EQT Corp. Fracking Leak Ruling Unlikely to Blunt Water Enforcement

A Pennsylvania court’s decision to reject the way environmental regulators calculated fines against EQT Corp. for a fracking fluid leak likely won’t substantially impact the state’s future enforcement efforts against polluters, a former agency official told Bloomberg Environment.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court rejected, in a 5-2 ruling March 28, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s “water-to-water” theory behind a proposed $4.5 million penalty that the Pittsburgh-based natural gas driller didn’t want to pay.

Under that theory, contaminated water moving into new areas would trigger additional penalties each day. Environmental regulators had argued that assessing high penalties based on continuous pollution ...