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Fiery Faucets Now A Concern In 8 Ft. Lupton Homes

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Mar 25, 2009 8:01 am US/Mountain

Fiery Faucets Now A Concern In 8 Ft. Lupton Homes

Reporting
Shaun Boyd
FORT LUPTON, Colo. (CBS4) ― It appeared to initially be an isolated incident in Fort Lupton, but now more reports are surfacing about water in homes being flammable.

Jesse and Amee Ellsworth said last week they have so much natural gas in their water that they can light it on fire. The gas has apparently been leaking into their water well from a nearby gas well for the last six months. They say the gas companies are working on a well water treatment system, possibly for the entire community, but that any solution will take time.

Seven more homeowners in the area have since come forward with the same problem but with possibly a different cause.

Included in that group is Kourisa Williamson, who initially thought there was just something wrong with the plumbing in her new home.

Williamson discovered the problem was natural gas over the weekend after seeing the reports on the news. She put a lighter up to one of her faucets and flames filled the sink as soon as the water came out.

"I thought 'Omigosh, that's exactly what our faucets do,' so last night I put a lighter to it and it lit right up. My mind was blown. I was like, 'That's crazy. Not us. Not our home -- our brand new home,'" she said.

Williamson's husband's machine shop has welders and torches just a few feet from their water well. She told CBS4 she's concerned about the explosive possibilities.

Because of the new reports, the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission is now offering to test homeowners' water free of charge.

The comission says it is unlikey the eight cases in Fort Lupton are related. The homes are miles apart and some of them may be the result of underground coal which releases methane gas.

Test results could take months.

It's not the first time natural gas has seeped into a water supply. The commission says there are about 38,000 active wells in Colorado and there have been a couple dozen other instances of natural gas leaking into a homeowner's water over the last 10 years.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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