More than 63,000 gallons of natural gas drilling waste spilled into an unnamed tributary of the Loyalsock Creek this week from a well site in Lycoming County. The spill occurred at a well operated by Colorado-based Inflection Energy, in Eldred Township, about 10 miles north of Williamsport. Neil Shader, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, [...]
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced a record fine today against the Texas-based Range Resources, which the agency says has failed to fix a gas well that polluted groundwater and a stream in Lycoming County. The DEP announced Tuesday that it will assess an $8.9 million fine against Range for refusing to fix the [...]
The Department of Environmental Protection fined NFG Midstream Trout Run for violating the state Clean Streams Law 13 times over a seven-month stretch beginning in October, 2011. The infractions occurred during the construction of a 16-mile length of pipeline running from a Seneca Resources well pad in McIntyre Township to the Transco transmission pipeline in [...]
Range Resources has agreed to pay a $75,000 fine for a July 2012 spill on a Lycoming County well pad, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday. The DEP said 3,066 gallons of a manufactured brine solution leaked out of a storage tank and onto the well pad in Lewis Township. “This was a [...]
The Williamsport Sun-Gazette reports five protestors were arrested on Thursday after blocking access to workers at a drilling site in Tiadaghton State Forest in Lycoming County. According to the Sun-Gazette, it took firefighters more than two hours to free the protestors from Marcellus Shale EarthFirst who had chained and cemented their arms to a pipe stretched [...]
Five years into Pennsylvania’s shale gas boom, the state is overhauling environmental regulations for drillers and changing the way the industry operates above ground. A public hearing Monday night in Williamsport, Lycoming County set drillers, who argued the rules would go too far, against environmentalists who say the Department of Environmental Protection did not go [...]
The Environmental Protection Agency has fined XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, $100,000 for violating the federal Clean Water Act. The company’s drilling operations discharged between 6,300 and 57,373 gallons of waste water into the Susquehanna river system in Penn Township, Lycoming County. The waste water contained high levels of strontium, chloride, bromide, barium, [...]
The Department of Environmental Protection fined PVR Marcellus Gas Gathering $150,000 for polluting High Quality and Exceptional Value streams in the fall of 2011. Following up to a complaint, DEP investigators found pipeline construction activity caused bentonite to spill into Larry’s Creek, which the company failed to report. Subsequent inspections found more violations of the [...]
Deep in the Loyalsock State Forest, where no cell phone signal reaches, the sounds of rushing waterfalls and forest birds are suddenly interrupted by the sound of a helicopter. Paul Zeph of the Pennsylvania Audubon Society says the noise could be related to gas drilling. Drillers will often drop seismic testing equipment into remote areas [...]
*This piece has been updated with new information from the Department of Environmental Protection.* The Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that the agency fined Pennsylvania General Energy Company $125,500 for three spills that occurred back in January, 2012. The fine also includes failing to comply with sediment and erosion controls during a four-month construction [...]
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