Pa. oil and gas operations have damaged water supplies 209 times since 2008, records reveal

An open-records battle between news media and oil-and-gas operators in Pennsylvania has yielded the release of a report by the Department of Environmental Protection saying the operations have damaged water supplies 209 times since 2008, Laura Legere reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The report, which will be released later this month, gives "the date regulators concluded that activities related to oil or gas extraction were to blame for contaminating or diminishing the flow to a water source." (Post-Gazette graphic) 

"After initially fighting news organizations’ requests for the determination letters and arguing it would be too difficult to find all of them in its files, DEP has increasingly provided access to the documents in the last year after courts required their release and as public interest in the information has grown," Legere writes. "When DEP posts the tally of damaged water supplies this month, it will mark the first time the agency has released its official accounting of drilling-related pollution and diminution cases on its website."

"The DEP spreadsheet reveals that oil and gas operations have affected water supplies in nearly every region where drilling occurs, from the shale-gas sweet spots in northeastern Pennsylvania to the traditional oil-and-gas patch in the state’s northwest corner," Legere writes. (Read more)