Can someone explain this to me?

1) No (corporations get a free ticket to pollute unconditionally)

2) Yes (if you did it, you would pay a fine or even go to jail)

3) Yes (corporations have unlimted rights, you have none)

That's an incredibly oversimplified description of how the law responds to toxic torts and pollution-related crime. If a bucket of waste has already been determined to be harmful a corporation can be criminally charged just like a human.

The excessively harmful test applies in tort (civil) cases, where a victim must show a specific harm but need not show it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Pollution law involves hundreds of rules and you've cited only two of them, and those two are unrelated.

PA's Department of Natural Resources and Environment does not have a system in place for granting permits for underground disposal or other more environmentally sound methods for disposing of this waste. They need to get on the ball and update their regulations and start requiring operators to dispose of the produced water.

Discharging into rivers has been the standard practice by oil and gas operators for many years in PA. Most of these discharges pre-date the EPA, and many of PA's rivers are already polluted because of this.

But the produced water from the older wells is not as polluted as the water from the Marcellus formation, nor do they produce the volumes of water the Marcellus wells do.

PA DNR needs to get on the stick and update their rules. Issuing permits for deep underground injection of waste water is the best answer for now.

"So does the corporate right to profit trump our individual "privilege" to not being poisoned"

Yes, yes it does.

The FDA and EPA are run at the top by former execs and current stockholders of the companies they supposedly regulate. It is a farce.

If ya don't believe me, look up Monsanto.

The short answer is yes.

Remember, their is a benefits side to the equation. Presumably the polluting corporation is saving someone's life with their pharmaceutical drugs, for example.

Save 1,000,000 cancer patients, kill a few people who might breath bad air or drink bad water.

Do the math.

Modernity requires a certain amount of pollution. Did you use toilet paper today? Good, the paper pulp mill poured some pollution into the world for your convenience.