>>ANNOUNCER: Promoting a healthy environment. It's the air we breathe... Clean safe water...
Responsible management of our natural resources... We protect and restore for a
sustainable future -- environmental matters.
>>DAVID SCRANAGE: As far as I know, it's never been done...
>>NARRATION: An abandoned oil well is creating challenges for crews trying to plug 'it. The fact that
it's located in the middle of a residential neighborhood -- well that's
only part of the problem. Plus:
>>JAMES ALLEN: It goes right back on the grid. They will market that
as green electricity...
>>NARRATION: One man's trash is another man's treasure, as the old saying goes...
now one West Virginia landfill is poised to start producing power from garbage
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Hello everybody and welcome to a new season of Environment Matters.
I'm Greg Adolfson. >>KELLEY GILLENWATER: and I'm Kelly Gillenwater. Finding out you have oil under your property
is usually a good thing... >>GREG: But finding it coming up through your floor -- well, not so much...
>>KELLEY: That's the problem in one Wheeling neighborhood where residents of an
apartment building were forced out of their homes. The DEP's Jake Glance joins us now
with the latest...
>>JAKE GLANCE: Kelley and Greg, it actually started when area residents noticed an oily sheen on
the surface of Stack Yard Run which is a tributary of Wheeling Creek that leads to
the Ohio River but that was just the start of the problem
>>NARRATION: Caution tape aside, from the outside it looks like an ordinary apartment building,
but on the inside...
Well, come on in take a look for yourself...
>>DAVID SCRANAGE: It's same principle was any drilling
operation but its smaller scale - just a minature rig...
Very challenging... Everything from thinking out the design, how the rig would have to be set up to operate, how we have
we had to actually manufacture everything...
>>NARRATION: That's right. That's a drilling rig, just
like the big ones on drill sites across the state
only this one is much, much smaller.
>>DAVID SCRANAGE: The landowner said I'll try to accommodate you any way I can.
We said we're going to have to have height to be able to do this
and he said he'd cut a hole in the floor. We build it
off site. He cut a 52 by 52 inch hole in the floor and we carried to the
rig in and erected it inside the actual apartment building.
>>NARRATION: The rig is built out of six inch steel
i-beams with a 30 ton winch and a hydraulic unit for power. Contractors will use a bit like
this one
along with steel and fluid to clean out the wellbore and then seal it with concrete
from bottom to top.
Erecting the rig was only half the problem. First, inspectors had to locate
the source of the oil.
>>DAVE GILBERT: There had been numerous complaints
about the smell and the oil sheen going downstream. The landowner complained that
he had oil in his apartment and you can see it in the outline of the grout
on the tiles.
Which really give us a good hint of where it was actually coming up at but it was a
really hard to find to the start with.
>>NARRATION: and for the well itself, it appears to have
been drilled between 1908 and 1910 and plugged the state standards in April of
1949. The technology of oil and gas operations has changed quite a bit over
the last half-century and current standards for plugging a well are much
different. As for the apartment building itself... it was built in 1964 and it was
>>DAVE GILBERT: it was built in 1964 and it was
actually mentioned in the city - in the building permit - that there was a well there but
at that time, nobody saw an issue with it. And that was just back when things were a little different...
>>JAKE: The DEP's abandoned well plugging and reclamation program typically tackles
eight to 15 leaking abandoned wells every year. The process of drilling out
the old well as started. Crews have also placed booms and absorbent material to
catch the oil leaking into the water and the EPA has set up monitoring equipment
at the site. The project is expected to take about a month to complete. For
Environment Matters, I'm Jake Glance.
>>KELLEY: Thanks, Jake. The US EPA is providing $165,000
in funding for the project.
Residents in the Wetzel County community of Pine Grove were under a temporary "do not use" water order for
several days in February. >>GREG: That's because of a chemical leak at the Markwest
facility in Smithfield. An estimated two hundred and sixty gallons of the
chemical Dowtherm MX heat transfer fluid leaked from a pipe. An unknown
quantity leaked into a small tributary of Fishing Creek. Soon after the leak was
discovered, absorbent booms were placed in the creek to catch and soak up the
chemical. Some of the chemical made it into the intake portion of the Pine
Grove water plant, but none was detected on the distribution side. Bottled water
was trucked in for area residents. About three hundred and sixty homes
were affected.
An investigation into what caused the leak is ongoing. >>KELLEY: The removal of
contaminated soil from the former freedom industry site is now
complete. >>GREG: Contractors are now working to install a clay cap over the affected area.
Roughly 10,000 tons of soil containing traces of chemicals MCHM and PPH
were removed from the site of the 2014 chemical leak that contaminated the
water supply for 300,000 area residents. Soil removal began in December. The
contaminated soil was replaced with clean fill material. Groundwater
monitoring at the site continues while crews work. The project is expected to be
completed later this year. When finished, the site will be able to be reused as an
industrial area. Coming up, a new pilot program to help folks dispose of their unwanted used tires...
>>KELLEY: And it may be a landfill now but in the not too distant future, it could provide
enough electricity to supply a small-town. Those stories and more when Environment Matters continues...