Sip of Frack Water Leads To $250 Fine

• Scott Detrow
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  Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.
  
  Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.
  
  Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

Here’s an entirely different story about tainted water in Dimock, Susquehanna County: a man who works at a water treatment company has been cited for disorderly conduct, for bringing a jug of fracking fluid into a break room this summer.
The jug caused problems when another worker accidentally took a swig from it.
The Scranton Times-Tribune explains why an unwitting sip of frack fluid led to a court hearing.

MONTROSE – After a man unknowingly drank treated frackwater out of a water jug at a Dimock worksite in June, he immediately became nauseous and was taken to an area hospital for treatment. A co-worker was cited with a summary disorderly conduct charge for bringing the jug into the break room at the site.

Jason Conklin, 31, Tunkhannock, was found guilty Monday by Magisterial District Judge Jeffrey Hollister in Montrose and issued a $250 fine.
Mr. Conklin apologized to the man who drank the water, saying he never intended for anyone to drink from the jug.
Judge Hollister found that by bringing the jug of treated frackwater into the break room, Mr. Conklin created a hazardous situation.
“It was an error,” Judge Hollister said. “You didn’t intend for it to happen, but it happened.”

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