Why DEP Cut Chesapeake's Fine In Half

The Post-Gazette takes a look at why the Department of Environmental Protection scaled back the fine it issued against Chesapeake Energy this week:

The fine for the most high-profile incident of the three — last April’s well blowout in Bradford County — was $190,000. Of that amount, $67,000 was to reimburse DEP for its costs. That’s less than half of the $400,000 fine DEP’s staff first proposed for the incident last year.
The reason for cutting the fine by more than half, according to DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday, is that initial testing indicated that three homeowners’ wells may have been impacted by the blowout. Documents show that they had elevated levels of chloride, barium, strontium, iron and manganese, and there were spikes in surface samples near where the flowback fluid spilled during the blowout.
“But our original estimates were higher before the independent site characterization study was filed,” Mr. Sunday said.
That study, paid for by Chesapeake and filed last fall, determined the homeowner with the worst contaminated water had elevated levels of chloride, barium and strontium, but had a problem specific to his well and unrelated to the spill — even though Chesapeake had already agreed to help treat the water.

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