Please bow your head in a moment of silence for the 70,000 fallen. Who? More like what. In June 2014 crews were working to frack a Utica Shale well at a Statoil drill pad in Monroe County, OH when hydraulic tubing (not to be confused with fracking) from some of the equipment caught fire. The fire quickly spread to 20 trucks lined up at the pad, burning the trucks (some of them exploding) and creating thick, black smoke that billowed for hours (see Statoil Frack Trucks Catch Fire in Monroe County, OH). Unfortunately fluids from the well pad escaped containment and made their way to a local creek and killed some fish, crayfish, frogs and other aquatic critters. Hence the moment of silence for the fallen. Statoil paid for the accident, to the tune of $223,000 (see Statoil Fined $223K for 2014 Monroe County, OH Well Pad Fire). The Ohio EPA fined Statoil $41,000 for the roughly 70,000 fish and other critters that died after chemicals ran off the well pad and into a nearby creek, and about $132,000 for contaminating the water. Except that wasn’t the end. Now comes word that Statoil has agreed to give Monroe County Firefighters Association $100,000 to compensate emergency responders for their work during the event. This is the accident that just keeps on giving–giving Statoil’s money to other people…
