(Credit: AP)
BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland’s attorney general says he plans to sue a gas-drilling company over a spill of thousands of gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid into a Susquehanna River tributary in April.
Douglas Gansler said Monday he has filed a notice of intent to sue Oklahoma-City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. for allegedly violating federal anti-pollution laws.
A company spokesman tells The Baltimore Sun that the April 19 spill into Towanda Creek in Leroy Township, Pa., had a limited environmental impact with no adverse effects on aquatic wildlife.
He says the spill had no effect on the Susquehanna River, which empties into the Chesapeake Bay.
Gansler says the fluid contained toxic chemicals. Drilling companies use it to fracture the bedrock and release natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, which underlies parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
