Enough has been said over the past four years about who’s to blame for contaminated well water in the Woodlands neighborhood of Connoquenessing Township.

Officially, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says gas drillers aren’t responsible for dozens of contaminated water wells in the Woodlands, a community of about 200 homes built above a honeycomb of unmapped, abandoned coal mines.

Few people believe the gas industry is entirely blameless. Suffice it to say that opponents of the natural gas industry can’t prove the drilling and fracking caused the Woodlands’ water problems; and the industry and its proponents can’t prove that it didn’t.

For all that’s been said, little has been done. Sometimes it seems the aggressive pursuit of blame, and an equally aggressive defense, have delayed any solution.

Consequently, more than 40 families get their drinking, cooking and cleaning water from donated gallon jugs. Dozens more pay the fire department to refill temporary water tanks.

The blame game has accomplished little. The bottom line, from the standpoint of culpability and responsibility, is that some Woodlands residents have been living for far too long without potable water and are nowhere closer to a remedy.

It’s time to change the discussion — with less focus on blame and more on a practical remedy.

A 2014 survey of 143 private water wells in the Woodlands measured chemical contaminants in wells that varied in depth from 62 feet to more than 900 feet.

The survey, led by Professor John Stoltz, director of the Center for Environmental Research and Education at Duquesne University, indicates that new or deeper water wells won’t fix the problem. Old mines have left the water table prone to seeping of mine residue and other contaminants.

Stoltz said the township has issued hundreds of well permits in recent years, but more than 200 of the permits have gone unused — residents have tired of drilling new wells that produce bad water.

“These people need city water,” Stoltz said in a recent interview.

That’s exactly what was proposed three years ago — a potential fix that actually was made possible by the actions of a Marcellus gas driller.

At an August 2012 meeting, state Rep. Brian Ellis, Connoquenessing Township Supervisor Terry Steinhauser, representatives of Pennsylvania American Water Co. and the Butler County commissioners discussed the possibility of extending a water line to the Woodlands, using a water line that Rex Energy had installed to within a mile of the community to supply water for a drilling site.

The idea was for Rex to turn over its line to Pennsylvania American Water after it was done drilling and fracking there, sometime in early 2014.

The plan had several complications to overcome. It would cost an estimated $800,000 to install the final mile of water line and another $75,000 to construct and operate a water distribution building.

And the township still needed to formally adopt the roads and rights-of-way — the developer granted all of the roads to the township, but the township supervisors never adopted them.

Government money ought to be available for projects like a Woodlands water system. A federal Community Development Block Grant could be locally matched with state Marcellus impact fee money. Low-interest economic development loans could cover the rest.

However, a plan like this won’t happen without involvement from the Woodlands residents themselves. When this proposal surfaced three years ago, it was strongly suggested to the Woodlands residents that they create a water authority and figure out how many residents planned to join, how they would finance construction and maintenance, and other details.

Of course, these former users of free, private well water would have to start paying a water bill — but for many who now pay $100 a month or more to fill their water buffaloes, or make weekly trips to a bottled water bank, a monthly bill probably would amount to less inconvenience, if not less money.

The Woodlands residents haven’t created an authority yet. The plan has not gone anywhere.

Still, there does not appear to be any insurmountable obstacle to a plan that would bring clean water to a neighborhood that badly needs it. The proposed remedy will require money, planning and hard work. Most worthy public projects do.