During the time of the mass release in December, the day that this was brought to the attention of WVDEP, after a very brief and short tour in my side by side with a DEP employee, I was made aware that it was h2s that has been releasing the odor instead of natural gas. I received a text message from said DEP employee that stated that the h2s was causing the issues. When this employee realized that it was h2s gas on the side by side tour. There was immediate panic to leave the area and get away from the gas. Seeing the reaction and the panic only caused my fear and panic to increase.
For anybody who has watched the news clip there is a brief video from that night when I went up to inspect the well because of a rotten egg smell. When I got about 200 yards from the well, there was a loud click and a massive pressure release from the well, as you can hear in the video. I immediately sent the video to the DEP employee that showed great concern about the h2s gas odor. As you can see stated, they ordered Diversified to close the well immediately until they could identify the issue. That evening I contacted the local news and operations of emergency management. They both arrived at my home and one person immediately experienced numbness of feet and lightheadedness while being at my home. Another employee of an agency had their spouse with them and as soon as they turned into Crouch Hollow they stated they were experiencing slight irritation in the throat, dizziness, and lightheadedness.
I don't understand how emergency management could say everything is safe and leave civilians in the area, when they experienced symptoms and left the area very quickly. The same evening after the pressure release everyone in the area started experiencing symptoms, even the animals who were foaming at the mouth and seizing. I feel with our operations of emergency management and local news experiencing symptoms, DEP is making assumptions that we were under exposure of h2s, we should have been evacuated until we could figure out the exact issue.
Diversified states there is an issue with well but was unable to repair because of lack of parts. During the time frame large amounts of foam were identified in the creek. For what its worth, my integrity was crushed in front of my neighbors when I was told to shut my mouth when I was explaining the severity of the situation because I do not have a degree in chemistry by authorities briefing my neighbors on the situation.