Inspectors with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) found methane gas in three residential water wells and two streams in Bradford County. DEP has launched an investigation to determine the source.

DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday told NGI’s Shale Daily the agency was notified about methane leaks in Leroy Township on May 19. He said inspectors arrived on-site over that weekend and have been working on the investigation since.

“We had seen methane in the head space of three water wells in the township,” Sunday said Friday. “All of those wells are now being vented, and there are methane monitoring alarm systems installed in the homes.”

Sunday said the DEP and Chesapeake Energy Corp. also found methane in a wetland and two small tributaries of Towanda Creek. Chesapeake has two wells on its Morse well pad, which are about one-half mile away from the incident area.

According to Sunday, Chesapeake installed the methane alarms and is providing water to all three residences. Meanwhile, the DEP began taking isotopic samples from Chesapeake’s wells on Tuesday to determine if the methane had in fact migrated from the company’s two wells.

Sunday said the wells had been drilled, constructed and hydraulically fractured but were not currently in production.

A spokesman for Chesapeake could not be reached for comment Friday.