This leak was near our home in Briley Township last November 30. It ran
for at least 24 hours before we reported it. A friend of ours saw it the
day before and thought it was a plastic bag blowing around a stick from
the distance. The DEQ claims it is cleaned up but their report shows
they only dug about 4 feet deep at the site of the leak and scraped the
surface off for the 200 feet along the pipeline to the well. They hauled
away about 80 cubic yards of soil. The line is over 2 miles and took
several hours to shut off all the wells, during which time they were
pushing brine out the leak. Each mile of 4 inch pipe is about 17 cubic
yards of brine. There is no way they got it all. The sand at the site
has a permeability rate of greater than 20 inches an hour. In 24 hours
the brine would go downward more than 40 feet. The water table is at 70
feet. At the gradient of the surface of the water table from the leak to
our to our water well it will take between 15 to 20 years for our well
to be contaminated. Who's going to be around then to remember where the
salty water came from?

The DEQ says they are basing their clean-up on good science. The spill
report doesn't give the quantity spilled, it's chemical content, the gas
company can't tell there is a leak in one of their lines. They only
check twice a month. This isn't science, it's witchcraft.

I'd like to see controls on the industry that will protect the
environment from timebombs like these spills, buried lined pits, open
water wells (there is one down the road from us that we call in from
time to time that has been open for three years).

Noise and traffic is also a major problem for us as we used to sit
outside in the evening and listen to birds, owls, coyotes, and the wind.
Now we hear an engine running, gas blowing out a vent, squeeking
pumpjacks and two way radios blaring out truck speakers. Will it end?

Tom Williams, Atlanta