More Problems for Range Resources with SWPA Impoundments
Range Resources has had ongoing problems with the neighbors and townships where they’ve built and maintained several frack wastewater impoundments (large ponds) in Washington County, PA for the past several years. MDN has chronicled the push back, threats, lawsuits and shenanigans (see our list of Range impoundment stories here). The saga continues. Late last week residents living near the Cecil 23 impoundment–formerly known as the Worstell impoundment, located in Cecil Township–were informed by the town that the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) would be testing the ground (and water supplies?) following an alert from Range that the impoundment may have leaked in the past. Then, on Tuesday of this week, Range received a Notice of Violation from the DEP for leaks found at the Yeager impoundment in Amwell Township…
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Range Resources built an open-air frack wastewater and brine impoundment in Amwell Township (Washington County), PA in 2009–the Jon Day Impoundment. At the time, they installed a monitoring system under the impoundment to alert them (and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection) in case the impoundment–essentially a big pond with a rubber liner–sprung a leak. The monitoring system included 4-inch perforated pipes under the impoundment located inside trenches of gravel. The theory was/is if anything leaks, it will hit one of those pipes and come out the end. According to the DEP the monitoring system was “over and above” DEP requirements at the time. Unfortunately, the monitoring system somewhere along the way failed and the impoundment sprung a leak and now we have some 15,000 tons of “contaminated” soil which has nearly all been removed from the site…
Seems that the Developing Unconventional Gas (DUG) East Conference, hosted by Hart Energy this week in Pittsburgh, is generating a lot of news. Unfortunately MDN could not attend DUG East this year. We have, however, done a roundup of interesting and important news from speakers at DUG, including news from CONSOL Energy, Range Resources, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)…