PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro

PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a sleazy politician, is investigating so-called environmental “crimes” committed by shale companies in a bid to boost his chances of being the next nominee to run for governor (see PA AG Investigates Shale Drillers for “Enviro Crimes”). One of Shapiro’s sham investigations is into Range Resources and the long-ago settled “Haney” court case.

We recently explained, in detail, what the Haney case was about, and why reopening that closed-and-sealed case borders on the illegal (see Antis Try to Pick Open Old Scab of Settled (and Sealed) Range Case).

One of the parties that sued Range in the Haney case (whom Range later settled with) is Stephanie Hallowich (see our stories about the Hallowich’s here). Although Stephanie is under a court order to keep her mouth closed about the Range settlement, she is allowed to talk about it under oath if and when she receives a subpoena. The sleazy Josh Shapiro has impaneled a grand jury in Pittsburgh to hear testimony about faux “crimes” that may have been committed by the shale industry, and he called Stephanie to testify before the panel yesterday.

How anyone can’t see this for what it is, political grandstanding by Shapiro to raise his own invisible status to visible in a race that’s four years away, is beyond us. There is a word for those who abuse their office in order to benefit themselves: corruption.

Stephanie Hallowich, who once was a prominent critic of shale gas drilling operations around her family’s farm in Mt. Pleasant Township, Washington County, testified Tuesday before a statewide grand jury investigating alleged crimes committed by the industry.

Ms. Hallowich was subpoenaed to appear at 8:30 a.m. before the grand jury, convened in a secret Pittsburgh location by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

Ms. Hallowich, her husband, Chris, and their two young children are subjected to a gag order in a 2011 settlement agreement that precludes them from discussing shale gas issues, except that they are allowed to testify if subpoenaed, said Peter Villari, the Montgomery County attorney, who represented them in that lawsuit and its settlement.

“She received a subpoena and she called me because she was concerned,” Mr. Villari said Wednesday. “She’s required by the settlement to notify the defendants in the case and she did that. None objected.”

Mr. Villari said he had no idea what the topic of Ms. Hallowich’s testimony was, how long she testified or what she said.

He said his client is sworn to secrecy about the proceedings. Grand jury witnesses are allowed to talk about their testimony unless a judge orders them not to do so.

Joe Grace, a spokesman for the attorney general, said he could not “comment or confirm any grand jury investigation.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Jan. 27 that the attorney general’s office had accepted referrals and assumed jurisdiction over “several criminal investigations involving environmental crimes in Washington County,” and that the grand jury had begun taking testimony.

Three Washington County residents said at the time that they had spoken with state investigators and were told they could be called to testify before the grand jury.

Another Washington County resident, June Chappel, 59, of Hopewell Township, said she testified before the grand jury in early January about well drilling and fracking near her property.

She said she told the grand jury that Range Resources built a large well pad near her home and flared methane gas that caused the liner of a football-field-size wastewater impoundment to catch fire and burn for a full day. Flaring is no longer legal but was used in 2009 to burn off gases and oils and stabilize pressure in new wells.

Range Resources did not respond Wednesday to phone and email requests seeking comment.

Stephanie and Chris Hallowich became vocal critics of the shale gas development that surrounded their 10-acre farm after 2007 with four Marcellus Shale gas wells, access roads, a gas processing facility, a compressor station and a 3-acre wastewater pond.

They said their well water supply had been contaminated and that their two children had been subjected to volatile organic compounds from Range’s drilling operations in the water and air that exposed them to cancer-causing substances and caused them to experience burning eyes, sore throats, headaches and earaches.

The Hallowiches sued Range and three subcontractors; the lawsuit was settled and sealed in 2011. After an appeal by the Post-Gazette, the settlement was restored to the public court record in 2013. It shows the Hallowich family was paid $750,000.

Making the terms of the settlement public did not change the requirement that the Hallowiches adhere to terms of the agreement’s non-disparagement and non-disclosure clauses.

Earlier this month, the Post-Gazette filed a motion to unseal another confidential settlement of a court case in which Stacey Haney and her neighbors allege their health was damaged by toxic spills, leaks, and air pollutants from a Range Resources shale gas well and impoundment in Amwell Township, Washington County.

A hearing on that motion is scheduled for Mar. 25 before Washington County Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Lucas.*

The article above was co-written by anti-shale crusader Don Hopey, who sometimes masquerades as a journalist for the Post-Gazette. Here’s a question: Who fed Don the info about the exact time and day and witness list of a secret grand jury? Nobody is supposed to know that a grand jury is meeting or even exists, let alone who is testifying at a particular time on a particular day. Was it Shapiro who leaked the details to Hopey? We’re pretty sure someone committed a crime in passing along that information to Hopey. Yet an incurious media won’t say a word about it.

You may recall PA’s last infamous AG, Kathleen Kane, leaked grand jury information and later lied about it under oath, committing the felony of perjury. She’s sitting in jail right now because of it (see Justice Served: Former PA AG Kathleen Kane Goes to Jail). Will history repeat itself?

*Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette (Feb 20, 2019) – Hallowich testifies before state criminal grand jury