Will Gas Drilling Company Overturn The Way DEP Has Calculated Penalties For Nearly 40 Years? We’ll See
Sometime after June 12 the PA Supreme Court will schedule a hearing on one of the most important environmental cases in recent decades– will EQT drilling be successful in overturning the way the Department of Environmental Protection has calculated penalties for nearly 40 years.
And will it overturn the definition of what it means to discharge pollutants to the waters of the Commonwealth since the 1973 decision by the PA Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Harmar Coal.
At stake is not only the $4.5 million fine DEP levied against EQT in 2014 for leaks from a 6 million gallon drilling wastewater impoundment in Tioga County, but the way penalties for violating the Clean Streams Law and almost every other major state environmental protection law are calculated.