Driller to pay $16.29M in pollution case

MONTROSE, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s most active gas driller pleaded no contest Tuesday to criminal charges, capping a landmark environmental case against a company prosecutors say polluted a rural community’s drinking water 14 years ago, and then tried to evade responsibility.

Residents of the tiny crossroads of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania said their aquifer was ruined and Houston-based Coterra Energy failed to make it right. That led to one of the most prominent pollution cases ever to emerge from the U.S. drilling and fracking boom.

Under a plea deal entered in nearby Susquehanna County Court, Coterra agreed to pay $16.29 million to connect the residents’ homes to a clean source of water and pay their water bills for the next 75 years. Coterra pleaded no contest to a charge of prohibition against discharge of industrial wastes under the state’s Clean Streams Law.

Coterra’s corporate predecessor, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., was charged in June 2020 with 15 criminal counts, most of them felonies, after a grand jury investigation found the company drilled faulty gas wells that leaked flammable methane into residential water supplies in Dimock and surrounding communities.

The grand jury blasted what it called Cabot’s “longterm indifference to the damage it caused to the environment and citizens of Susquehanna County.” Many residents have continued to avoid using their well water, using bottled water, bulk water purchased commercially and even water drawn from creeks and artesian wells.

After being charged, the company had denied any suggestion that it “acted with indifference toward the community where we live and operate.” Cabot, which merged with Denver-based Cimarex Energy Co. to form Coterra, has long maintained the gas in residents’ water was naturally occurring.