Tucked away in Duncan Township, in the hills of southern Tioga County, is Antrim, a now-charming old coal "company town". The largest village in a township of a few hundred residents, Antrim is located about halfway between State Gameland 268 and the stunning Bloss Township section of the Tioga State Forest.

Duncan Township today has the ghostly air of a spacious 21st century company town, or rather a two-company town. One is Phoenix Resources, an affiliate or subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc., our Governor's former employer. On some of the 1900 acres locals say Phoenix owns, is a landfill. Not a municipal garbage dump, but a landfill listed on the DEP website as a Construction/Demolition Waste Landfill converted to a Residual Waste Landfill in 2011. Under services available, WM lists the Phoenix as only offering non-hazardous (their italics) oil and gas E&P (exploration and production) waste disposal services. The other major outfit in the township is EQT Production Company, a Pittsburgh-based well operator. Just how intertwined these two companies are in Antrim is a mystery waiting to be unraveled.

A few decades before the coal that built the town in the 1860's played out, the mine and surrounding acreage was sold, it is said locally, to a Williamsport business concern. Supposedly the mineral rights went along with the sale, but in the late 1980's the property was sold again and eventually an entity in the waste management business acquired some of it. Soon enough a landfill was approved, and along about then, the famous fisherman and environmentalist, Bob McCollough Jr., saw an opportunity to lead the charge that proved to be one of the most celebrated stream restoration projects in the Commonwealth's history.

From the DEP website, on the announcement of the Governor's Environmental Excellence Award for 2010 to the Babb Creek Watershed Association:

Babb Creek had been polluted by acid mine drainage for over 100 years and has negatively affected the Pine Creek below the town of Blackwell. Local residents formed the Babb Creek Watershed Association and through partnerships with DEP, DCNR, the Arnot Sportsmen, and many other supporting organizations, undertook 18 separate projects with a combined budget of nearly $8 million.

The group managed operations of a large one-of-a-kind water treatment facility which uses a byproduct from limemaking to treat a very large volume of abandoned mine discharge. Through their efforts, five miles of Pine Creek and 14 miles of Babb Creek have been removed from EPA's list of impaired waters and the creek now supports a thriving trout fishery.

From the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, September 13, 2009:

Twenty years after a local fisherman and environmentalist "got mad" that his favorite fishing stream had become polluted with acid mine drainage, Babb Creek has been officially removed by the Department of Environmental Protection from classification as an "endangered stream."

http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/532298.html?nav=5011

If you spend a little time on the DEP's eFACTS website (and you have to be an exceptionally patient person to do so), you may occasionally come across an item that catches your eye and leads you to explore an out of the way gem like Antrim. From DEP's website:

Violation Details for Inspection ID: 2067209

Facility: PHOENIX 590934 ( 737215)

Program: Oil & Gas

Violation ID: 639195

Date: 05/08/2012

Violation Description: Failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of a residual waste

Violation Type: Environmental Health and Safety

Taken Against: EQT Production Co

Enforcement Type: Notice of Violation

Violation ID: 63916

Date: 05/08/2012

Violation Description: There is a potential for polluting substance(s) reaching Waters of the Commonwealth and may require a permit

A few other nuggets of information that can be extrapolated from eFACTS, from Google Earth, and from the website fracfocus.org, which posts (partial) disclosure of fluids used to frack wells:

 It appears EQT holds permits for over 80 wells in the area either on Phoenix  Resources property or that plus other property where they hold mineral rights

 At least one of the five wells EQT has fracked is an oil well.

        EQT is using a lot of water - more than 9 million gallons on one gas well

EQT appears to have built two large impoundments on the Phoenix property but does not have a damn safety permit for either. That suggests that the impoundments are either "non-jurisdictional" freshwater impoundments (which do not require damn safety permits) or well pad impoundments, which can be built under the auspices of a well permit.

EQT has applied for, but not yet received, a permit for a centralized impoundment ( i.e. an impoundment to be used for multiple well sites) for flowback and/or other gas well wastewaters.

From these facts, we move to the kind of nuggets of talk you can extract if you hang around a friendly watering hole in a two-company town and have some understanding of pertinent regulations. We have no documents to offer yoy, just questions. Concerned citizens may want to ask that these questions be investigated and answered:

Has EQT stored any flowback fluids on Phoenix sites, pending issuance of a wastewater impoundment permit?

Has EQT drilled any monitoring wells in support of its centralized impoundment application? And do these show that any flowback entered the groundwater? ( When an operator applies for a wastewater impoundment permit, it has to drill monitoring wells, which are used to establish a baseline for the groundwater under the impoundment, and to determine if the impoundment is leaking).

If tests showed flowback was present in the groundwater, did the company responsible for the impoundment know of it, but continue to add flowback to it?

Did the DEP try to stop the addition of more flowback?

Has the impoundment been emptied, and if so, is there a complete accounting for the flowback it once held?

Has there been any sign that flowback has entered the tributary to Babb Creek known as Rock Run?

In Antrim, and elsewhere around the Commonwealth, growing numbers of citizens living near gas development incidents are asking what is going on in their community. In Bradford County's Leroy Township, new methane migration problems have been acknowledged by DEP in recent weeks, but oddly gelatinous clay, as seen in the video available below, has not been explained to concerned neighbors, or even publicly acknowledged. If you missed seeing this strange phenomenon, take a look here:

http://srs444.blogspot.com/2012/05/franklindale-leroy-marcellus-meltdown.html 

In Antrim, we have no video to watch right now, just a DEP incident report, and questions to ask. Many good people put much hard work into the restoration of Babb Creek. If any of these folks think they can be downstream with a conductivity meter and get a reading that may lend evidence of what could have happened to Duncan Township's Rock Run, they need to be familiar with the work of PA state employee, Dr. Michel Boufadel of Temple University. Speaking in the fall of 2010 at an RDA sponsored event, PhD hydrologist and professional engineer Boufadel explained just how flowback can behave when it enters a stream. A primitive video of part of his similar presentation that summer at a League of Women Voters forum in Susquehanna County is available here ( stream issues start around 5:30 min in):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk5LOA7jSSw 

Who is willing to ask what is going on in Duncan Township? Ask the questions posed above; ask the press, ask your representatives, ask environmental protection agencies. If there is a problem in any of Duncan Township's groundwater or in its Rock Run and EQT's operations may have caused it, let's demand a thorough investigation.

For those involved in rumored incidents, please remember June 17th, 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate burglary. It wasn't that crime that eventually landed so many associated with it in jail - it was the coverup.

Demand DEP get to the bottom of the Antrim violations, without influence from the administration or any of its appointees.

Starting now.

Follow Bob McCollough's historical lead and see if you or your organization can help the process unfold.