DEP Reviewing Permit for Hauler Charged with Illegal Dumping

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
19 March 2011
By Don Hopey

Although a state grand jury Thursday recommended 175 criminal charges against a Greene County waste hauling firm and its owner for illegally dumping millions of gallons of well drilling wastewater and municipal sludge, the state Department of Environmental Protection hasn't revoked the company's hauling permit.

Katy Gresh, a DEP spokeswoman, said the waste hauling permit for Allan's Waste Water Services Inc. is under review at the regional office in Pittsburgh and the central office in Harrisburg, but there had been no action taken by the end of the day Friday.

"The review is at the highest levels," she said, adding that the department is also looking at the water treatment permit held by a second company, Tri-County Waste Water Management Inc., a brine and industrial wastewater treatment facility in Waynesburg, Greene County. Both companies are owned by Robert Allan Shipman of New Freeport, Greene County.

Allan's Waste Water Service Inc. is still collecting sewage sludge from the Cecil Township Municipal Authority, which first discovered discrepancies in its sludge manifests and contacted the DEP, which called the Attorney General's office. The authority approved payments totaling $3,960 to the hauler at its March 15 meeting.

Mr. Shipman, 49, faces 98 criminal charges, and the grand jury recommended 77 counts against Allan's Waste Water Service, a waste hauling operation that brought in $7 million a year. Tri-County Waste Water was not named in the indictment.

According to the grand jury's presentment, from 2003 to 2009 Mr. Shipman directed the illegal dumping of Marcellus Shale drilling wastewater, municipal sewage sludge and restaurant grease in Allegheny, Fayette, Greene, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties, sometimes after dark or during heavy rains to mask the illegal activity. The waste was dumped on the ground and into streams.

The grand jury document alleges that 480 manifests, which provide a record of the amount and destination of the waste hauled, had forged driver signatures. It also includes an account of how, at the end of the day, Mr. Shipman emptied well drilling wastewater from tanker trucks parked at his business and the wastewater would flow into a garage floor drain that empties into Tom's Run, a tributary of Dunkard Creek.

The state Attorney General's office has called the case one of the largest dumping cases in recent memory, but Mr. Shipman's attorney, Christopher Blackwell, said his client is innocent and termed the allegations by former tanker truck drivers and a secretary "spurious."

Mr. Blackwell also said the DEP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigated the drivers' allegations two years ago and took no action.

"The EPA walked the property where dumping was alleged and didn't believe them," he said. "And the DEP took stream and dirt samples and found nothing."

Mr. Blackwell said his client hired his own environmental firm to sample the stream and it found no pollution. Ms. Gresh confirmed that the department had done stream sampling there but the results of that sampling were unavailable Friday evening.

Clients of the wastewater hauler included natural gas drilling companies that own deep Marcellus Shale wells and shallow gas wells, a half-dozen municipal sewage authorities and Hatfield's Ferry, a coal-fired power plant.

Among customers identified on the allegedly forged invoices and manifests were CNX, a Consol Energy subsidiary; Penneco Oil Co.; American Oil and Gas; Coal Gas Recovery; Targe Energy; Luzerne Township Sewage Authority; Allegheny Power (now FirstEnergy) and Cracker Barrel.

Consol Energy, in a written response to questions, confirmed that Mr. Shipman had a contract to haul drilling wastewater from CNX Gas' coal bed methane wells to an approved disposal site, but terminated the contract in the summer of 2009.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, American Petroleum Institute of PA and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, all organizations representing the gas drilling industry, issued a joint statement condemning illegal wastewater dumping.

"Illegal actions that threaten Pennsylvania's environment and waterways cannot be tolerated," the statement said. "If found guilty of these appalling acts, those charged must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The oil and natural gas industry speaks with one voice in condemning these unthinkable acts and blatant disregard for the environment."

Ben Wallace, chief operating officer at Penneco Oil Co. in Waynesburg, said the firm used Allan's Waste Water to dispose of production water and used fracking fluid from shallow gas wells -- not from Marcellus Shale wells -- but has stopped using the hauler.

"We were contacted by the Attorney General's office and knew he was the subject of an investigation," Mr. Wallace said. "But we had no idea. He had a decent business reputation."

He said Penneco uses Mr. Shipman's Tri-County Waste Water to dispose of its drilling wastewater.

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.