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FakeNoose

(35,898 posts)
Tue Mar 7, 2023, 02:35 PM Mar 2023

Jackson Township, Cambria County community in shock after record methane leak

Original headline:
‘We don’t feel safe’: US community in shock after record methane leak

(Link) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/06/us-methane-gas-leak-fracking-jackson-township-pennsylvania

A billion cubic feet of the potent greenhouse gas were spewed into atmosphere in rural Pennsylvania amid state’s fracking boom

It was an ordinary autumn afternoon pottering around the back yard for Doug Harrison when an engine-like roar suddenly drowned out the sound of the leaf blower.

“It sounded like two jets were directly above my house,” said Harrison, 50, a former steelworker from Jackson Township, a rural community in Pennsylvania. “I swear to God I thought this is it, those jets are going to crash into my property.”

Residents for miles around exchanged frantic messages while scouring flight radar and emergency service scanner apps for clues, as the township’s volunteer firefighters sped past, sirens blazing. But this was no terrorist attack or aviation calamity. The deafening noise and the foul smell of rotten eggs that followed was a massive methane leak at a nearby gas storage facility, an unfolding climate catastrophe captured by satellites in space.

Over the next few weeks, more than a billion cubic feet of methane and other toxins were spewed into the atmosphere from a failed storage well at an ageing fossil-fuel facility operated by Equitrans Midstream Corporation on Rager Mountain.




- more at link -

This happened in early November, and we're just hearing about it NOW?!



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Jackson Township, Cambria County community in shock after record methane leak (Original Post) FakeNoose Mar 2023 OP
Not just this particular leak, but... hippywife Mar 2023 #1
Pennsylvania has been extremely lax with these gas companies FakeNoose Mar 2023 #2
It's a long, but well reported article. hippywife Mar 2023 #3
👍 Thanks for keeping abreast of this subject FakeNoose Mar 2023 #4
That's part of the issue. hippywife Mar 2023 #5

hippywife

(22,767 posts)
1. Not just this particular leak, but...
Tue Mar 7, 2023, 04:47 PM
Mar 2023

Last edited Tue Mar 7, 2023, 05:28 PM - Edit history (1)

our whole future is endangered.

Separate data obtained by the Guardian’s methane investigation revealed more than 50 “methane bombs” – fossil-fuel extraction sites where gas leaks alone from future production would release levels of methane equivalent to 30 years of all US greenhouse gas emissions.



The Pennsylvania climate disaster was among more than 1,000 super-emitter incidents in 2022 revealed by the Guardian’s investigation into global methane leaks. Satellites captured 154 mega-leaks in the US, with Turkmenistan, Russia, Algeria, China, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Iran and Iraq among the world’s other worst emitters.


Old and poorly maintained infrastructure is prone to leaks, but most methane is discharged during normal operations at every stage from extraction to transmission and is systematically undetected and underreported.

For as modern and civilized as so many people like to boast this country is, we can't even seem be tasked to keep existing infrastructure of any kind maintained. And governments have to be involved in hiding this from people, else we'd have heard about the other 999 recorded leaks.

Sometimes I think, as a species, humans are entirely too greedy, stupid and lazy to survive very much longer.

FakeNoose

(35,898 posts)
2. Pennsylvania has been extremely lax with these gas companies
Tue Mar 7, 2023, 05:31 PM
Mar 2023

We're not the only state that puts $$ and jobs ahead of safety and environment, but we set the precedent for other states to follow suit. It makes me sick to think about it.

hippywife

(22,767 posts)
3. It's a long, but well reported article.
Tue Mar 7, 2023, 05:38 PM
Mar 2023

Apparently there was an even bigger leak near San Antonio last March: 147 tonnes/hr compared to this on in PA at 120 tonnes/hr. Anyone not living in the immediate area hear about that one?

FakeNoose

(35,898 posts)
4. 👍 Thanks for keeping abreast of this subject
Tue Mar 7, 2023, 05:43 PM
Mar 2023

It seems nobody is punishing the violators. Meanwhile, they are literally killing our atmosphere with these blowouts.
It's not going to matter how many of us install solar panels or windmills. These gas companies are undoing everything.

hippywife

(22,767 posts)
5. That's part of the issue.
Tue Mar 7, 2023, 06:35 PM
Mar 2023

I haven't been keeping abreast. I didn't know any of this before today and everything I posted was from the one article in the OP. How many of us actually knew any of this?

I agree, though, that it matters little what we do as long as they keep operating as they do. Sometimes I almost want to give up recycling, especially since it's not always clear where all of it goes, but I keep hoping there are enough of us doing it to move the needle even a little. There was just an article in the local news that the people of the good sized city I live outside of does very little recycling even though it's a mostly blue city in a very red state and there are multiple very robust programs available to make it easy.

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