14 DAY TRIAL // This past Thursday, a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that several charges filed against XTO Energy Inc., i.e. a subsidiary of American multinational oil and gas corporation Exxon Mobil Corp., were sound enough to be heard in court.
Otherwise put, the oil and gas giant's subsidiary has some not-so-nice criminal charges coming its way.
ThinkProgress tells us that XTO Energy Inc. is accused of having improperly and illegally disposed of tens of thousands of gallons of waste water resulted from hydraulic fracturing.
Specifically, the company is said to have dumped over 50,000 gallons of fracking wastewater at a Marcellus Shale drilling site. The incident occurred back in 2010.
On the eight charges filed against Exxon Mobil Corp.'s subsidiary, three are for violating the Solid Waste Management Act.
The remaining five have to do with the company's not abiding by rules and regulations intended to protect water supply under the Clean Streams Law.
According to Pennsylvania's Attorney General, who filed the charges against XTO Energy Inc. this past September, company workers are guilty of having pulled the plug on a storage tank and thus allowing some 57,000 gallons of contaminated wastewater to works its way into the soil.
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s subsidiary says that the criminal charges filed against it are unfounded.
In a press release issued on September 10, 2013, shortly after Pennsylvania's State Attorney accused the company of having violated several environmental laws, XTO Energy Inc. argued as follows:
“The criminal charges filed by the Attorney General are unprecedented and an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. There was no intentional, reckless, or negligent misconduct by XTO. The incident did not result in significant or lasting environmental harm.”
Furthermore, “Charging XTO under these circumstances could discourage good environmental practices, such as recycling. The action tells oil and gas operators that setting up infrastructure to recycle produced water exposes them to the risk of significant legal and financial penalties should a small release occur.”
Despite judge James G. Carn's ruling that the eight charges will “be held for court,” XTO Energy Inc. stands by its September 2013 statements.