Features Contamination Water Issues
Study finds methane in Pennsylvania wells

May 28, 2013, Westerville, OH – Methane concentrations in Susquehanna County, Pa. water wells can be explained without the migration of Marcellus shale gas due to hydraulic fracturing, according to a study.

“Testing of 1,701 water wells in northeastern Pennsylvania shows that methane is ubiquitous in groundwater, with higher concentrations observed in valleys vs. upland areas and in association with calcium-sodium-bicarbonate, and sodium chloride rich waters,” the Groundwater article states, with authors from Houston, Texas-based GSI Environmental Inc. and Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pa.

It goes on to say that “on a regional scale, methane concentrations are best correlated to topographic and hydrogeologic features, rather than shale-gas extraction.”

The study’s assessment of isotopic and molecular analyses of hydrocarbon gases in Dimrock Township suggests that gases present in local water wells are most consistent with Middle and Upper Devonian gases sampled in the annular spaces of local gas wells, as opposed to Marcellus production gases.