Cabot Charged With Criminal Counts for Dimock Fracking Pollution

An energy company faces felony charges alleging that it polluted residential water wells in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania community that has long been a battleground in the national debate over natural gas drilling and fracking.

The Associated Press reports Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation was charged June 15 following a grand jury investigation that found the company failed to fix faulty gas wells in Dimock and surrounding communities that leaked methane into residential water supplies.

The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office charged Cabot with a total of 15 criminal counts including illegal discharge of industrial wastes and unlawful conduct under the state's Clean Streams Law..

The company has racked up hundreds of civil violations since 2007, and it has been banned from drilling in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock.

The company has long insisted the gas in Dimock’s aquifer is naturally occurring,