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It’s no surprise that it would draw the interest of a company like Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp., one of the nation’s largest producers of natural gas, which controls over 600,000 acres of gas fields in Pennsylvania alone.
EQT began drilling for the Utica Shale in Greene County, which encompasses New Freeport, in 2015, producing a record-breaking nearly 73 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, according to its website.
The drilling process, known as “fracking,” involves pumping millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals into wells drilled thousands of feet into rock under extremely high pressure in order to crack formations apart and release oil and gas that’s used to heat and power homes across the country.
EQT is run by Toby Rice, 41, a self-proclaimed “shalennial,” who has positioned his stewardship of the company as the dawn of a new era.
“We want to be the operator that is embraced by the community,” he told Greene County residents in 2019.
That hasn’t happened in New Freeport, where some residents who once appreciated the industry as a source of opportunity now feel abandoned.
“My honest opinion, I don’t see why Toby is letting this go on,” said Bill Yoders, who worked for six years at the company Rice’s family founded and sold to EQT for over $6 billion in 2017. “My experience with Toby wasn’t like that. It was probably the best job I ever had.”
This past June, several New Freeport residents and members of the Center for Coalfield Justice, a community group that has been helping supply bottled water to locals, rallied outside an EQT office carrying brightly colored signs that read, “Where the frack is Toby.”
The following month, EQT donated $500,000 to Greene County to turn 360 acres of land surrounding a reservoir into a “destination for families and outdoor enthusiasts,” the county said on its website.
Residents believe the situation is complicated by the fact that two of the three township officials work for or with EQT. Hostutler is a direct employee and the other works for a company contracted by EQT, according to their LinkedIn and Facebook pages. (The men did not respond to questions about their employment.)
“They say they can do what they’re doing without being conflicted,” said Tim Brady, who moved to New Freeport with his family in 2017. “I don’t know how they get away with it.”
Brady, 53, previously served as a township official in nearby Aleppo for 22 years.
“I wouldn’t have been sitting on my ass like they did,” said Brady, who added that he spent nearly $10,000 to install a home water filtration system.
Earlier this year, Hostutler told NBC News that the situation was difficult because it still wasn’t clear what happened or what the consequences were.
“We’re trying to get a resolution to the problem,” he said.
The incident that prompted Hostutler’s Facebook post occurred on June 19, 2022.
EQT workers were fracking multiple wells at one of their existing drilling sites in the area.
Over a mile away, just off New Freeport’s Main Street, an abandoned gas well, believed to date back to the late 1800s or early 1900s, was disturbed. At the time, an EQT representative observed fluid and gas spewing from the well, according to a state DEP compliance report that cited the company for its failure to notify the agency.
EQT continued fracking operations at an adjacent well after the impact was confirmed but was ordered to stop all activity at the site on June 21.
Afterward, at least a dozen nearby landowners reported negative changes to their water supplies and filed complaints with the state DEP, according to legal documents EQT filed in November.
“When you do things like this, and then you have an accident, sometimes you just gotta own up to it,” said Joe Moore, 38, who works for Consol Energy, helping identify wells to be plugged ahead of coal mining operations.
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