Judge orders $600,000 fine for Chesapeake

Judge orders $600,000 fine for Chesapeake in West Virginia dumping

By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Chesapeake Appalachia was sentenced today to pay a $600,000 fine for an unauthorized discharge of stone and gravel into Blake Fork in Wetzel County, W.Va., in 2008.

The sentence was negotiated between the company's attorneys and the office of U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II of the Northern District of West Virginia, and approved today by U.S. District Judge Frederick P. Stamp Jr.

Prosecutors said Chesapeake's contractors dumped 60 tons of crushed stone and gravel into the waterway in an effort to create a roadway to access a Marcellus Shale gas drilling site called Hohman Pit. Read more...