American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2017 - 18

IndustryDigest
not 'all' or 'every.'" The opinion states
that "it is the General Assembly's duty
to write the laws and the General
Assembly could have easily replaced the
word 'any' with the term 'every' if it so
intended," and that the court was not
authorized to rewrite the statute to do so.
According to PIOGA, vertical shale
wells are exempt from the impact fee if
they qualify as stripper wells as early as
the year in which they are spud.
Horizontal wells must pay the impact fee
for three years after spudding regardless
of output, but can qualify as stripper
wells beginning in the fourth year.
While the PUC has expressed plans
to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme
Court, PIOGA reports the PUC
Chairman Gladys Brown and Governor
Tom Wolf claim the decision will cost
the state and local governments $16
million in 2017 alone in lost impact fee
payments and are urging the legislature
to amend Act 13 to reflect the
commission's stripper well definition.
"Commonwealth Court's decision is
in line with the legislature's intent
regarding stripper wells and the impact
fee when Act 13 was approved in 2012,"
opines PIOGA Communications
Director Matt Benson. "Yet, with the
PUC and governor sounding an alarm
about lost revenue-even though it is
money to which the state is not entitled-
we will have to remain vigilant to any
legislative attempts to 'fix' the law." ❒

U.S. Judge Overturns
Celebrated Shale Gas
Water Pollution Claim
PHILADELPHIA-A federal judge
has rebutted claims of water-well
contamination in Dimock, Pa., that
served as a rallying cry for shale gas
opponents and were featured in the antifossil-fuel documentary, Gasland.
On March 31, U.S. Magistrate Judge
Martin C. Carlson in the U.S. District
Court for the Middle District of
Pennsylvania overturned a $4.24 million

Coming In June
The latest exploration and development activity in the Wolfcamp
Shale and other Permian Basin resource plays.
18 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

judgment against Cabot Oil & Gas
Corp. that was awarded to the families
of Scott Ely and Monica Marta-Ely, and
Ray and Victoria Hubert.
In his ruling, Carlson calls evidence
presented to support the plaintiff's
claims "spare (and) sometimes
contradictory," and says it was
"frequently rebutted by other scientific
testimony, and relied in some measure
on tenuous inferences."
Published reports recall that the Elys
and Huberts were among more than 40
Dimock residents who sued Cabot in
2009, claiming the producer's drilling
in the Marcellus Shale had polluted
their water wells. All but the two
families settled with Cabot in 2012
after tests found no chemicals
associated with drilling in any of their
wells, the reports say.
Those reports note that testing by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection later
determined that water from the private
wells was safe for drinking.
Nevertheless, an eight-member jury
in Scranton, Pa., found Cabot negligent
in causing the plaintiffs compensable
nuisance injuries, following a threeweek trial in March 2016, reports say.
Judge Carlson says he "does not take
lightly" his decision to overturn a
unanimous jury decision and order a
new trial. "Nevertheless," he writes,
"following reflection on the substantial
and varied weaknesses in the plaintiffs'
case together with the myriad examples
of inappropriate conduct that occurred
repeatedly in the jury's presence . . . the
court is constrained to find that a new
trial is not only justified, but required."
In his 58-page memorandum
opinion, Carlson says, "Weaknesses in
the plaintiffs' case and proof, coupled
with serious and troubling irregularities
in the testimony and presentation of the
plaintiffs' case-including repeated and
regrettable missteps by counsel in the
jury's presence-combined so
thoroughly to undermine faith in the
verdict that it must be vacated."
The judge also says the $4.24 million
award "bore no discernible relationship to
the evidence. Even was the court to find
the verdict of liability should stand, the
court can perceive no way in which the
jury's damages award could withstand
even passing scrutiny, regardless of the
applicable standard of review." ❒

Two Home-Rule Charters
Force Pennsylvania DEP
To Commonwealth Court
WEXFORD, PA.-The Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection
has injected itself into the issue of
home-rule charters (HRCs) that prohibit
oil and gas activity by approving permits
for Class II disposal wells in Indiana and
Elk counties, Pa., and challenging the
HRCs of two townships that attempt to
ban those wells.
The Pennsylvania Independent Oil &
Gas Association says the DEP approved
the permits in late March for
Pennsylvania General Energy Co.
(PGE) in Indiana County and for
Seneca Resources Corp. in Elk County,
Pa. On the same day, PIOGA reports,
DEP filed challenges in Pennsylvania
Commonwealth Court to the HRCs of
Grant Township in Indiana County and
of Highland Township in Elk County.
PIOGA says both PGE and Seneca
are converting existing natural gas wells
into wastewater disposal wells. Because
of public concern about seismic activity
related to underground injection, the
association notes, DEP applied several
special conditions to the permits. Those
include installing a seismometer and
continuous recorder at each site, and
ordering the companies to submit
tectonic seismic event contingency
plans that include monitoring, reporting
and mitigation provisions.
Because the two townships' HRCs
contain language intended to prevent
DEP from authorizing injection wells
and subjecting the agency to fines if it
does, PIOGA continues, DEP also filed
"complaints seeking declaratory and
injunctive relief," asking the
Commonwealth Court to find the
injection well provisions
unconstitutional.
PIOGA recalls that both Highland
and Grant townships initially adopted
so-called community bill-of-rights
ordinances developed by the
Community Environmental Legal
Defense Fund that prohibited disposing
of oil- and gas-related wastes. After a
new board of supervisors repealed
Highland Township's ordinance,
PIOGA says, voters approved a home
rule charter with the same provisions in
2016, which Seneca Resources
challenged in federal court in
American Oil and Gas Reporter - May 2017

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