Business, Government Legal News from throughout WVChesapeake ordered to stop work at Marshall County well site

Updated at 4:30 p.m. with comments from the Department of Environmental Protection

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection ordered Chesapeake Appalachia on Dec. 7 to stop work at its Ray Baker well pad in Marshall County until the dangerously slipping well pad has been stabilized and adjacent areas reclaimed.

The agency issued two Notices of Violation on Dec. 5 for "imminent danger" from slips that had occurred at the pad and for polluting a nearby stream.

Residents had complained of slippage at the wellpad, according to a Dec. 2 report in The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register, and the company had flagmen stationed on Valley Run Road below the wellpad "around the clock."

Chesapeake Corporate Development Director Stacey Brodak said the company had stopped work at the wellpad before the Notices of Violation and was working to remove mud and debris from several slips, according to The Intelligencer.

Citations for pollution and danger extend back to February.

DEP's Office of Oil and Gas ordered Chesapeake to file a stabilization plan by Dec. 14 that gives a timeline for removal of sediment and debris from the road and stream, reclamation of affected areas, slope stabilization and appropriate erosion and sediment control. The department was not able to provide a copy of the stabilization plan in time for this story.

But DEP expects reclamation to take at least 10 months, according to spokeswoman Kathy Cosco.

"There are a number of issues with this site," Cosco said. 

"In fairness to the company, it's been a very wet year, and the state is experiencing slips in places where there isn't even any industrial activity," she said. But "It is the largest scale of slip that we've had to deal with ever."

Among emergency rules DEP established over the summer for regulating activity in the Marcellus shale is a requirement that site work be certified by engineers.

The Baker wellpad was created before those rules were established and its design was not engineer-certified, Cosco said.

"It's circumstances like these that led to having an engineer-certified site be a requirement in the emergency rule," she said. Because" of these new requirements, we expect that situations like these should be diminished in the future."

In the Dec. 7 order, Chesapeake is required to secure its well heads on the Baker pad and install protective cages around them and to update the department weekly on its progress toward reclamation and site stabilization.

Chesapeake did not respond to an invitation to comment in time for this story.