Loren “Buzz” Kiskadden will appeal a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruling that takes to task the “reckless” drilling operations of Range Resources, but finds the Washington County landowner failed to prove the company’s leaky Yeager gas drilling site contaminated his water well.

Mr. Kiskadden’s attorneys, John and Kendra Smith, said they will appeal the Commonwealth Court’s 6-1 decision to the state Supreme Court within 30 days.

That 44-page Commonwealth Court decision, filed Oct. 26, affirms the state Environmental Hearing Board’s June 2015 ruling that although Mr. Kiskadden’s well water was contaminated, no hydrogeological connection was proved between Range’s gas drilling operation at the top of a hill and Mr. Kiskadden’s water well in a valley approximately half a mile away.

“Taking into consideration our appellate role and the weight and credibility assigned to the evidence by the Board,” the court wrote, ”we are constrained to conclude that the Board’s findings are supported by substantial evidence and that the Board did not capriciously disregard the evidence or improperly rely on speculative evidence.”

But the majority opinion also noted that at least 15 leaks, spills and overflows occurred between March 2010 and June 2011 at the Yeager drill site in Amwell, impacting the environment and contaminating soil and springs. Some of those leaks and spills were not reported to the state Department of Environmental Protection, the opinion found, while others were not reported accurately.

“Range’s reckless business practices, combined with its repeated failure to report problems at the Yeager site, are irresponsible in the extreme,” the court wrote in its conclusion. “The list of leaks and spills is troubling.”

Mr. Smith said his client’s appeal will focus on the Hearing Board’s failure to consider evidence of other well and spring contamination in the area caused by Range’s operations, as well as other legal issues. The Supreme Court has the discretion to hear the appeal or not.

Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough was the lone dissenting vote. In a dissenting opinion she wrote that although the Hearing Board had granted Mr. Kiskadden a “rebuttable evidentiary presumption” when Range did not comply with discovery requests, the board failed to apply that presumption when it ruled that the contaminants in Mr. Kiskadden’s well, although matching those at the Yeager drill site, could have come from some other source.

“Because the Board failed to properly apply the presumption in the context of this case, and, for all intents and purposes, never provided Kiskadden with the benefit of that presumption, I would vacate and remand to the Board to rectify this legal error with the appropriate findings of fact and analysis,” she wrote.

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1983 or on Twitter @donhopey

First Published: November 3, 2016, 1:00 p.m.