Public Herald, January 22, 2018, By Melissa A. Troutman, Joshua B. Pribanic, and Sierra Shamer

"In September 2013, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) received six phone calls from residents in Lenox Township, Susquehanna County who feared pollution of their drinking water. The residents’ attorney had just alerted them to arsenic contamination at a nearby natural gas fracking site.

Those calls were grouped by DEP into one complaint file — complaint #300702 — with Inspector Michael O’Donnell and Supervisor Marc Cooley assigned to the case.

Just days later, Supervisor Cooley would deny the residents’ request for water testing.

According to records obtained by Public Herald through Right-to-Know, by the time the calls were made to DEP, Supervisor Cooley had been watching an arsenic problem unfold for months.

Southwestern Energy, an oil and gas drilling company from Houston, Texas had buried drilling waste at their “Price 1V” well pad less than 2,000 feet from residents’ homes. Southwestern removed the waste pit in June 2013, at landowner Ordie Price’s request, but contaminants – including high levels of arsenic, manganese, and thallium – remained. ..."

READ MORE: http://publicherald.org/screwed-glued-trading-freedom-for-clean-water-when-regulators-walk-away/