Bradford County | Crime | Energy Services | Eureka Resources | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wastewater
Eureka Resources Charged with 7 Crimes for PA Wastewater Leaks
The troubles continue to pile up for Eureka Resources and its now-closed frack wastewater treatment facilities in Pennsylvania — two in Lycoming County and one in Bradford County. In March, the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) assessed two fines against Eureka for violations of cleanup deadlines at two facilities, totaling $100,000 (see PA DEP Fines Eureka Resources $100K for Wastewater Violations). Eureka has not paid the fines, and the DEP has given the company 10 days to pay, “or else.” But that’s not all. PA Attorney General Dave Sunday recently filed seven criminal charges against Eurkea related to its now-closed facility in Bradford County. Read More “Eureka Resources Charged with 7 Crimes for PA Wastewater Leaks”
A 39-year-old former division order analyst at Pittsburgh-based EQT has been charged with allegedly stealing approximately $215,000 from the company. Between March 2021 and October 2025, the (now) ex-employee diverted funds from “orphaned” land interest accounts (unclaimed royalties) into a bank account held by his husband. The scheme was uncovered when a supervisor noticed unauthorized payments while reviewing the employee’s work. When confronted, the employee confessed to the theft, citing significant credit card debt as his motive. While his husband has not been charged, the (now) ex-employee faces multiple counts, including theft and unlawful computer use. Approximately $101,000 has already been repaid for official company restitution purposes. 
On Monday, nine so-called “climate defenders” (we call them wackadoodles) from the Don’t Destroy Our Future and youth activists from Sunrise Movement were charged with obstruction of free passage after holding a sit-in protest inside Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont’s office. Approximately 30 protesters were demonstrating against what they call the governor’s plan to approve new methane gas construction, specifically citing opposition to a natural gas compressor station expansion in Brookfield and a plan to update the Capitol Area System with methane boilers. From the images we observed, most of the protesters were old hippies. 
Pennsylvania’s Republican Attorney General, Dave Sunday, has turned out to be a MAJOR disappointment. Yesterday, Sunday’s office filed 14 criminal counts against Equitrans Midstream (now owned and part of EQT Corporation) for an accident that happened in 2022. In November 2022, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County, began to leak. Equitrans is the owner/operator of Rager Mountain. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see 
This story isn’t directly connected to the Marcellus/Utica. The “environmental” group in question, Just Stop Oil, has never (as far as we can tell) done any “direct actions” in the Marcellus/Utica. However, the groups’ unrealistic aim of blocking and stopping ALL new oil and gas projects, no matter where they are in the world, implicitly includes the M-U. We have written about this radicalized group many times before (
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (Roanoke Division) ruled in two of five cases before it in which Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which is now majority-owned by EQT Corporation, sued radical protesters who blocked the construction of the pipeline in Roanoke County, Virginia. The court dismissed one count in the two cases (count #4) against the protesters, which the media focused on. The media doesn’t want to talk about the fact that there are five other counts, far more serious than the dismissed count, that the court is allowing to advance. These protesters are in a world of legal hurt over their illegal blocking of MVP construction. 
This is a story from the other side of “the pond”—from the United Kingdom. But it has relevance to our own country. The ultra-liberal UK Guardian newspaper ran a story ten days ago that attempts to excuse the criminal (we’d call them terroristic) actions of so-called “protesters” who have now resorted to using sabotage in their attempt to bully and force businesses to drop support for fossil energy. The “protesters” have tipped over into full-blown criminal activity. And we’re not talking about throwing soup at paintings in museums (which is a crime, too). We’re talking about cutting internet/communications to hundreds of businesses in the middle of London and doing it in the dead of night, hiding their identities from the ever-present cameras. 
Two months ago, a video circulated on social media featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about “tossing gold bars off the Titanic,” intentionally rushing to get billions of tax dollars recklessly out of the agency before Inauguration Day. The EPA’s new sheriff, Lee Zeldin, has located $20 billion of those gold bars sitting at a bank. The money is meant to fund radical anti-Trump efforts related to the environment. Zeldin is demanding the money be returned pronto. 
In early 2018, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) collected a whopping $1.7 million fine from Energy Corporation of America (ECA) for violations at 17 well sites in Cumberland, Jefferson, and Whiteley Townships in Greene County, and Goshen Township in Clearfield County (see 
In January, Joementia announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants (currently 17 requests in the pipeline) for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve such projects (see 
Yet another out-of-state protester temporarily blocked workers’ access to one of the few Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) construction sites remaining in Montgomery County, VA, yesterday morning. She was swiftly removed and arrested. According to Virginia State Police, 25-year-old Elsa Schlensker of Cleveland, Ohio, was taken into custody “without incident” and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where she was charged with obstructing the free passage of another.
Here’s a sad story that, as far as we can tell, is not directly connected to the Marcellus/Utica. However, it’s a cautionary tale related to the oil and gas industry in Appalachia. Mark Edward Holbrook and his son Marshall Holbrook, both from Kentucky, worked in a family-owned company called Puissant Industries. The company sources natural gas by “drilling wells” and “acquiring gas rights.” We assume, given the small nature of the company, that these are conventional (vertical-only) wells and rights. When the price of gas dropped in 2015/2016, the company and the Holbrooks hit hard times. So, the two compensated by manipulating meters on the gathering pipelines that flowed their gas, making it look as though they were selling more gas than they did. In a word, it was theft — getting paid for something they didn’t provide.
We’re just a few weeks away from the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) going online, flowing 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of yummy FRACKED natural gas from the Marcellus/Utica to southern Virginia and beyond. And that fact is driving the insane, unhinged left even more insane and unhinged. Yesterday, a man (who refused to identify himself as a man) tied himself to two barrels full of concrete in the middle of the road in the Bent Mountain (Roanoke County), VA, area, blocking access to an MVP work yard. The protester was spewing anti-Israel statements (a bigot and anti-Semite), along with nonsensical statements about the oil and gas industry. Truly unhinged. State police arrived to deal with the situation.
In January 2023, Pennsylvania State Senator Scott Martin (from Lancaster, PA) hosted a reelection fundraiser at an Italian restaurant in nearby Harrisburg. A pretty swanky fundraiser, too, at $1,000 a plate. Like it or not, this is how it works in the world of politics. Martin happens to be a Republican and a supporter of fossil energy. Those two things send leftists into orbit. A small group of far-left (professional) protesters showed up at the entrance of the restaurant to make a lot of noise and to make silly asses of themselves (which they excel at doing). One of them tilted over into criminality. He obstructed the doorway to the restaurant and would not let anyone enter or leave — a fire hazard at a minimum. Justice was finally rendered on Wednesday in a Dauphin County courtroom.