DEP examining 'pinhole leak' in gas line as part of Rustic Ridge house explosion probe

Officials with the state Department of Environmental Protection gave an update Monday on the agency’s investigation in Plum’s Rustic Ridge neighborhood following a fatal house explosion Aug. 12.

It came a week after Gov. Josh Shapiro directed the agency to start a stray gas investigation.

DEP Secretary Rich Negrin dispatched agency employees with handheld meters to detect and measure combustible gas in the soil near the explosion site at 141 Rustic Ridge Drive and natural gas-related facilities and infrastructure under the DEP’s jurisdiction.

DEP officials said Penneco reported to the agency a pinhole-sized leak in a 4-inch gas gathering line located 300 to 350 feet behind the houses near the tree line. The gathering line, which collects gas from dozens of wells and conveys it to a point of sale, has been shut off.

Penneco CEO Ben Wallace said the company identified the leak while checking its lines after the blast.

The DEP is looking into where gas from the leak was going, such as if it was going into the air or traveling through the ground, and whether it played any part in the explosion.

In a statement, the DEP said inspectors have examined the closest oil and gas well sites near Rustic Ridge, are in the process of inspecting abandoned and historical wells and associated pipelines and will continue to search for unregistered oil and gas wells in the area.

Kurt Klapkowski, acting deputy secretary for the DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas Management, said the agency had inspected seven conventional oil and gas wells within 2,500 feet of the site and an unconventional gas well that is 1¹⁄₂ miles away, the closest to the site. They also were looking at gathering lines, the infrastructure that moves gas from the well sites into the transmission and distribution system.

Soil gas readings were being taken from many locations around Rustic Ridge Drive and back into the woods where some of the pipelines are located, said Dan Counahan, the DEP’s southwest district oil and gas manager. He said they also are looking for abandoned wells that may have been drilled a century or so ago that nobody knows about.

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Counahan said 10 wells that were inspected were all in compliance.

“It’s an in-depth investigation, and it does take some time,” he said.

The DEP said it has examined abandoned and active mining in the area. It has assessed the coal seam in Plum and says it found no nearby shafts or drill/bore holes in the area of the incident, “and determined the likelihood of an abandoned mine-related gas issue to be very low,” the statement says.

Two DEP projects to extinguish the nearby Renton abandoned mine fire successfully ended in October 2021.

“Abandoned mine features are not currently part of DEP’s investigation,” the agency said.

Negrin said the DEP wants to get methane detectors into each of the homes in the Rustic Ridge neighborhood. Officials are working on how to make that happen.

“We want to make sure that there’s some peace of mind and some healing in this community, so we’re asking for folks to step up and provide those methane detectors to all 227 of the folks in the association so that we can help to get this community healing,” he said. “We want to make sure that these folks get this stuff cost-free.”