CounterSpill

4/22/10 UPDATE: According to AP, the flow of fracking fluid has been stopped. However, officials have not announced a cause for the disaster.

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Although officials maintain that Pennsylvania's latest natural gas blowout will have "no adverse effects", the disaster has prompted the Chesapeake Energy Corp. to suspend gas drilling across the state.

On Wednesday, the energy company's gas well in Bradford County lost control, spewing thousands of gallons of fracking fluid into the environment over the course of 12 hours. Some of the waste water spilled by the disaster reached the Towanda Creek, which empties into the Susquehanna River -- a water source for many local communities.

As of Thursday, the company declared the well "stable but not killed," and still has no idea what caused the disaster.

Still, Chesapeake maintains that the incident will have "minimal impact, if any." According to a statement reported by the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, the company says that field testers have come back with optimistic results.

"Both the Bradford County EMA and Chesapeake have performed gas-plume modeling in expectation of this potential progression and have come to the same conclusion that any natural-gas releases will not pose a risk to the area's public safety."

Brian Grove, spokesman for Chesapeake Energy Corp., told WBNG that there was no threat to the environment.

"It's had very limited impact...There's been no negative effects to aquatic life or anything like that," he said.

WNEP also reports that there currently is no threat to the local water supply. Samokin Dam Borough manager says that the Department of Environmental Protection told their facility to "sit tight and really don't worry about it right now."

WATCH:

Some in the local community are not as optimistic. Christine Pepper, a dairy farmer who lives 3 miles from the well, told Reuters that she doesn't agree with the recent expansion of hydraulic fracturing.

"I was crying when I heard about [the blowout]. …They're taking the county and taking our livelihoods."

Ted Tomlinson, whose family was one of seven families evacuated from the area around the disaster, told WNEP that his well was being tested for contamination and he was worried.

"The biggest thing is the footprint on the environment," he said. "Well, obviously this is a big footprint."

This unease is also reflected in the statewide response to the disaster, as all of the energy company's wells have temporally stopped operations in Pennsylvania.

"We have put all well completion operations on hold. Hydraulic fracturing is completely within that process," said company spokesman Rory Sweeney. It is unknown when fracking will resume.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe directly contradicted the value of the measure, announcing that the Pennsylvania spill "has nothing to do with hydraulic fracturing." He told Fox News:

"[There's] never been one case — documented case — of groundwater contamination in the history of the thousands and thousands of hydraulic fracturing."