Aquifer Gas Leak Issues

Residents discussed the gas leak ramifications and possible solutions in a public meeting yesterday night. From today's News-Gazette:

Water issue 'getting worse'
...
At the meeting, officials with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Oil and Gas Resource Management outlined their efforts on the issue, including 3-D modeling by the IEPA of below-ground areas. That will help determine where the remaining leaked gas might be trapped, so relief wells can be installed to "flare off" the gas.

And Mike Mankowski, director of the state's Oil and Gas Resource Management office, outlined new federal rules regulating underground natural gas storage, prompted by other leaks across the U.S.

But he emphasized that Illinois needs its own more stringent regulations, ones that would allow more monitoring of the state's 1,186 underground gas storage wells, bring tougher enforcement measures, lead to more personnel inspecting oil and gas wells, and provide more funding to make it all happen...

The task force of mostly local and state government officials, as well as experts from water-related organizations and agencies, is in the early stages of delivering groundwater protection recommendations to the state by year's end. But on Monday, members focused most of the meeting on the Peoples Gas situation, which began to unfold in late 2016 when some residents in the Mahomet area began noticing issues with their well water.

More on the leak and legal ramifications at the full article here. More on the Mahomet Aquifer Task force at their website.