U.S. community in shock after record methane leak: The Guardian

LONDON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Following the biggest methane leak in Pennsylvania's history -- and one of the worst ever detected in the United States, the local community has been living in shock and fear, The Guardian has reported.

Over the few weeks after the leak happened in November last year, more than a billion cubic feet of methane and other toxins were spewed into the atmosphere from a failed storage well at an ageing fossil-fuel facility run by Equitrans Midstream Corporation on Rager Mountain in Jackson Township, it said on Monday.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that warms the Earth's atmosphere much faster than carbon dioxide (CO2), and today is responsible for about 25 percent of the heat trapped by all greenhouse gases, it said.

According to some calculations, the Jackson Township leak was equivalent to planet-warming emissions from burning more than 1,080 rail cars of coal or from running 360,000 cars for a year, it said.

The Guardian said the relentless racket and stench caused the local people to suffer severe headaches, lightheadedness, sore throat, burning nose, nausea and sleep deprivation as the company struggled to plug the leak.

"We have major gas infrastructure built out all over the place but don't have the powers or resources to regulate everything that's going on; this is the wild west. It was just a matter of time before something like the huge Rager Mountain leak happened, and it's just a matter of time before the next big one," The Guardian quoted David Hess, former head of the state's department of environmental protection, as saying.