Greene County townships declare disaster emergency three years after EQT frack job by Anya Litvak, Sept 4, 2025, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It has been 3 years, 2 months and 14 days since an abandoned well in Freeport spewed a geyser of water and gas — the first sign of trouble for the small Greene County community whose residents would come to blame a nearby fracking job for their water woes.
The geyser appeared at the same time as EQT Corp. was fracking a Marcellus Shale well about a mile away. EQT notified the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection that its Lumber 13H well had “communicated” with the abandoned well, meaning something in the first well caused something else to happen in the other.
When the fracking stopped, the abandoned well went silent. When the fracking started again, the dormant well began to bubble, a scene captured on video by an EQT employee. In the video, a man is heard saying “that’s a direct correlation in my book.”
Since then, more than 100 people in Freeport and nearby Springhill have reported problems with their well water, including putrid smells, oily sheen, sour taste and discoloration. Some said they developed painful rashes after showering. Others noticed their pets reluctant to drink the water. They believe EQT’s fracking on the Lumber and Spleen Splitter pads has disturbed the aquifer from which they draw water.
Last summer, impacted residents filed a lawsuit against EQT and its fracking contractor, seeking class-action status. As the legal docket fills out with experts’ reports, resident affidavits, and hundreds of pages of text about the local geology, the impacted communities are trying what Guy Hostutler, chairman of the Freeport Township board of supervisors, called “Plan B.”
This summer, Freeport and Springhill townships each issued emergency disaster declarations meant to unlock federal funds and bring wider attention to the “injury, damage, and suffering to the people and property” of the area.
“We’re already 2½-3 years into this,” Mr. Hostutler said this week.
“Our residents don’t have water.”
The township is looking to secure up to $25 million to bring a municipal water line into the area. The closest connection is about 18 miles away, Mr. Hostutler said. So far, the township has $6 million to put toward that goal.
It’s not an immediate solution, he said. The township, which has experienced its own water supply issues, has appealed a determination by the Department of Environmental Protection that said it could not link water impacts to oil and gas activity. Many of its residents, who received similar letters about their water, are part of the lawsuit against EQT.
“Yes, they’re going to still be without water for some time,” Mr. Hostutler said of his Plan B. “But we felt that this would speed the process up.”
No communication
EQT now believes that the timing of its frack job on the Lumber pad and the activation of the abandoned well in June 2022 was a coincidence. It denies that its activities have impacted anyone’s water well.
Of course it does, all guilty frac’ers say the same
But an expert hired by the Greene County residents involved in the lawsuit found that a link between the fracking and the abandoned well was the most likely scenario.
The pressure used to pump the sand cocktail through the hard shale — 10,000 psi on average — could have shifted things under the surface, bringing pressure to shallower gas layers. This would explain the disturbances seen closer to the surface without any Marcellus gas showing up in the results. Instead of opening a tunnel directly from the Lumber well to the surface, the frack job could have acted like the first domino to fall in a chain reaction.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, is still in the early stages. Last month, a judge denied the plaintiff’s petition for a preliminary injunction — a kind of emergency order for EQT to supply residents of Freeport and Springhill with safe drinking water until the case is decided.I fully expect Nazi Trump will intervene, and order all judges to obey der PedoFührer and disallow any lawsuits against any corporation by harmed Americans
“EQT previously and voluntarily offered to and supplied replacement water services to residents within a certain radius of New Freeport,” company spokeswoman Amy Rogers said, “because of its dedication to the communities where it operates” and despite testing from the DEP and the company establishing no link between EQT’s fracking and water impacts.
Those deliveries started in 2023 and continued for about a year.
Freeport Township supervisors mince no words blaming EQT for their situation — the township’s disaster declaration begins by saying EQT “caused” this.
Mr. Hostutler said he has meetings set up for next week with state representatives where he will plead the township’s case.
Rob Ott:
Along with Range Resources, EQT has been killing the environment with fracking for more than 20 years.Same as Encana/Ovintiv in Canada and USA. Frac’ers are douche fuckers, their enablers, our politicians and “regulators” are triple douche fuckersThe antiquated philosophy of “drill baby drill” has poisoned our earth in irreversible ways. These companies are slapped with fines that, by comparison, would be pennies to you & me, and then continue their destructive practices with even more fervor. Sad on so many levelsIn Canada, aquifer contaminating frac’ers like Encana/Ovintiv don’t even get fines, they control our courts, regulators and govts as if they were Israel
1st and 10:
There is automatically assumed well contamination within 2,500 feet of these well pads over a short period of time, while the lateral well bores have extended over 20,000 feet (4-miles) in our area. Imagine the ‘joy’ of having your clean well water, and potentially other clean sources like springs, replaced with large plastic containers called ‘buffalos.’
Here’s my “replacement water. I’ve been forced to used alternate hauled water for 20 fucking years:”
Then suddenly, one day about a year later, the company says they aren’t going to pay for that replacement water any more. This scenario has repeated itself locally far more times than anyone knows.
These companies will bring in legions of high paid suits from Pittsburgh law firms and say “Prove it.” Most municipalities and individuals cannot afford the legal costs of going toe-to-toe with them, and end up signing NDA’s aka ‘gag orders.’ That keeps the real news hushed up. Frac-rinse-repeat.
Even the largest DEP fines are just a slap on the wrist, more or less, just a cost of doing business to them. Must read books: AMITY & PROSPERITY and PETROLEUM-238: BIG OIL’S DANGEROUS SECRET.Read Andrew Nikiforuk’s Slick Water too
Niveck Morris:
Everyone who knows a thing about geology (and who doesn’t work for some segment of the gas industry) predicted this kind of thing.
1st and 10:
It took far too long for everyone to realize how much radioactivity is being brought up from the deep with the gas, and spread all over God’s green Earth. That legacy pollution, which will last well over 1,000 years, and will still be here for your descendants, more than 50 generations from now, to deal with. In the meantime, your gas range is delivering a dose of the airborne radioactivity into your kitchen, since it isn’t destroyed when burned. BE SURE to vent your gas stovetop and oven to the outside when in use, or switch to electric.
Blue Skies:
EQT had total revenue of $5 billion last year, and net income of $230 million. Toby Rice, CEO, owns over 2 million shares of EQT stock. At $51 a share that’s over $100 million. But, he doesn’t live in Greene county so why should he care.
Desert Rat:
I can remember when these CEO’s in front of congress and other local authorities testified or stated that the chemicals they used to fracture the rock was safe. I wish the governing bodies would have poured them all a glass of the chemicals and tell them if you drink it we will grant the permit. I am old enough to remember we could pick up the garden hose and take a drink. Now even if you drink “purified” water out of the plastic bottle you can still get poisoned.
You want to make America great again stop killing brown people all over the world, give us clean water and air.
1st and 10:
To your point, the use of more renewable energy in the US would eliminate so many global wars over energy.
Lois Fitzerald:
More than 95 percent of U.S. natural gas & oil wells today are developed using fracking. & our state is one of the most fracked to the detriment of our health & environment. Trump is doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Trump advocates for common sense but then takes actions to keep us & future generations ignorant & unhealthy. Renewable energy sources, on the other hand, offer a more sustainable & environmentally friendly way of generating power. They include solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, & geothermal energy.
David Hartz:
But fracking is SO safe!
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