Pittsburgh Newspapers Not Ready to Concede Defeat in Range Case

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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Washington, PA Observer-Reporter are not quite ready to throw in the towel on what increasingly looks like a vendetta against Range Resources. The two newspapers sued in May 2012 to have court documents unsealed in a settlement between Range and the Hallowich family in Washington County, PA (see Pittsburgh Newspapers Sue to Unseal Drilling Court Case). The newspapers were hoping to find evidence that Range had covered up a case where their drilling (fracking) had led to contamination of the Hallowich’s water well, or perhaps had adversely affected their health. A judge recently unsealed the court documents and guess what? No evidence of water contamination (see Judge Orders Range/Landowner Settlement in PA Made Public).

Not only was there no water contamination, the Hallowich’s signed an affidavit stating there has been no ill health effects as well (see Affidavit in Range PA Settlement Shows No Drilling Health Impacts). Oops. Major egg on the face of the newspapers. Or using a different metaphor, they went fishing and didn’t even get a bite. What to do? We know! Gin up a false controversy that there’s still a missing document from the the mountains of documents the court released. Yeah, that’ll be worth a few more headlines and copies sold. After all, we have to somehow help pay for the lawyers and time we burned on this effort…

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