According to a report in the Breckenridge American last month, the investigation began earlier this year after the landowner, Jay Marcom, detected a large bare spot after planting a crop. Marcom said “yellowish liquid” began to ooze out of the ground.
Commission spokesperson Ramona Nye said low levels of benzene were detected during the initial investigation and that the levels were not high enough to be a risk through direct contact by humans or livestock.
However, Dennis Yavorsky, a chemist who has been working with analytical chemical instruments who works for PID Analyzers in Ohio, tested a soil sample taken from the site in September and found there were 4,000 to 5,000 times the legal limit of benzene in the sample.
“It would be nearly impossible not to smell it,” Yavorsky told the American. “You have soil that is essentially saturated with benzene.”
1 comment:
Dang, Steve, that sounds like the 2nd fire at a gas well today....
Check It Here
Fire erupted west of Cresson this morning when lightning from fierce thunderstorms struck two storage tanks at a gas well site, according to reports.
Meanwhile, a strong line of thunderstorms pushed into East Texas by 11:45 a.m., leaving about 20,000 customers without electric power.
The fire was reported at 6:45 a.m. in an isolated area in the 12000 block of Texas 171, west of Cresson, said Johnny Collins, spokesman for the Cresson Volunteer Fire Department.
One worker was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, but no other information about the worker was available, Collins said.
Firefighters planned to let the fire burn itself out, and no buildings or other property were in danger, Collins said.
"We’re letting them burn," he added, "so we can put foam on the tanks."
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