Morning Call: Shale gas not source of tap water fire

Natural gas that caught fire after it bubbled from a faucet in a Portage County, Ohio, house did not come from a nearby shale well, state officials have concluded.

Debby Kline told state officials that a flare erupted from the tap last year when she lit a candle near her bathroom sink. She and her husband, Jason, called state oil and gas regulators, fearing that a nearby well drilled into the Utica shale was to blame.

An investigation by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources recently concluded that the gas in the Klines' water well was chemically different from the gas produced by a Mountaineer Keystone oil and gas well 1,500 feet southeast of the house.

An Oct. 18 agency report said methane in the Klines' well matched the methane found in natural gas that leaks from shallow underground sources into groundwater.

"Up to 40 percent of the water wells within the area of the [shale] drilling have some concentration of methane in them," said Mark Bruce, a Department of Natural Resources spokesman. "Methane is naturally occurring."  MORE