Dimock

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. reached a settlement earlier this month with landowners from Dimock Township, PA, who had pressed ahead with a lawsuit alleging that the company contaminated their groundwater supplies from natural gas drilling nearly a decade ago.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. is seeking $5 million in damages from an outspoken Dimock, PA, resident and his legal team for what the company claims is an extortion attempt.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been conducting inspections of natural gas development in Washington County, PA, to make sure it complies with federal environmental laws.

Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were in Dimock Township, PA on Thursday and Friday, asking residents to participate in a voluntary survey to address “potential gaps in sampling and sample results.”

A report soon to be filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. indicates that none of the allegations made against the company by a whistle blower “are resulting in any impact to health or human safety,” Cabot spokesman George Stark told NGI’s Shale Daily. Scott Ely, a former employee of Cabot subsidiary GasSearch Drilling Services (GDS), has alleged that the company failed to report drilling wastewater spills and other mishaps in Susquehanna County, PA, during his two years at GDS. The report, which is in the hands of Cabot’s attorneys, will probably be handed over to DEP by the end of the month, Stark said. Ely was one of the 20 plaintiffs in a complaint against Cabot and the DEP which was settled when an Environmental Hearing Board judge on Wednesday refused to force the company to continue water deliveries in Dimock Township, PA (see Shale Daily, Dec. 2).