WILLIAMSPORT – The Department of Environmental Protection has fined Rex Energy Operating Corp., of State College, $45,000 for numerous environmental violations at the company’s Alder Run natural gas well site in Cooper Township, Clearfield County.
Rex Energy also signed a Consent Order and Agreement requiring all violations to be corrected within six months.
“Inspections conducted by DEP’s Oil and Gas program staff in late December 2009 and in January revealed a number of significant wetland encroachment and erosion and sediment control violations with the improper construction of the Alder Run Land LP 3H well site and centralized impoundment,” said DEP Acting North-central Regional Director John Hamilton.
DEP inspectors found that the well pad had been built 300 feet to the northeast of what was specified in the erosion and sediment control general permit and had encroached upon wetlands identified in the company’s permit application.
The company also constructed the Alder Run centralized impoundment differently than what was approved in the permit, and that also impacted a wetland.
These illegal activities violated the Oil and Gas Act, Clean Streams Law and the Dam Safety and Encroachments Act.
“These violations are significant, not only due to the actual environmental impact, but also because they totally undermine the department’s permitting process,” said Hamilton. “It is imperative that accurate information is submitted in a permit application and that the sites are constructed exactly as they are permitted.”
The legal agreement requires Rex Energy to halt all activities at the two locations within 15 days; submit to DEP a restoration and mitigation plan addressing all wetland encroachments at the well site and the impoundment within 30 days; begin removal of all fill material placed within 100 feet of all wetland areas of more than one acre within 60 days of approval; submit to DEP a new erosion and sediment control general permit within 90 days; and complete all restoration work within 180 days.