DEP reports no harm from gas pipeline spill

BY STEVE McCONNELL, Times-Shamrock Writer

Another spill was reported Friday at a natural gas pipeline project inSusquehannaCountythat crosses beneath a high-value stream, but environmental regulators and the company said it was contained and did not seep into the environment.

Approximately 600 gallons of drilling mud – a mixture of bentonite clay and water – was brought back to the surface during boring operations beneath Laurel Lake Creek by Laser Northeast Gathering Co., state Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Katherine Gresh and Laser spokeswoman Chris Staffel said.

The “inadvertent return” was held in check by a specially designed containment area, Gresh said, put in place by DEP after previous similar occurrences at the site in July and August.

“DEP has put stringent requirements on Laser,” she said. “We required a contingency plan.”

DEP inspectors were at the site on Friday. The agency contends the drilling mud is nontoxic.

The problem is due to fissures in the rock formation and the region’s topography,  Staffel said, causing the drilling mud to come back to the surface during pipeline boring.

The “measures as designed contained the return,” she said in a statement, ” … with no down- stream water impact.”

The company is building a 30-mile pipeline, dubbed the Susquehanna Gathering System, that will transport natural gas from wells in the area to the Millennium interstate pipeline.

DEP halted construction at the site in August after drilling mud spills on July 29, Aug. 2 and 8.

The company told state environmental regulators an estimated 1,400 gallons of the mud spilled, but most of it was recovered. An unknown amount of it, however, was found in Laurel Lake Creek, which is part of the Silver Creek watershed.

DEP has classified parts of the watershed as having “exceptional value,” home to pristine waterways.