From his fishing boat on a rural Jefferson County pond, Mike Poole could see the natural-gas wellhead less than a tenth of a mile away. Poole spent part of his Tuesday afternoon on that boat with a friend and his dog. The well, at that time, was just part of the landscape. By Tuesday evening, though, it had forced him from his home in Bloomingdale, Ohio.

From his fishing boat on a rural Jefferson County pond, Mike Poole could see the natural-gas wellhead less than a tenth of a mile away.

Poole spent part of his Tuesday afternoon on that boat with a friend and his dog. The well, at that time, was just part of the landscape.

By Tuesday evening, though, it had forced him from his home in Bloomingdale, Ohio.

Poole, who lives above the Mingo Sportsmans Club less than a mile from the well, was one of about 400 families to be evacuated after the well ruptured on Tuesday night, spewing natural gas and methane into the air.

Jefferson County's emergency-management officials worried about what those gases could do to people and homes.

Methane can become explosive in small amounts and can cause headaches and dizziness.

Poole didn't have those symptoms, but the blowout left him worried.

"What if I had been out there fishing and this thing had blown up?" he asked. "I'd have been instantly dead."

The well, which had been fracked to provide natural gas, is in Bloomingdale, a small village about 15 miles southwest of Steubenville and 140 miles east of Columbus.

It is run by a subsidiary of American Energy Partners, which was founded by Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.

Jesse Comart, a spokesman for American Energy Partners, said in a statement that the company brought in Boots and Coots, a well emergency-response company owned by Halliburton and based in Texas, to shut down the well and stop the gases from leaking into the air.

"We have begun repair work on the well and are working to determine the cause of the issue," Comart wrote.

Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the department is investigating the cause of the well failure.

She said the company tested air around the well and in nearby neighborhoods for methane and natural gas, and found none.

McCorkle said people were evacuated out of an abundance of caution.

Most residents were allowed to return to their homes by Tuesday night.

Poole spent the night with family in a nearby village. The experience left him worried for his home and for the woods and lakes where he likes to hunt, hike and fish.

"They're telling everybody, 'Oh, this is perfectly, 100 percent safe, it's safe safe safe safe, it's not hurting the water, it's not hurting the air,'??" he said. "Well, why were we evacuated last night?"

He questioned why American Energy Partners hadn't trained emergency responders in Ohio, rather than relying on a team that had to be flown in from Texas.

"What if this happens again?" he said. "Are we in the same boat? We gotta call these people in Houston, have them come up here and fix this?"

Comart said American Energy Partners had no comment about that.

Poole's concerns are shared by environmentalists across the country, and they are part of the reason why hydraulic fracturing - fracking - to tap into shale and extract oil and natural gas has become so contentious.

Oil and gas companies such as American Energy Partners offer jobs in areas where jobs are hard to come by, and pay cash for the right to drill beneath land. But the environmental costs can be high.

In Ohio alone in the past year, residents near fracked wells and injection wells - the wells where fracking waste is dumped - have experienced earthquakes and have been evacuated because of fires. Chemicals have spilled into streams and rivers, in some cases killing fish for miles.

Tuesday's incident was the third in three days tied to fracking operations in eastern Ohio. On Sunday, a worker at a fracking site in Guernsey County was burned in a fire. On Monday, a pipeline carrying natural-gas condensate ruptured in Monroe County, igniting several acres of woods.

"We need a moratorium on drilling in Ohio until the state and the industry can figure out how to prevent these things from happening," said Teresa Mills, an environmental activist and Ohio organizer with the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. "It seems like the more they're drilling, the more accidents and incidents that are occurring. Maybe the state needs to seriously look at the laws and figure out how to prevent these accidents from happening."

Shawn Bennett, senior vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, said in an email that a moratorium is extreme.

"Safety is of the upmost importance to the oil and gas industry," Bennett said. "Having said that, in this industry, just like every other industry, it is about managing risk. That is why Ohio's strong regulations and the industry's best practices make sure we are doing it right in Ohio."

larenschield@dispatch.com

@larenschield