Workers at a natural gas well owned and operated by Chesapeake Energy try to stem the flow of toxic fracking fluid after a blowout sent tens of thousands of gallons of the stuff coursing over fertile Pennsylvania farmland and into a nearby creek. Documents obtaind by NaturalGasWatch.org reveal the specific contents of the fluid and show exactly how it was used to extract natural gas from rock formations more than two miles below the surface of the Earth.

Chesapeake Energy pumped more than 1.4 million gallons of fluid to a depth of more than 2 miles at a natural gas well in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, before a blowout sent tens of thousands of gallons of the toxic liquid coursing over fertile farmland and into a nearby creek, according to documents obtained by NaturalGasWatch.org.

The documents, obtained by NaturalGasWatch.org from the federal Environmental Protection Agency under a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request, show that the fluid Chesapeake used in operations at the well contained more than two dozen chemicals, including methanol, glutaraldehyde, formaldehyde, 2-butoxyethanol and hydrocloric acid. They also specify the amounts used and detail the role each substance played in the hydraulic fracturing process.

In addition, a schematic diagram of the the Chesapeake well shows how deep into the earth the fluids were injected and how much natural gas was recovered at each depth, as well as the materials used to construct the well and its casings.

Chesapeake tried to block the documents’ release, claiming that both were protected from release under the FOIA rules because they constituted proprietary and confidential business information. Both documents are marked “confidential.”

Both documents can be viewed in their entirety by clicking on the links below.

Chesapeake_well_schematic

Chesapeake_frackingfluid_disclosure