DEP offices in Meadville, Wilkes-Barre, Williamsport and Pittsburgh have received “many dozens” of applications for National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to build plants to treat waste water produced in the Marcellus Shale to “clean it” before it is returned to the environment.

One of those applications belongs to Somerset Regional Water Resources, based in Tunkhannock, which has proposed a plant along the Chemung River in Athens Township. Somerset plans to build a treatment plant on a lot in the Valley Industrial Park.

A court appearance is scheduled for mid-December on a recent legal action filed by a citizens’ group against the Schlum-berger project in Horseheads.

State Supreme Court Justice Judith O’Shea is scheduled to review the case at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 18 at the Chemung County Courthouse in Elmira.

The legal action, filed in Chemung County Supreme Court, claims that the review of Schlumberger’s site plans and environmental impact by Horseheads village officials was inadequate and unlawful.

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New York State Division of Housing & Community Renewal has announced a $750,000 grant to Chemung County, on behalf of the village of Horseheads, for the Schlumberger facility planned for the village.

Schlumberger is an oil/gas-field services company that intends to build a service facility campus on 88 acres in The Center at Horseheads Industrial Park.

The proposed facility is phase one of an expected three-phase $40 million project that will create up to 400 jobs.

The state grant will be used to help reconstruct the access road leading from Interstate-86 to the industrial park. A portion of the road work jobs will be available to low and moderate incomes families.

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The Village of Horseheads Board of Trustees has decided that there will be no significant negative impact at the Schlumberger site, although it sits two to three over the top of the Elmira aquifer, that they will be storing a multitude of toxic chemicals, 2500 pounds of explosives and radioactive material in “bunkers” near town athletic fields. Ridge Road Elementary School and private residences are nearby, and they have parking sites for 436 vehicles, all using local roads.

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