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Railroad Commission Holds Hearing on EPA Allegations Against Range Resources

Last week, a hearing was held before examiners at the Texas Railroad Commission to determine the source of water well contamination in Parker County. The Environmental Protection Agency had previously entered an emergency order finding that Range Resources was responsible for charging rural water wells with natural gas in Parker County, a finding that Range has vehemently denied. The Railroad Commission called the hearing after the EPA issued its order, to receive facts and testimony on the source of the contamination.

I have posted previously about this controversy, here, here, and here.

Range contends that the water wells are contaminated from gas migrating from a shallow gas-bearing formation just below the water table, the Strawn formation.  The EPA’s order says that it did an isotopic fingerprint analysis of the gas found in the water wells matched the gas from Range’s nearby wells producing from the Barnett Shale.

Range hired its own experts to do an analysis of gas from the water wells. They concluded that the gas came from the shallow Strawn sands, and that the “fingerprint” of the gas was inconsistent with gas produced from the Barnett Shale. They said the Strawn gas contains high levels of nitrogen not found in the Barnett Shale gas. Nitrogen levels of the gases were apparently not tested by the EPA. Range’s expert report can be found here.

EPA representatives declined to attend the hearing. Instead, EPA filed suit in federal district court in Dallas seeking to enforce its emergency order. See copy of complaint here: Range complaint.pdf 

Range sought to depose EPA personnel involved in the investigation for the RRC hearing, but EPA has opposed Range’s effort. It removed the motion for subpoena to federal district court in Austin. Last week, Judge Lee Yeakel ordered EPA to produce a representative to answer questions about the investigation. “I think we’re dealing with parallel proceedings here [of the EPA and Railroad Commission] that are of extreme significance and will be significant around the country, based on the amount of publicity that [natural] gas and groundwater is getting in virtually every publication and every media outlet that there is,” Yeakel said. “This has become a hot-button issue in the country.” The RRC has held the record open in its hearing so that the EPA witness’s testimony can be included in the record.

Range has also filed an appeal of the EPA emergency order with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

In light of the rash of cases being filed by landowners in the Barnett Shale alleging groundwater contamination, the Range-EPA fight may have significance well beyond the water wells involved in the case. Range appears resolved to prove that it is not responsible for the contamination. The case could be the first in Texas, and maybe the first in the nation, to finally have a court determine whether there is any merit to allegations of groundwater contamination being caused by fracing of wells.

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