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dimock
'Outrageous Betrayal': Pennsylvania Lifts Fracking Ban in Polluted Town of Dimock
"This unconscionable action is a betrayal of suffering communities that are still years away from a permanent solution that will restore their access to clean water," said one advocate.
Dec 13, 2022
Environmental justice advocates cried foul Tuesday after it was reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is allowing a fracking giant to resume drilling operations in Dimock just two weeks after it accepted responsibility for poisoning the small rural town's drinking water.
"Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro must address this outrageous betrayal as soon as he takes office next month."
Roughly 14 years after a well explosion on New Year's Day 2009 revealed to Dimock residents that methane had seeped into their groundwater, Cabot Oil & Gas pleaded no contest to 15 criminal charges, including nine felonies, on November 29. The notorious driller, now owned by Coterra Energy, was featured in the 2010 HBO documentary Gasland.
On the same day the Houston-based company took responsibility for destroying the town's drinking water and agreed to pay $16.3 million to build new public water infrastructure and to cover the costs of delivering clean water to those who have been harmed for the next 75 years, it received a green light to extract more of the same polluting fossil fuels when state regulators quietly lifted a moratorium on gas production in Dimock that had been in place since 2010.
As The Associated Press reported Monday, "State officials denied that Coterra was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor charge in exchange for being allowed to drill for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gas."
"Some of the residents, who have long accused the Department of Environmental Protection of negligence in its handling of the water pollution in Dimock, said they felt betrayed," the news outlet noted.
"We got played," said Ray Kemble, a Dimock resident who has led a yearslong fight against the fracking company and state regulators alike.
Food & Water Watch Pennsylvania state director Megan McDonough said Tuesday in a statement that "this outrageous action by Gov. [Tom] Wolf is just one more gift his administration is delivering to the dirty fracking industry."
"The people of Dimock suffered at the hands of careless corporate polluters, as have other communities across Pennsylvania," said McDonough. "Reaching this deal on the very same day that Coterra was in court for contaminating Dimock's water raises serious questions about what was going on behind the scenes in the Wolf administration."
According to AP:
Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who takes office as governor next month, held a celebratory news conference with Kemble and two other Dimock residents on the day Coterra entered its plea. At the news conference, Shapiro punted a reporter's question about whether Coterra would be permitted to resume drilling in the moratorium area, pointing out the administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf was still in charge.
"That's obviously a question for the regulators, not for the attorney general's office," Shapiro said then.
Shapiro's spokesperson said the plea deal was not contingent on DEP lifting the moratorium.
"Our office plays no role in DEP's regulatory decisions and we do not share confidential information about criminal investigations," Jacklin Rhoads said.
Wolf, for his part, told the news outlet that he feels fine about his administration's decision to allow Coterra to go back into Dimock "as long as they do what we need them to do with the new water supply and the pipes," adding that the company has to adhere to "some pretty stringent guidelines."
McDonough, meanwhile, said that "this unconscionable action is a betrayal of suffering communities that are still years away from a permanent solution that will restore their access to clean water."
A huge body of research has documented the deadly consequences of fracking and other forms of fossil fuel extraction, including planet-heating and illness-causing air pollution as well as drinking water contamination, which creates another pathway of exposure to cancer-linked chemicals.
Peer-reviewed studies published earlier this year found that newborns who live in close proximity to fracking and other so-called "unconventional" drilling operations are two to three times more likely to develop childhood leukemia and that elderly individuals who live near or downwind of fracking sites are at higher risk of early death.
"Gov. Wolf should be ashamed of this agreement," said McDonough. "Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro must address this outrageous betrayal as soon as he takes office next month."
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Refusing to Settle, Dimock Families Take Fracking Giant to Court
After a bitter, years-long battle, the Ely and Hubert families are putting Cabot Oil & Gas on trial
Feb 24, 2016
Fracking is on trial in Pennsylvania this week as two families who refused to settle in their pursuit of justice have launched a court battle against Cabot Oil & Gas Corp.
Neighbors Scott Ely and his wife, Monica Marta-Ely, and Ray and Victoria Hubert are accusing the fossil fuel giant of groundwater contamination, resulting in their drinking water supply loss.
Both families live in the town of Dimock, which has become the cornerstone in the fight against fracking and was featured in the 2010 documentary Gasland. The film is credited with exposing the toxic impacts of the drilling process, spurring the national anti-fracking movement.
During opening arguments on Tuesday, attorney Leslie Lewis told the jury that Cabot had shown "reckless disregard" for the health and safety of her clients and other community members.
As NPR's State Impact notes, "The region surrounding Dimock is known as the 'sweet spot,' breaking records with gushing shale gas wells and spurring an upswing in interstate pipeline construction."
However, since 2008, Dimock families have reported problems with their drinking water and experienced rashes, nausea, headaches, and dizziness, according to Energy Justice, which is providing legal support for the plaintiffs.
Advocates say the road to the courtroom has been bitter and complicated. Initially, 22 families from Dimock and Springville Townships in Susquehanna County were involved in the case, but as it dragged on, all but the Elys and the Huberts have settled with Cabot.
The case marks "one of the first lawsuits alleging water contamination from fracking to reach a jury," according to Reuters. However, the families' journey has evidenced the challenges of pinning groundwater contamination on a powerful drilling company.
State Impact explains:
The original lawsuit included personal injury and fraud, but those claims have been dismissed for lack of evidence. And there is no evidence to be presented on any cancer-causing toxins in the water, or practices involving horizontal, slick water hydraulic fracturing, often referred to as fracking. The claims surround high methane levels in the Ely and Hubert water supplies, which the plaintiffs, and the Department of Environmental Protection, say were caused by Cabot's drilling operations.
The plaintiffs' case has been whittled down to just two issues, nuisance and property claims. The jury has to decide whether Cabot was negligent in their drilling practices and if so, whether the company made life for the residents bad enough they deserve compensation.
As the first witness to testify on Tuesday, Scott Ely described his well water to the jury as "brown...brown and full of gas," referring to the heightened presence of methane in the Dimock well water.
Ely explained how when he worked for Cabot-owned Gas Drilling Services from 2008 to 2008, he witnessed first-hand what Lewis described as a "reckless rush to drill."
"We were in a competition to see who could drill the hole faster," he said. "We would try to go as quickly as we could. I was on two to three sites a day. It was a quick, fast process. In and out, in and out."
"We had diesel fuel spills, acid spills. There was flow back onto the bank," Ely added. In one instance, State Impact reports, Ely described tearing the lining of a wastewater pond with a backhoe and watching the contents seep into the ground. Only later, when his children developed headaches and rashes, did he have the suspicion that those drilling practices were connected to his water supply.
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