EPA Releases Final Set of Dimock Water Results
Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA
Dimock residents Craig and Julie Sautner are suing Cabot Oil and Gas saying the company ruined their well water.
The Environmental Protection Agency says results from 12 water wells in the village of Dimock don’t reveal any unsafe levels of pollutants that would require further federal action. The EPA says one well did have high levels of methane.
Eleven households in Dimock say gas drilling by Cabot Oil and Gas contaminated their water supplies and are suing the company. The federal agency stepped in to the controversy after state officials allowed the company to stop providing free water to the residents along Carter Road.
A total of 59 tests have been released. The EPA tested residential water wells in the town that has seen itself become the center of a divisive debate over natural gas drilling. Eleven households are suing Cabot Oil and Gas for contaminating their water wells. Some have been relying on donations from anti-drilling groups for clean water. But other residents say the town’s well water is clean, and have grown weary of the publicity.
The Department of Environmental Protection blamed Cabot’s faulty well construction for causing methane levels to rise in Dimock’s water. But Cabot now says the methane is naturally occurring. To read more on the EPA’s investigation in Dimock, click here: http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/states/pa.html
