Officials said thousands of gallons of fluid leaked over farm land and into a creek from a natural gas well in Bradford County.
Now there is a massive operation underway to contain the spill of drilling fluids.
The rupture near Canton happened late Tuesday night, contaminating nearby land and creeks.
The blowout happened on the Morse family farm in LeRoy Township outside Canton, a farming community.
Chesapeake Energy officials said a piece of equipment on the well failed.
Now a major response is underway to stop the leak of frack fluid and get control of the well.
Water is gushing from the earth at the Chesapeake well pad. It has been all hands on deck to put a stop to the leak of fracking fluid that, according to company officials, spilled thousands and thousands of gallons into nearby land and waterways.
"We've been able to limit the flow. We're still doing additional work to regain full control," said Brian Grove of Chesapeake Energy. He added there is no telling yet how much of that extremely salty water mixed with chemicals and sand has impacted the nearby Towanda Creek, but no gas has escaped into the air.
"The biggest thing is the footprint on the environment. Well obviously this is a big footprint," said neighbor Ted Tomlinson. "It's one of those things that happens. Gotta live with it, I guess. Here to stay."
Neighbors like him were asked to leave their homes as a precaution. Some did, and some did not. "Our family's been on this corner a long time and expect to stay and expect a good-faith effort from Chesapeake so that we can live here," Tomlinson added.
His concern is for his drinking water well just several football fields away from the blownout gas well.
"That's typically everyone's concern in the area, is well water," Tomlinson added. We don't want all that other stuff. We want to keep on drinking it."
"It's just one of those things," said farm owner Randy Morse. He leased his property to Chesapeake. His beef cattle will no longer be able to drink from the brook that has been contaminated. Morse is broken up over the whole thing, hoping others don't blame him. "As it looks right now, all the water that ran into that tributary did run into the creek , without adverse affects right now," Morse said.
What exactly is in that stuff that's making these folks lives hell right now? Who knows?
It's absolutely insane that New York is even considering allowing this to happen. Sheer madness.
