Colorado Confirms 2nd Gas Leak Was Found Near Deadly Blast Site

A second underground leak has been found in the same Colorado neighborhood where a house explosion in April killed two men and badly injured a woman.

It’s what the head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission told a neighborhood group, explaining that the underground gas plume was discovered in Firestone. News of the second leak comes as the industry is carrying out its first-ever inventory of the same kind of pipeline that was involved in both leaks. The inventory will help the State Commission determine if there are other pipeline leaks in adjacent neighborhoods.

The explosion occurred in Firestone’s Oak Meadows subdivision which exists on the edge of the natural gas field developed in the 1980s and ’90s. An investigation revealed a one-inch plastic pipeline known as a flow line had been cut off near the foundation of one of the homes. It was left uncapped and still connected to a gas well.

Gas escaped into the soil and into the basement of the nearest home that eventually exploded, killing Mark Martinez and his brother-in-law Joey Irwin.

Gas from the well escaped through the severed pipeline into the soil and then into the basement of the nearest home. The explosion killed Mark Martinez and his brother-in-law, Joey Irwin, and severely injured Martinez’s wife, Erin.

Anadarko Petroleum owned the line and the well and found the second leak about two weeks after the explosion. The company said it is permanently closing three wells in the neighborhood.