Nov 4, 2015 4 min read

Range Resources and the state Department of Environmental Protection are challenging recent claims made by an Amwell Township property owner who alleges the gas company contaminated his drinking water.

The gas company and the DEP claim Loren Kiskadden and his attorneys had previous access to information on the company’s use of tracers, which chart and analyze the reach of hydraulic fracturing, and refute claims Kiskadden’s water was contaminated or Range withheld possible evidence. They filed their responses Monday in Commonwealth Court.

Last month, attorneys for Kiskadden filed a motion in the same court in an attempt to gain a new trial before the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board based on what they call newly discovered evidence relating the use of tracers.

Range previously was ordered to turn over a detailed list of all chemicals and substances used at the site since 2009.

Kiskadden’s attorneys, John and Kendra Smith, argue the use of tracers was not previously disclosed, and at least one of newly disclosed tracers, antimony, was found at a level four times the federal maximum acceptable for drinking water in Kiskadden’s well.

When contacted Wednesday, John Smith said the importance of antimony was only recently determined. He contends they only learned about the refuted information this summer.

In June, EHB Chief and Chairman Thomas W. Renwand determined Kiskadden “failed to meet his burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that his water well was impacted by gas drilling operations conducted by Range Resources,” according to court documents. Kiskadden lives along Banetown Road, having moved there in 2008. In June 2011, while filling a child-sized pool, Kiskadden claims his water began foaming, contained gray sludge and had a rotten-egg odor. His well sits a half-mile away from Range’s Yeager impoundment. He filed a lawsuit in 2012 and has since been embattled with Range.

In September, the board held a 20-day trial on the issue, which included a tour of the property.

While Renwand agreed a “number of problems existed at the Yeager site,” he said Kiskadden did not prove the various leaks and spills that occurred at the Yeager site lead to the contamination of his water. The DEP included those problems when it issued Range a record-setting $4.15 million fine for various leaks and other problems at six of the company’s water impoundments in Washington County.

The Smiths asked the Commonwealth Court to vacate the hearing board decision denying their client’s contamination claim and send the case back to the board for a new hearing. John Smith said they filed an initial appeal to the hearing board’s June decision in September.

Matt Pitzarella, Range spokesman, said Kiskadden’s attorneys had access to information regarding the tracers and the contents of a letter which the Smiths argue showed Kiskadden’s water was contaminated. The Smiths argue Range concealed a draft letter from the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that showed Kiskadden’s water contains high concentrations of sodium, methane, arsenic and diesel range organics at levels “high enough to affect your health.”

“As the DEP has stated, there has not been any ‘newly discovered evidence’ in this matter. Just the opposite is true in that all of the information was in their possession prior to the EHB’s independent decision that upheld the DEP’s lengthy investigation that determined Range did not impact this drinking water well,” Pitzarella wrote in an email. “We now see again in a letter from additional federal agencies, which strongly support the state’s investigation that Mr. Kiskadden has a very poorly constructed and neglected water well, located in the middle of a decades-old junkyard that is the likely cause of his issues. We sincerely hope that this exhaustive investigation from state regulators and a panel of environmental judges, in addition to a broad five-year study from federal regulators, provides the public with confidence that gas drilling is well regulated and is being responsibly conducted.”

DEP spokesman John Poister declined to comment Wednesday on the pending litigation.