DEP Fines Talisman $51,478 For January 2011 Fracking Spill

• Scott Detrow
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  Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.
  
  Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.
  
  Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

The Department of Environmental Protection has issued a $51,478 fine to Talisman Energy, for a 21,000-gallon fracking fluid spill that occurred a year ago on state-owned property.
According to the DEP investigation, “equipment failure during [fracking] on Jan. 17 [2011] caused about 21,000 gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid and sand to be released for about three hours.”
The incident occurred at a cluster of Talisman-owned wells located in Ward Township, Tioga County. According to StateImpact’s Shale Play app, the company had already incurred 27 violations at the 37 Ward wells, for offenses like discharging “pollutional material” and failure to properly store or discharge drilling waste.
Talisman operates 166 Pennsylvania wells, and has racked up more violations (238) than any other driller.
Read the full DEP release on the fine after the jump.

WILLIAMSPORT — The Department of Environmental Protection has fined Talisman Energy USA Inc. of Warrendale, Butler County, $51,478 for a January 2011 gas well control incident at the company’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources 587 #8 well pad in Ward Township, Tioga County.
“Equipment failure during fracing on Jan. 17 caused about 21,000 gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid and sand to be released for about three hours,” DEP North-central Regional Director Nels Taber said. “Fortunately, Talisman responded quickly and most of the release did not escape secondary containment.”
The fluid discharged from the head of the well under high pressure, tearing the well pad’s secondary containment liner for several yards. Vacuum trucks recovered the fluid on the well pad. No streams, wetlands or private drinking water wells were impacted by the spill.
A department inspection conducted Jan. 25 confirmed that Talisman staff had repaired the damaged liner, replaced the failed equipment and removed contaminated soil beneath the liner.
An investigation by DEP’s Oil and Gas Program and Talisman staff determined that the cause of the incident was a needle valve that had failed and could not be shut off. To regain control of the well, the hydraulic valve above the master valve was remotely closed and fluid was allowed to flow back through the production test separator. A new pipe connector called a hammer union was also installed and closed.

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