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EPA meets with Pa. residents over drilling fears

Aug 24

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FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2010 file photo, water plant operator Torrey Jones checks the clarity of a sample of treated water at the Beaver Falls Municipal Authority water treatment plant in Beaver Falls, Pa. A U.S. Department of Energy panel wants energy companies to reveal all the chemicals they use in a drilling technique that has allowed them to reach huge and previously inaccessible deposits of natural gas and paved the way for tens of thousands of new wells but that critics say could poison water supplies. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

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MICHAEL RUBINKAM,Associated Press

MONTROSE, Pa. (AP) — Residents and activists in northeastern Pennsylvania say they want the federal government to step in and keep watch over the rapidly expanding natural gas drilling industry.

More than a dozen people met Wednesday with officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies. The meeting took place in a private home in Susquehanna County, near the spot where a pipeline company was forced to halt work this month after repeated spills of nontoxic drilling mud into one of the state's most pristine streams.

State environmental regulators say they detected no impact on aquatic life. But residents tell EPA that Pennsylvania's environmental agency has looked the other way while energy companies operating in the vast Marcellus Shale formation are ruining their quality of life.