PA levies major fine on Range Resources f/ fouling water

[Panich52]

Pennsylvania officials are levying an $8.9 million fine against Range Resources for natural gas well that polluted groundwater and a stream, the highest fine the state has ever charged a gas driller, StateImpact Pennsylvania reports. 

http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2015/06/16/dep-seeks-record-fine-of-8-9-million-from-range-resources/

[Divernan]

1. Here's the impact of our pro-enviro/anti-fracking new governor, Wolf!

He's also pushing for an extraction tax on frackers - Pennsylvania is the only state without such a tax, and it's cost us dearly at a time when the GOP dominated legislature & former Gov. Corbett have gutted funding for public education.

That stinking Range Resources, with their ads: "Drilling is just the beginning." Damn straight, Skippy. Drilling is followed by air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, destruction of local roads by thousands of trucks per well, destruction of property values, inability to obtain homeowners' insurance in areas of drilling and on and on.

Range Resources originally drilled the well in the winter of 2011, and fracked it in June of that year. DEP issued a notice of violation in September 2013, citing a faulty cement job. DEP says despite the violations the company has yet to fix the well.

DEP Secretary John Quigley told StateImpact it was a case of “severe methane migration” and that at least five residential water wells were impacted and continue to require treatment.

“The agency has conducted an extensive investigation,” said Quigley. “We tested the methane from the residential wells. We observed methane bubbling in a stream. [We've detected it] coming out of the ground and killing vegetation in a farmer’s field.” Quigley said the agency used isotopic testing to confirm the methane migration resulted from the Range Resources gas well, and is not naturally occurring.

On May 11, 2015 DEP gave Range 10 days to come up with a remediation plan that would prevent the further migration of methane and other fluids, calling the company’s actions “unlawful conduct and a public nuisance.”

But DEP rejected the company’s proposed plan, which it says did not include making necessary repairs. Instead, the plan would have put the non-producing well into production. DEP has since ordered Range “to remediate the well in a manner that immediately ceases the discharge of methane to ground and surface water.” The company has ten days to submit a new plan to the DEP

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