EPA Says No Concern About Second Round of Dimock Water Tests

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

April 6, 2012 | 2:10 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA

Actor Mark Ruffalo speaks at a rally in Dimock, Pa. last December, after water deliveries from Cabot Oil and Gas were halted.

The Environmental Protection Agency released the second round of 20 water tests from Dimock on Friday. EPA spokesman Roy Seneca released a brief statement on the results.

“This set of sampling did not show levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take immediate action. EPA remains committed to providing Dimock residents with the best available data and information on the quality of drinking water as expeditiously as possible.”

The EPA collected water samples from about 60 homes in Dimock and is releasing the results in stages. In March, the EPA released results from 11 households, and concluded that the water was safe to drink. But the agency wanted to continue testing several wells that contained unusually high levels of arsenic.
Cabot Oil and Gas, which has dozens of wells drilled in Dimock, released a statement saying the EPA’s findings confirm their belief that the company’s activities did not pollute Dimock’s well water.

“This data confirms the earlier EPA finding that levels of contaminants found do not possess a threat to human health and the environment. The EPA data is consistent with literally thousands of pages of water quality data accumulated by state and local authorities and by Cabot.”

Eleven families are suing Cabot Oil and Gas for polluting their water. Several of those families, and scientists they consulted, dispute the EPA’s conclusion and say their test results continue to pose a health risk.