Jan 16, 2015 3 min read

Range Resources entered a $1.75 million settlement agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection for exceeding the company’s water-withdrawal limit and failing to submit the appropriate records.

The consent agreement, signed last week, includes an $800,000 fine and a payment of nearly $950,000 that will be used to rehabilitate a passive mine water treatment system in Allegheny County.

Oil and natural gas companies are required to follow a water-management plan outlining the amount companies can withdraw from state waterways to be used for hydraulic fracturing. Range Resources did not adhere to its plan and did not record its daily water withdrawals and withdrawal rates between July 2009 and February 2014, according to a news release Friday.

DEP spokesman John Poister said Range was submitting “very inconsistent reporting and, in some cases, not reporting at all.” The data Range submitted electronically to the DEP’s Water Use Database System was “often different than or not supported by existing records,” the DEP said.

Poister said Range notified the DEP about the inconsistencies when the company discovered them while filing a final report. Poister said the issue is uncommon, and the agency is investigating why it went unnoticed for nearly five years.

“This is an area where obviously it’s important, and it’s something where we have to make sure that the reports that we are getting are properly reviewed and characterized,” Poister said. “In this case, we’re still internally investigating why we didn’t catch this sooner.”

Range has since changed its monitoring and reporting procedure in order to comply with the law and also corrected the information it previously submitted, the DEP said.

Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella said the company immediately notified the DEP after discovering the problem and took steps to better manage its water withdrawals and reports.

“The DEP approved Range’s new protocols in February of 2014, which are intended to prevent this issue from occurring again,” he said in an email. “Specifically, and as announced in September of 2014, Range reorganized and refocused specific employees to provide greater oversight of water management and regulatory compliance.”

Poister said while the DEP was concerned Range went over its water withdrawal limit, the withdrawals did not have an environmental impact. Instead, the outcome will contribute to “long-range improvement of the environment” in the form of contributions to the Hamilton Abandoned Mine Treatment System, which Range proposed to fund in lieu of additional fines.

The mine-treatment system was constructed in 2003 to lessen the impact of mine drainage in the Raccoon Creek Watershed, according to a news release. It operated for several years until a property owner restricted access to the site, which then fell into disrepair. A new owner reopened access to the system, which will be rehabilitated and expanded.

“Protection of our natural resources is a key component of DEP’s mission,” John Ryder, DEP’s director of Oil and Gas Operations said in a news release. “This innovative agreement does that directly by providing support for a local project that will improve our state’s waterways without the use of additional public funding.”