The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has ordered Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., a company drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation, to build a $11.8 million pipeline to deliver water to 18 rural residences whose household wells are contaminated by natural gas, Andrew Maykuth reports for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The disagreement between residents of Dimock Township and the drilling company are so volatile that company crews travel with uniformed escorts after a Dimock resident drew a handgun on a company employee. Cabot chief executive officer Dan O. Dinges responded that the state has "taken the position that the only acceptable solution to water-supply issues in the area is a wasteful and environmentally disruptive community pipeline," reports Maykuth. Dinges also said "his company was willing to drill new state-of-the-art water wells for residents, or to install in-house water-treatment systems that are commonly used in other areas where well water becomes contaminated," the Inquirer reports. "But the residents, who have sued Cabot, objected to those solutions because they do not trust any water from their aquifer." The conflict is escalating just as the Pennsylvania legislature is engaged in a fierce debate about establishing a production tax on natural gas. (Read more)
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