Work completed to plug abandoned Canton well
The Department of Environmental Protection completed emergency plugging work last week at an abandoned gas well in Canton Township after it was discovered to be leaking natural gas.
DEP spokeswoman Lauren Fraley said work to plug the John Barron 1-A well began in mid-February and was completed Friday. The agency paid the costs of the work, estimated to be $130,000, from the abandoned well plugging fund.
The site of the Barron well is on Best Avenue in the Town & Country mobile home park. According to DEP, Penn Energy Inc. drilled the 5,500-foot-deep conventional gas well in 1981 and likely abandoned it when it was deemed no longer commercially viable.
Range Resources, whose Miller Estates Unit is about 1 1/4 miles from the site, located the well as part of pre-fracking activities in the area.
The company installed an initial vent at the wellhead after finding the leak in order to control gas concentrations in the soil and notified DEP, Fraley said. The agency found natural gas venting from the well head and in the soil in the 40 to 50 feet surrounding the site. An informational meeting for local residents was held early last month at Trinity North Elementary School, ahead of plugging work starting.
“A limited number of residents within 100 feet of the well were relocated while work was occurring,” Fraley said in an email.
Work required clearing the area immediately around the site. A neighbor said a house on the property on which the well was located was moved elsewhere in the mobile home park.
“Range coordinated with the department and supported their efforts to plug the well abandoned by another operator and accommodate those living nearby during the plugging operation,” company spokesman Mark Windle said in an email. “Range has development plans in the area and as those continue, we will continue to work with the local community to minimize any inconveniences related to those operations.”