Public Herald 30-Month Report Finds DEP Fracking Complaint Investigations Are “Cooked” & Shredded – PUBLIC HERALD
September 21, 2015
Blackout in the Gas Patch By Nadia Steinzor, Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project
August 7, 2014
www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/BlackoutReportFINAL.pdf.
Blackout in the Gas Patch
By
Nadia Steinzor, Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project
Data analysis and research provided by Lisa Sumi, environmental research and
science consultant
For more information on this study go to: http://blackout.earthworksaction.org
DEP: Oil and gas operations damaged water supplies 209 times since end of ’07
July 22, 2014
DEP: Oil and gas operations damaged water supplies 209 times since end of ’07.
Auditor General of PA says PADEP is deficient and overtaken by shale gas development.
See below:
Here is the audit – http://www.auditorgen.state.pa.us/reports/performance/special/speDEP072114.pdf
Here is a joint press statement from PA coalition – http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/resources/PressReleases/press%20stmnt%20AG%20audit%20website.pdf
Sunday Times review of DEP drilling records reveals water damage, murky testing methods – News – The Times-Tribune
May 19, 2013
Sunday Times review of DEP drilling records reveals water damage, murky testing methods – News – The Times-Tribune.
First of two parts
State environmental regulators determined that oil and gas development damaged the water supplies for at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to a cache of nearly 1,000 letters and enforcement orders written by Department of Environmental Protection officials and obtained by The Sunday Times.
The determination letters are sent to water supply owners who ask state inspectors to investigate whether oil and gas drilling activities have polluted or diminished the flow of water to their wells.
Interactive Map: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling-complaints-map-1.1490926
Inspectors declared the vast majority of complaints – 77 percent of 969 records – unfounded, lacking enough evidence to tie them definitively to drilling or caused by a different source than oil and gas exploration, like legacy pollution, natural conditions or mining.
One in six investigations across the roughly five-year period – 17 percent of the records – found that oil and gas activity disrupted water supplies either temporarily or seriously enough to require companies to replace the spoiled source.
The letters confirming contamination or water loss from drilling and the orders that require companies to fix the damage provide what is likely the best official count of the industry’s impact on individual water supplies in Pennsylvania because the state does not track the disruptions.
The Sunday Times requested the records in late 2011, and received access to them late last year after a state appeals court ruled that the DEP had to release the documents regardless of whether it was hard for the agency to find them in its files.
While the records compiled by the newspaper offer a more complete tally of the number of affected properties than was previously available, the count is not exhaustive:
PA DEP Determination Letters – damascus citizens for sustainability
May 14, 2013
PA DEP Determination Letters – damascus citizens for sustainability.
“The Department investigation indicates that gas well drilling has impacted your water supply.”
Despite the oft-repeated gas industry canard that there are no confirmed cases of fracking contaminating water supplies, the following Determination Letters from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection clearly state that “gas well drilling” has contaminated wells in Bradford County, in municipalities such as Granville, Tuscarora, Terry, Orwell, Wilmot and Monroe Townships, and in Alba Boro.
The letters posted so far were obtained by Right to Know requests to the PA DEP filed by Vera Scroggins of “Citizens for Clean Water” located in Susquehanna County.
GDACC 
