Have a Heart, Rex (Phase 4) 2014-03-09 Complaint #302587

8/12/2019 Have a Heart, Rex (Phase 4) 2014-03-09 Complaint #302587

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Dear Rex Tillerson,

The following story has nothing to do with ExxonMobil or XTO, but it has everything to do withresponsible Corporate Citizenship which is fairand just for people in the vicinity where youand your colleagues operate. Together, youare becoming highly visible in the public eye.

It is incumbent upon you to take bold, moralaction. Engage your counterparts in governmentand competing organizations to act in cooperation.Start behaving as stewards of the earth and humanity.

DEP Manipulates Law On Complaint, Leaves Family Without WaterPosted by Joshua B. Pribanic on March 5, 2014

Part 1: Complaint #302587It’s day one and Christine Pepper’s family has no water. There’s no water for the family to drink, to

shower, or wash their clothes so they’re making calls to inlaws and saving single gallon plastic jugs. It’s

day one, and the Pepper family has 45 days until they know what’s happened.

It started when Christine splashed water on her face from the kitchen faucet and a burning sensation

shot through her skin. “It felt like my face was on fire for 20 minutes,” she said. Later red bumps

developed.

Not shortly after there was no water at all. The Pepper’s spring-fed well, which had produced water for

more than 50 years, went completely dry.

“I’m not saying we’ve never had low water,” explains Christine’s husband Cory, “but it always comes

right back, but it’s stayed dry for two weeks. And… I’ve never seen it! I’m 42, I’ve lived here 42 years,and my Dad was 18 when he bought this house.”

The Peppers live on Southside Road in Leroy Twp. Bradford County, where Public Herald reported on

drinking water problems in the documentary Triple Divide. The Pennsylvania Department of

Environmental Protection (DEP) has pending Gas Migration Investigation (GMI) cases throughout the

area, with Leroy Twp. being famous for two GMI’s in the last three years: the Atgas 2H well blowout in

April 2011, and the Morse 5H well subsurface problems in 2012. Both wells are within three miles of

each other.

Douglas Grandt <[email protected]>

Rex Tillerson <[email protected]>

Shane Steward <[email protected]>

Rex, please engage - DEP Manipulates Law On Complaint, Leaves Family Without Water

23 Attachments, 2.8 MB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_V3YpfN7M

http://tripledividefilm.org/

http://www.publicherald.org/archives/author/joshua/



Cory and Christine Pepper stand at their spring water well.

Cory and Christine Pepper live 1,000ft from the Morse 5H well and 3 miles from the Atgas 2H well, each

operated by Chesapeake Energy Corporation.



According to DEP, the Morse 5H well is currently in “inactive status” due to regulatory procedures. But,

there’s a second well on the pad — the 3H — which the Peppers were told was put into production the

same week their well went dry.

They opened up the [3H] well and the next day we have problems,” told Cory, who happens to work

locally for the gas industry but has been skeptical that fracking had anything to do with stories of water

contamination in the area.

“They opened up the [3H] well and the next day we have problems,” told Cory, who happens to work

locally for the gas industry but has been skeptical that fracking had anything to do with stories of water

contamination in the area.

The phrase “opened up” is another way of saying the gas well went “on line” or into production.

Essentially, the company pulls a plug and the gas is released, ready to go to market.

When Cory saw his family’s spring dry up, and found out that the 3H well had been put online, he and

Christine did the only thing to do; they called DEP to submit a complaint.

Once a homeowner submits a drinking water complaint the Department has 45 days to make adetermination about whether oil and gas activities have impacted the water supply. The complaint gets a

number, the Pepper’s is #302587, and day one for DEP starts on the receipt of the complaint. But it’s

hardly ever cut and dry. Christine talked to DEP on a Friday but as Cory puts it, “They told her it was an

inconvenience for them to come out and test it on a Friday. So, they came out Tuesday [February, 11th].

That was day one with DEP.”

The Pepper family living next to the Morse well pad.

As Christine recalls, “DEP came that day [Tuesday] and told me that bare minimum it would be 45 days

to several years before they come up with a conclusive decision. And the one gentleman told me that it

was highly unlikely it had anything to do with the drilling over there.”

The Pepper family is no stranger to DEP or impacts from fracking. Christine’s mother is Carolyn Knapp,

and Carolyn has spent years educating Bradford County about the impacts from drilling while criticizing

DEP for how they handle water complaints. So since this isn’t Carolyn’s first water rodeo, Christine had



Melissa Troutman scans DEP files

Carolyn knows about these complaints, “The neighbors have had…”

Christine interjects, “black water, no water, methane water.”

her mother act as the liaison for her complaint.

Carolyn Knapp appeared in Triple Divide as a supporter of herfriend, dairy farmer Carol French, who experienced water

pollution and lack of action with a DEP complaint. photo: jbpribanic

Public Herald started collecting DEP complaint files when they

first became available in Spring 2013; in previous years no one

could access complaints. DEP files complaints into two categories:

water complaints andgeneral complaints. Water complaints deal

mostly with drinking water. General complaints deal with

everything else; however that doesn’t mean that general

complaints don’t also deal with water.

As of June 2013 Public Herald found Bradford County had 285

water supply complaints. Of those, 11 complaints were filed for

Leroy Twp., eight being water complaints. The remaining three

general complaints have at least two concerning drinking water

from spills; one involving a 4,700 gallon spill of hydrochloric acid,

a component of fracking fluid, on July 4th, 2013.

Hydrochloric Acid Spill (p. 1)

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1017908-leroy-twp-general-290490.html#document/p1/a147333

http://publicfiles.org/complaints/water-complaints/bradford-county/

http://publicfiles.org/complaints/general-complaints/

http://publicfiles.org/complaints/water-complaints/



Christine Pepper stands next toempty gallon jugs once filledwith

drinking water.

Now that Christine is having

to communicate with DEP

she’s beginning to experience

the stories her mother talked

about. “I felt like they were

questioning my integrity. DEPmade me feel like I was wrong

for believing [the well pad]

has anything to do with it.

And said if I wasn’t going to

cooperate they weren’t going

to help me… completely

disregarding the fact that I

have no water.”

Herein lies one part of the

problem with complaint

investigations: DEP’sdiscriminatory attitude and

treatment of citizens who

report water problems. As

Carolyn explains, “A lot of

other people would say forget about it, and it’s not worth the

hassle.”

“There should be a provision in the law that requires them to supply

water,” says Carolyn. “They don’t understand for 45 days what it’s

like to live out of a bottle.”

But there is a provision.

Pennsylvania Act 13 provides the “presumption of liability” clause

under section 3218 which holds the industry liable for supplying

water to nearby complaints and gives DEP 45 days to conduct and

complete an investigation.

“Operators found to have impacted a water supply within the

time and distance provisions of the presumption of liability must

supply temporary potable water until the supply is restored or

replaced.” (DEP)

However, DEP personnel changed the meaning of the law and toldCarolyn in an email that the Department cannot provide Christine

water and the presumption of liability only applies once DEP makes

a determination before or after the 45 days.

http://files.dep.state.pa.us/OilGas/OilGasLandingPageFiles/Act13/Act_13_FAQ.pdf

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/58/00.032.018.000..HTM



February 28th, Department personnel Jennifer Means sent Carolynanother email stating that DEP can require a company to provide a

temporary water supply on day one of the complaint under the

presumption of liability, but only for complaints of pollution.

But Carolyn never questioned the need for sampling of the water

supply. She questioned how it could be done if there was no water.

Carolyn told DEP on day one of the complaint that the problem was

both pollution and diminution.

DEP Changes Presumptive Liability Clause (p. 19)

Jennifer Means Ignores Pollution Complaint Denying Presumptive Liability (p. 1)

Carolyn Acknowledges on Day One that Complaint is Quality/Quantity (p. 25)

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1033502-pepper-complaint-emails-02-14.html#document/p25/a147336


http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1049434-jennifer-means-dep-presumptive-clause.html#document/p1/a147335






Means emphasized to Carolyn how the Department has no evidence

leading them to believe the Morse gas well could of caused Pepper’s

water complaint. Chesapeake Energy made the same statements in

a separate email.

Yet Public Herald uncovered documents that the Morse well has a

dangerous history which the Department is fully aware of but chose

to ignore as evidence. Recently, the Leighton family who live near

the Peppers, sued Chesapeake Energy for drinking water

contamination related to the Morse 5H well. Their case references

some of these problems:

DEP Claims to Have no Evidence of Water Quality Problems Related to Morse Well (p. 1)

CHK "Reason to believe..." (p. 12)

2011 Morse 5H Problems (p. 10)

2012 Morse 5H Problems (p. 10)

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1023414-leighton-settlement-chk.html#document/p10/a146917










The Morse 5H well is also

responsible for blowing out and

impacting a creek down the road on

Tim Pepper’s farm [Cory's brother],

an incident documented in Triple

Divide. With the Leighton’s case,

Tim Pepper’s creek blowout, and

other incidents happening within

the past two years, DEP hasevidence on the Morse well for the

presumptive clause. But, instead

they’ve left the Pepper family

without water and manipulated the

law.

“If they took care of the landowners

and the local people you’d be so

much further ahead, but they won’t. And that’s what pissed me off.”

Cory protests.

If the Peppers water supply turns out to be safe to drink, it doesn’trestore their trust in the Department or Chesapeake Energy.

For complaint #302587 Christine affirms, “It’s not just my life I’m

concerned about; it’s their life.”

2012 Water Complaint & Pollution - Morse 5H (p. 12)

Leroy Twp. Predrill Water Quality Data (p. 12)





http://youtu.be/lVsX1TewgQc



Christine Pepper’s sons watch as dirty water drips from the faucet

Stay tuned to PublicHerald.org for Part 2 of the “45 Day” Pepper

complaint report. In the meantime, check out our new #fileroom

website for more complaint files.

Melissa Troutman contributed to this report.

http://www.publicherald.org/archives/19008/fracking-2/

About Joshua B. Pribanic

Joshua Pribanic is Editor-in-Chief for

publicherald.org, an investigative reporter, director,

photographer, and permaculturalist. His debut

documentary, Triple Divide, investigates how the

impacts of fracking are being handled by the state and industry.

Influences include Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, and ProPublica's

Editor Paul Steiger. Follow on twitter: @jbpribanic View all posts

by Joshua B. Pribanic »

http://www.publicherald.org/archives/author/joshua/

https://twitter.com/#!/jbpribanic

http://tripledividefilm.org/

http://publicherald.org/


http://publicfiles.org/about/

http://publicherald.org/



Leighton Family Lawsuit Against Chesapeake Energy Involving

Morse 5H Well


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Morse Well Plat


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Have a Heart, Rex (Phase 4) 2014-03-09 Complaint #302587