ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
After contaminating local drinking water, including making the Susquehanna river bubble with gas, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection decided to fine Oklahoma-based "Chesapeake" Energy about 1.3% of its CEO's 2009 salary, or about 0.0001 of their revenue last year.
For what it's worth I actually own stock in Chesapeake. They are a huge operation with some tremendous assets, and I think they can extract from them profitably while still being environmentally responsible. At the same time, they could use some encouragement to be responsible, and this wink and nudge from the Pennsylvania government is, if anything, an indication that they don't need to worry about it. That's disappointing.
