its den. High chloride will kill fish and other aquatic organisms.
		Two ducks were unable to fly.

Louanne (who furnished these photos and information) has a letter she wrote to Governor Manchin available online. The last I’ve heard, the gunk has been skimmed from the Creek but is lying in piles beside the Creek.

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