$1.1 million Fracking Fine in Pennsylvania

The State of Pennsylvania has fined a company $1.1 million in what one headline claimed was a “fracking fine.”

The State’s Environmental Hearing Board fined EQT Drilling $1,137,295.76 for the pollution caused after a leak from a 6-million gallon wastewater impoundment five years ago in Duncan Township of Tioga county.

It’s not quite the same amount as the DEP proposed in May 2014. It wanted to fine EQT $1,270,871 but the energy company filed a challenge in court.

The court eventually ruled in January of this year that the DEP had wrongly calculated a $4.5 million penalty. But the DEP went to the Pennsylvania state court because the lower court ruling overturns the way the state has calculated penalties for nearly four decades. The case has yet to be decided.