EPA: Water is safe in town in Northeast Pa. drilling area

By KEVIN BEGOS

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has completed tests on drinking water in the northeastern Pennsylvania village of Dimock and has determined it is safe to drink, despite the claims of some residents who say it has been polluted by gas drilling.

The EPA said in a statement that it doesn’t plan further tests, and that there’s no need to provide residents with alternative supplies of drinking water.

Dimock resident Ray Kemble didn’t accept the EPA verdict.

“I don’t care what EPA says. The water is still polluted,” Kemble said. “Do something about it.”

The town became a focus in the debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, when opponents of drilling showed that some residents were able to light their tap water on fire because of high levels of methane gas. But geologists say such contamination can also happen naturally.

Some Dimock residents and anti- drilling groups claimed that Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. polluted the local aquifer with methane and toxic chemicals. They have disputed earlier EPA findings the water was safe.

State environmental regulators previously determined that Cabot contaminated the aquifer underneath homes along Carter Road in Dimock with explosive levels of methane, although they later determined the company had met its obligations under a consent agreement and allowed Cabot to stop delivering bulk and bottled water last fall.

Some had hoped the EPA would be able to settle the dispute.

“Our goal was to provide the Dimock community with complete and reliable information about the presence of contaminants in their drinking water and to determine whether further action was warranted to protect public health,” said Shawn M. Garvin, EPA regional administrator.