Accidents | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp
Blown Gasket, Rolled Truck: Range’s Bad Day in Lycoming County
Range Resources had a genuinely rotten 16 hours at its Laurel Hill B well pad in Cogan House Township, Lycoming County, last week. First, a gasket blew on a water filter pod and sent recycled frack water down the pad’s fill slope. Then, while the state inspector was standing there writing that one up, a water truck hauling more of the same stuff drove off the access road and rolled over. MDN obtained both DEP inspection reports, and they tell a more complete story than the headlines indicate. Read More “Blown Gasket, Rolled Truck: Range’s Bad Day in Lycoming County”
The Marcellus/Utica region received 19 new drilling permits last week, August 17 – 23, down from the 27 permits issued two weeks ago. For the second week in a row, Pennsylvania issued the fewest new permits, with 2 (after issuing just 4 two weeks ago). What’s up with PA? Ohio issued 4 permits. And West Virginia took the prize last week, issuing 13 new permits. The drillers who received new permits were: Expand Energy (6), Infinity Natural Resources (1), Northeast Natural Energy (1), Pennsylvania General Energy (2), Tiburon Oil & Gas (3), and Vickery Energy (6). 
Eureka Resources sold the business at all three of its shuttered Pennsylvania frack wastewater plants. What it did not sell — and legally could not sell — is the obligation to finish hauling the waste out. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) put that in writing last week, and added five words that ought to get somebody’s attention in Williamsport: DEP “is considering alternative enforcement measures.” The news comes, again, not from Eureka and not from a DEP press release, but from the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, which keeps sending the agency questions and publishing the answers. DEP Northcentral communications manager Megan Lehman replied by email Aug. 20; the Riverkeeper posted the exchange Aug. 24. 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible, safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the August 22nd Pennsylvania Bulletin that the SRBC approved and/or renewed 35 general water use permits in July for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Bradford, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties. 
Two months ago, we told you PA Attorney General Dave Sunday had charged Eureka Resources with seven crimes over years of leaking tanks at its Standing Stone plant in Bradford County (see 
The long, sad saga of Eureka Resources has a new chapter — and for once, it’s not another fine or another leak. Eureka has sold the business operations at all three of its shuttered Pennsylvania frack wastewater treatment plants. Two of the three went to Select Water Solutions, one of the biggest water-management companies in the oilfield. The third went to a Washington County trucking outfit. We didn’t hear this from Eureka. We heard it from the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, which pried the details out of the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in advance of the one-year anniversary of the Aug. 17, 2025 spill that dumped 16,000 gallons of untreated wastewater into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River (see 
Thanks to the work of David Hess at the PA Environment Digest Blog, which tracks Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) notices published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, we know of two water pipeline projects (for EQT and Expand Energy) approved by the DEP related to drilling new shale wells in two different northeastern PA counties: Lycoming and Bradford. Water is used for fracking. New water pipelines mean new fracking is on the way in those locations. 
Last December, MDN told you that three anti-shale drilling groups—the PA Council of Trout Unlimited, the Keystone Trails Association, and the Responsible Drilling Alliance—requested the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) hold a hearing on the Chapter 105 permit requested for a 3.9-mile shale gas access road and staging area proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) in the Loyalsock State Forest (see 
The ongoing saga of Eureka Resources’ now-closed frack wastewater treatment facilities in Pennsylvania — two in Lycoming County and one in Bradford County — continues to unfold. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently assessed two fines against Eureka for violations of cleanup deadlines at two of its facilities. One facility in Lycoming County was fined, and one in Bradford County. The fines were $60,000 and $40,000.