Investigation: Ohio's Natural Gas Boom Has Hidden Danger

Couple Narrowly Escapes Explosion

POSTED: 1:24 pm EDT April 29, 2008
UPDATED: 7:03 pm EDT May 2, 2008

BAINBRIDGE TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- A blue tarp draped over a cracked foundation of a yellow ranch house in Bainbridge Township is about the only clear sign you can see from English Drive that a massive natural gas explosion ripped through the home, NewsChannel5 chief investigator Duane Pohlman reported.
An elderly couple, Rick and Thelma Payne, were asleep in the early-morning hours in December when they were shaken out of their bed.
"The bed went up and came down and crashed," Thelma explained.
Rick recalled the terror, thrashing his arms back and forth, of how he awakened to see his house moving. "The place is shaking violently," Rick said. "All this stuff is falling ... glass is breaking."
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Inside the Paynes' home, walls are cracked and crumbling, doors that were blown away in the explosion, now lie on the ground dozens of feet from where they were once secured, and the home now leans off of its foundation.
"The home literally lifted up and crashed back down." Thelma said.
A book that once rested on a shelf in the basement remains trapped in the foundation as testament to the speed and force of that explosive moment.
Thelma remembers the fear. "It was terrifying that night and it's been terrifying ever since."
The terror was traced to a natural-gas well located just down the road from the Payne's home.
It's now a producing well, but in December a rig was drilling to find the natural gas thousands of feet below the surface of this quiet neighborhood, Pohlman reported.
An investigation by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) found the drilling punctured the rock and allowed natural gas to seep into the aquifer that homes in the neighborhood tap for their water supply. The gas made its way to the Paynes' well in the basement. It only needed a spark and the furnace probably supplied it, Pohlman reported.
The Paynes' home is a total loss. They now live in a townhome a couple of miles away from the house they called home for more than 50 years.
Dozens of their neighbors were affected, too. Many of them are forced to drink their water from large plastic containers delivered daily since the explosion.
Crews are working to clean up the wells contaminated by the fractured aquifer. And until all the gas is vented, cleanup crews said there's still a threat of igniting another explosion.
The explosion did trigger the state to tighten regulations governing gas-well drilling throughout the state. For example, companies that drill into the brittle sandstone below must follow strict guidelines to seal the wells, Pohlman reported.
But ODNR's new regulations did little to stem the surge of new gas wells being drilled in Ohio, a state already riddled with tens of thousands of active natural gas wells. ODNR's 2006 count of those wells totaled more than 35,000, but preliminary data reveals hundreds of new wells being drilled each year. On average, three new wells are drilled every day in the Buckeye state.
In northeast Ohio, new gas wells now dot the landscape, from cemeteries to medians to parking lots of shopping plazas. But the wells being drilled in area neighborhoods is triggering the most concern, Pohlman reported.
While ODNR changed the way gas wells are drilled, it did little to address concerns about where the wells are located. Under the current guidelines, natural-gas wells can be drilled as close as 100 feet from an occupied home or apartment.
NewsChannel5 witnessed gas shooting fire from a pipe rig at a drilling site in the center of an apartment complex in Mentor.
The threat is frightening to everyone from local fire chiefs to members of a new group formed to fight the intrusion of gas wells.
Gates Mills Fire Chief Tom Robinson has documented dozens of leaks at the 42 wells that now dot the landscape of the well-to-do village, including the well near the village hall.
The well sprung a leak the day before Pohlman's interview and again just hours later. The second time, the gas escaping was substantial enough to warrant shutting down the well, Pohlman reported.
"You can't have these flammable gases and toxic gases and not think sooner or later it's going to ignite," Robinson said.
Gates Mills and other communities used to ban gas-well drilling. But that ban lifted in 2004, when lawmakers in Columbus passed into law House Bill 278.
The new law wiped out local control, opening the door for a surge in gas-well drilling across northeast Ohio. It handed over full control of drilling to ODNR.
ODNR Director Sean Logan is clear about ODNR's oversight.
"We take safety as our top concern," Logan said.
But members of a newly formed group, Northeast Ohio Gas Accountability Project (NEOGAP), said it believes that ODNR is as committed as the director claims.
When NewsChannel5 assembled a group from NEOGAP at the WEWS studios, not one person raised his or her hand when Pohlman asked if anyone believes that safety is a top concern at ODNR.
As one member put it, "There are too many dangers and hazards and there's too many things we don't know about."
There are reasons for the concern, Pohlman reported. His investigation discovered ODNR has the equivalent of 19 full-time gas well inspectors for the entire state. And most of the inspections are devoted to the drilling phase, with little emphasis on the tens of thousands of active wells.
And Pohlman uncovered questions about a crucial board called the Technical Advisory Council, which was formed by the state Legislature to review appeals about gas wells.
TAC holds hearings in Columbus where citizens, often opposed to wells being drilled near their homes, try to convince members to stop a drilling operation.
But many people question the fairness of the council's makeup.
Of the eight TAC members, six of them are directly tied to the gas and oil-drilling industry. Logan said TAC only makes recommendations and that the real decisions are made by professional staff at ODNR. Still, the makeup of TAC continues to concern many people who believe too much of the control over drilling has been handed over to the industry itself.
In Bainbridge Township, the danger caused by drilling for natural gas triggered an explosion that is still sending shockwaves.
Rick and Thelma Payne said they were lucky to get out alive, but unless more is done to protect those who live near the rigs and the tanks, Rick and Thelma Payne said, another family in another home might face a blast that is more catastrophic.
"I don't think anyone else will get that lucky," Rick said.