Range Resources to pay $50,000 in fines and $100,000 in contributions for Washington County well violations

Range Resources, a major driller in the region’s Marcellus Shale industry, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor counts of negligent oversight of Washington County well sites and will pay $50,000 in fines and $100,000 in contributions to the Washington County watershed funds, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Friday.

The plea was the culmination of a two-year statewide Grand Jury investigation into allegations of environmental crimes across the state by oil and gas companies companies engaged in horizontal drilling and fracking.

The charges alleged that Range’s negligent maintenance of a waste water storage pond at the Yeager well site in Amwell Township contaminated the water at local springs on the Yeager property. The neighborhood’s longstanding battle over allegations of air and water contamination was detailed in “Amity and Prosperity,” the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction.

Charges involving the Brownlee well site in Buffalo Township alleged that leaks from a containment tank holding fracking waste water contaminated nearly ⅓ acre of a nearby farm and required the removal of approximately 100 trees and 12,000 square feet of soil.

Shapiro commended the grand jury’s work.

“In Pennsylvania, clean air and pure water is a constitutional right, yet too often frackers from across the country come to our Commonwealth, walk into our communities, and — sometimes without care or consequence — strip us of those basic rights. Backed by big investors and big influence, too many fracking companies act like they’re above the law, and put themselves ahead of the people who work on the job site, as well as the farmer, neighbor, and children impacted by their operations. We’re here to remind these fracking companies that the people of Pennsylvania come first,” Shapiro said.

A spokesman for Range Resources said the company has taken responsibility for the incidents cited in the charges, has completed “full remediation, approved by regulators,” at both sites and has enhanced containment operations.

“Over the past decade, Range has led significant advancements in operational innovations that have enhanced the safety and sustainability of our industry, which include becoming the first company to voluntarily disclose our fracturing fluid, and to achieve 100 percent reuse levels through our water recycling program,” Range spokesman Mark Windle said.

Terms of the pleas agreement call for Range to pay a $6,000 fine to the Solid Waste Abatement Fund, $3,000 to the Clean Water Fund, a $16,000 charitable contribution to the Washington County Watershed Alliance for the Brownlee site, $41,000 to the Solid Waste Abatement Fund, and an $84,000 charitable contribution to the Washington County Watershed Alliance for the Yeager site.