Range Resources unit Range Production Co. may depose an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official on Tuesday (Jan. 25), a federal judge in Austin, TX, ruled last week. The agency has accused the company of contaminating water wells with its Barnett Shale drilling activities, a claim Range disputes.

The battle is ongoing between Range and the EPA, which did not show up for a hearing on the matter at the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) last week.

“Prior to this point the EPA has not provided any discovery or any real complete documentation on how they reached some of their conclusions,” Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella told NGI.

“Plaintiff Range Production Co. may depose by oral examination…an officer, director, managing agent or other person designated by [EPA] to testify on their behalf about information known or reasonably available to the United States Environmental Protection Agency that was requested in the subpoenas served on defendants by Range Production Co.,” U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel wrote.

During a hearing preceding his order, Yeakel said the contamination case is “of extreme significance” and could have national implications, according to a report by the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, TX.

Pitzarella said last Friday that the company did not yet know whom the EPA would designate for the deposition of whether it would be delayed by an appeal.

Last month EPA issued an emergency order against Range, claiming that at least two drinking water wells in Parker County, TX, “have been significantly impacted by…methane contamination” from its oil and gas production facilities in the region. That move sparked a battle of wills between the federal regulator and the RRC, which said it was already investigating the matter (see NGI, Jan. 10; Dec. 13, 2010).

At the RRC hearing last week Range put on several witnesses who defended the company against the EPA allegation that its drilling activities in the Barnett Shale caused the contamination of private water wells in the area.

Among those testifying on behalf of Range were Mike Middlebrook, Range vice president of operations and a petroleum engineer; Norm Warpinski of Halliburton, an expert on microseismic and hydraulic fracturing; and Mark McCaffrey of Weatherford Laboratories, an expert on geochemical gas fingerprinting.

EPA has used gas fingerprinting technology to link the gas from Range’s operations to that found in the contaminated wells. However, McCaffrey testified that “EPA’s attempt to perform geochemical gas fingerprinting is fundamentally flawed and cannot be used to match gas from the [contaminated] Lipsky water well to either the Barnett Shale reservoir or to Range’s wells or accurately identify the source of the gas,” according to pretrial documents.

McCaffrey testified that the gas in the water wells came from the Strawn formation — which is immediately below the aquifer feeding the wells — not from the Barnett Shale.

Warpinski told the hearing that hydraulic fracturing could not have caused gas the gas to turn up in the Lipsky water well.

Among the exhibits was an image of a flaring water well that was drilled in the region in 2005. The flames were said to come from naturally occurring gas in the water well.

Meanwhile, last Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) filed a complaint against Range to compel its compliance with EPA’s Dec. 7 emergency order. “While Range offered to provide two affected residences alternative drinking water and installed explosivity meters in their homes after issuance of the emergency order, it has failed to comply with other requirements to conduct surveys of private and public water wells in the vicinity, to submit plans for field testing, and to submit plans to study how the methane and other contaminants may have migrated from the production wells, in addition to plans to remediate affected portions of the aquifer,” DOJ said.

However, Pitzarella told NGI it should not be up to the company to show “how the methane and other contaminants” migrated from its wells.

“We’ve done virtually everything that’s in there [the order],” Pitzarella said. “We’ve done the water tests. We’ve done the soil samples and all that sort of stuff…They said that part of the reason that we’re not in compliance is we can’t prove to them how our production wells are the cause of the methane. Isn’t it logical that they would have a theory as to how that would be the case? They’re saying you have to prove to us why you are guilty.

“It doesn’t say Range is out of compliance because they haven’t been able to demonstrate why they’re innocent…They’ve said part of the problem is they have yet to show us how the gas has migrated.”

When asked to comment, EPA spokesman Joe Hubbard referred NGI to a DOJ spokesman, who declined comment.

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