Judge Denies Request to Restart Water Deliveries in Dimock PA
Last Friday, Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard Labuskes, Jr. denied an appeal from 11 families in the Carter Road area of Dimock Township, PA who were asking that water shipments from Cabot Oil & Gas be restored. The 11 families, from an original group of 19 families, decided to not accept a remediation solution ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that directed Cabot to pay the families up to twice the value of their homes and to install filtration systems that would remove all methane from their water supplies.
Because of their ongoing refusal to accept the remediation solution offered, preferring instead to pursue litigation with Cabot, the DEP finally told Cabot they could end water deliveries to those families as of Nov. 30—deliveries that have been ongoing for more than two years.
Read More “Judge Denies Request to Restart Water Deliveries in Dimock PA”

Does fracking cause earthquakes? MDN has covered various stories in the past on this topic. It seems likely that injection wells (not hydraulic fracturing, but the wastewater from fracking being injected deeply in disposal wells) in some locations have been tied to earthquakes in some areas. Notably, when injection wells in Arkansas stopped pumping pressurized liquids into the wells, earthquakes in the area all but stopped (
In a surprise move, two West Virginians have announced their intention to build an ethane cracker plant in the state. Former state Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely and Ryan Cunningham, owner of Charleston-based Cunningham Energy have formed a partnership with a few others and will try to get the necessary permits and financing to build an ethane cracker plant on a 1,500-acre plot near Montgomery, WV.
On Thursday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft findings of its investigation into groundwater contamination in the small town of Pavillion, Wyoming (a copy of the EPA draft report is embedded below). The EPA says that water in the town contains chemicals consistent with chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Fracking has been used in a number of nearby gas wells. Needless to say, major media outlets like the AP, and anti-drilling environmentalists, are breathlessly calling this the “smoking gun” and declaring that fracking really does cause groundwater contamination after all (ban it now!). Not so fast…
In the ongoing press event that is Dimock, PA, yesterday Gasland creator Josh Fox and actor Mark Rufalo, among others, gathered in Dimock to keep up the pressure and to continue to demagogue what has really happened in Dimock. See MDN’s