In wake of new fracking disclosure rule, activists seek still more drilling regulations
coloradoindependent.com/107921/in-wake-of-new-fracking-disclosure-rule-activists-seeks-still-more-drilling-regulations
By David O. Williams
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
In wake of new fracking disclosure rule, activists seek still more drilling regulations
Colorado oil and gas regulators say holding ponds like this one in Pennsylvania cause much more groundwater contamination than hydraulic fracturing (www.industrialscars.com photo).
There was widespread praise Tuesday for a hard-fought compromise deal that led to Colorado’s groundbreaking new hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure rule, but environmental groups and some politicians have already started pushing for more regulation of the state’s booming oil and gas industry.
“[The disclosure rule] is an important step in creating the necessary protections for Colorado families, but there is more work to be done,” said Mike Chiropolos, lands program director for Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates. < http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/ >
WRA now wants the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) to implement recommendations (pdf) < http://www.strongerinc.org/documents/Colorado%20HF%20Review%202011.pdf > made in October by a group called the State Review of Oil & Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) < http://www.strongerinc.org/ > suggesting minimum surface casing depths for oil and gas wells that are fracked.
It’s been suggested that the failure to properly case and cement natural gas wells to depths below the groundwater aquifer may have been to blame in Pavillion, Wyo., where a report last week < http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/index.html > by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) linked fracking chemicals to well-water contamination. < http://coloradoindependent.com/107531/epa-report-pavillion-well-water-tainted-with-chemicals-consistent-with-fracking >
It’s been suggested that the failure to properly case and cement natural gas wells to depths below the groundwater aquifer may have been to blame in Pavillion, Wyo., where a report last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) linked fracking chemicals to well-water contamination.
“[STRONGER] recommends that the COGCC work with stakeholders to review how available information is used to determine minimum surface casing depths and how those depths assure that casing and cementing procedures are adequate to protect fresh groundwater,” the October STRONGER report reads.
COGCC director David Neslin said on Tuesday that fracking chemical “disclosure is not our first line of environmental defense. It’s important for transparency, it’s important to build public confidence, but our first line of environmental defense is the integrity of the wellbore. It’s the work that our engineers and environmental staff do in reviewing the permit applications.”
Neslin has long said that disclosure won’t stop spills caused by bad cement jobs of wellbores, pipeline problems or leaks from holding ponds that store fracking and other fluids. On Tuesday he said another line of environmental defense is “groundwater sampling, baseline sampling that we require our operators to do, and the prompt response that our field inspectors make when complaints or allegations of impact arise.”
WRA, however, would like to see another rulemaking on both the STRONGER recommendations and “a mandatory program for baseline testing, monitoring and tracers to protect our water quality.”
“Baseline testing can help eliminate the he said, she said arguments over contamination so that we can focus on keeping people safe,” WRA’s Chiropolos said. “One sick person is one too many. The [COGCC] should continue to be proactive in 2012 in order to protect Colorado families and our water.”
There are approximately 45,000 active oil and gas wells in Colorado, which is in the top five nationally for natural gas production and top 10 for oil. Huge reserves in the Niobrara Shale formation on the state’s populous Front Range have sparked a wave of drilling speculation and local fears about the impacts of fracking.
“Colorado citizens are justifiably worried about the practice of fracking and deserve full confidence that the state is protecting the quality of their air, water and soil,” said Josh Joswick, energy issues organizer of the San Juan Citizens Alliance. Joswick was a La Plata County commissioner when local drilling rules were implemented in that gas-rich area of the state.
Increased drilling activity on the Front Range from Colorado Springs all the way north of Denver to the Wyoming state line will occur where far more Coloradans live than on the sparsely populated Western Slope.
“This [disclosure] compromise means there is no free pass for drilling firms,” state Rep. Deb Gardner, D-Longmont, said in a release. “There is now a greater degree of checks and balances.”
Calls for more COGCC rulemaking on issues ranging from surface casing depth to increased baseline water-quality testing to greater setbacks for oil and gas rigs from homes and public buildings will likely increase along with the drilling.
The WRA Tuesday also called for “increased residential setbacks from the current minimum levels — 150 feet for rural areas; 350 feet for urban areas.” That’s an issue that some observers say was never properly resolved during the last significant revision of the state’s oil and gas drilling regulations.
Those revisions in 2007 and 2008 were so sweeping – including some of the first rules in the nation dealing with fracking – that they required the approval of the State Legislature after months of sometimes bitter debate.
Colorado’s senior member of Congress, Democrat Diana DeGette of Denver, has been trying for years to compel the public disclosure of fracking chemicals at the national level. Her Fracturing Responsibility and Chemical Awareness (FRAC) Act would remove a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for the fracking process that was granted during the Bush administration in 2005.
She praised the new Colorado rule Tuesday, but also pointed to the Pavillion case.
“The fact that we have a proven case of a connection between hydraulic fracturing and the contamination of an aquifer underscores just how important it is that we take cautionary steps to protect our communities’ water supply,” DeGette said. “That is why I continue to encourage members of Congress to pass my FRAC Act, so communities across the country will have transparency in the drilling process as well.”
EnCana, the Canadian company drilling in the Pavillion area, has disputed the EPA’s findings, and Republican lawmakers and industry trade groups have questioned the agency’s methods and motivations.
Marcellus Shale drilling may take huge chunks out of PA forests
www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=4246
By Karl Blankenship
Loss could heavily impact wildlife habitat, state’s ability to meet TMDL goal
Gas drilling requires miles of roads as well as impervious surface around the well sites. All of that breaks up large tracts of forests, removing crucial bird and reptile habitats. Here, a gas company works a well site in Beech Creek Township near Bald Eagle State Park. (Credit: Dick Martin / Pennsylvania Forest Project)
During the coming two decades, Pennsylvania could lose enough forest land to build a couple of large cities. The forest won’t be lost in a single large chunk, but as thousands of small sites that are cleared to drill natural gas wells and connected with hundreds of miles of new pipelines.
While those impacts will be scattered across the landscape, their cumulative impact on forest habitats could be severe, and it could also complicate the state’s efforts to meet its nutrient and sediment reduction obligations under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, or pollution diet.
“It’s not so much that people know it would keep the TMDL from being met,” said Nels Johnson, director of conservation programs with The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania. “It’s that no one knows whether or not this really threatens the state’s efforts to meet the TMDL.”
Much of the concern about environmental impacts related to the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom has been related to the water quality impacts of hydraulic fracking, the process of injecting huge amounts of water and chemicals under high pressure deep into the ground to break apart rock and access gas.
Johnson led a team that tackled a different question – how the drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation could affect land use and, ultimately, wildlife habitats in Pennsylvania.
By using information about the depth and thickness of the Marcellus formation in different areas and a variety of other variables, they developed a model to project where the 60,000 wells expected to be drilled in the next two decades will go.
The analysis projects that about 60 percent of the wells will be drilled on forest land – the dominant land cover over much of the Marcellus Shale in the state.
A key factor that affects how much forest will be directly affected by drilling is the number of wells drilled on each drilling pad. A typical pad is about 3 acres but requires about six additional acres for roads and other related infrastructure. Right now, the average is less than two wells per pad, Johnson said, but he expects that to increase to between 4 and 10 wells per pad over time.
While scattered pads may not seem to have great impact, the analysis estimates that, across Pennsylvania, 38,000-90,000 acres of forest may ultimately be cleared for wells seeking to tap the Marcellus Shale formation, which underlies the western and northern portions of the state. Another 60,000-150,000 acres of forest could be lost for new pipelines.
“It’s a cumulative impact,” Johnson said. “Ultimately, that’s why we did this – because we wanted to have a better understanding of the cumulative impact, and how worried we should be about this.”
Pennsylvania’s large tracts of intact forests are important for an array of wildlife, from brook trout to forest interior birds. Forest birds such as the scarlet tanager, which have declined in many areas, have generally held their own in Pennsylvania’s large forests.
That could change as forests are chopped up for wells and pipelines. Many predators, from blue jays to raccoons, thrive along forest edges, from which they forage into the woods, picking off birds or the eggs of wood thrush, ovenbirds and other species that normally rely on large forests for refuge. Not only will forests be directly lost to drill pads and pipelines, but forests near those opening will be rendered uninhabitable for many species.
But the analysis also raises a concern for Chesapeake cleanup efforts. The conservancy estimates that about 46 percent of the drilling would take place within the Bay watershed. That suggests the forest loss within the watershed portion of Pennsylvania could be between 45,000-110,000 acres.
For comparison, that’s enough land to build between 1 to 2.5 District of Columbias.
Because forests absorb more nutrients and retain more sediment than other land uses, their loss could result in more of those pollutants reaching local streams.
Assuming those forests are converted to meadow, and applying loading rates derived from the Bay Program model, rough estimates suggest it could increase the amount of nitrogen runoff reaching local streams between 30,000-80,000 pounds a year; while phosphorus could increase between 15,000-40,000 pounds; and sediment could increase between 18 million to 45 million pounds. The variation depends on whether the amount of forest lost was at the low, or high end of the conservancy’s estimates.
Right now, the land use changes are not included in the state’s watershed implementation plan, which shows how it plans to meet nutrient and sediment limits set in the TMDL.
Kevin Sunday, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said sediment and erosion control guidelines would require best management practices to control runoff and well sites would need to be re-vegetated.
Johnson said that, as a practical matter, it is difficult to reforest areas disturbed for drilling as companies need to maintain access to wells and pipelines. Further, a recent study showed that reforestation generally wasn’t taking place at drilling sites, he said.
Katherine Antos, water quality team leader with the EPA’s Bay Program Office in Annapolis, said state pollution limits set in the TMDL were based on land uses in place in 2010. “If there are any changes to that, any increased loads or new sources, states have to be able to offset those increases,” she said.
Antos said the EPA is currently reviewing offset programs for all states in the watershed.
Harry Campbell, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said concerns about the impacts related to drilling activities on the Bay TMDL were among the reasons that it and several other organizations petitioned the federal government last year seeking the development of an Environmental Impact Statement to examine the full range of Marcellus drilling impacts in the state.
“We just don’t know enough about all this to get a handle on what the potential impacts are,” he said. “If we don’t have that, then we are flying blind.”
That petition is still pending.
Meanwhile, Johnson said the conservancy has been using its analyses to work with drilling companies to encourage drilling more wells at existing pads to reduce forest loss. It’s also integrating more habitat data into its model to help steer drilling away from sensitive areas. Companies have been “pretty interested,” he said. “We’re pretty confident it is going to help, but we know it is not going to eliminate impacts.”
Clearfield County well to hold fracking wastewater
www.centredaily.com/2011/12/11/3016382/clearfield-county-well-to-hold.html
By Cliff White cwhite@centredaily.com
Posted: Dec 11, 2011
A Pennsylvania tractor-trailer unloads fracking wastewater at the Devco 1 injection well near Cambridge, Ohio, in July. (COLUMBUS DISPATCH PHOTO/KYLE ROBERTSON)
It’s an old story by now in Pennsylvania: local residents upset about a Marcellus Shale-related well proposed in their back yard.
But there’s a difference in the well planned for Brady Township, Clearfield County. Instead of taking gas out of the ground, the well is intended to store fracking wastewater deep in the folds of the earth. Neighbors are up in arms, but the debate marks a new step in the evolution of the Marcellus Shale play.
“Injection of flowback fluids or fluids from the production process has been a common procedure for a long, long time, but it’s still relatively rare in Pennsylvania,” said Tom Murphy, co-director of the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research. < http://marcellus.psu.edu/ >
Flowback water is a briny, silty and potentially toxic cocktail created as a byproduct of the hydraulic fracturing process, when millions of gallons of water are pumped at high pressure into a gas well to create fractures in rock formations, thereby releasing trapped gas. Environmental regulations require drillers to capture and dispose of wastewater that commonly flows back out of the gas well when it is fracked.
Read more
Dimock officials reject water delivery offer
citizensvoice.com/dimock-officials-reject-water-delivery-offer-1.1241307#axzz1frMxDI58
BY LAURA LEGERE, STAFF WRITER
Published: December 6, 2011
DIMOCK TWP. – Township supervisors unanimously declined an aid offer by the mayor of Binghamton, N.Y., on Monday night that would have allowed the city to provide a tanker of fresh water to Dimock residents with tainted wells whose replacement water deliveries were stopped last week.
The decision capped a fiery monthly board meeting dominated by supporters of the natural gas drilling company that provided replacement bulk and bottled water for years after state environmental regulators found the driller at fault for methane contamination of 18 water wells.
The drilling company, Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., stopped the deliveries on Nov. 30 with the regulators’ consent.
Citing state findings that the residents’ well water is safe to drink and a preliminary federal review that determined the water does not pose an immediate health risk, community members urged the township to stay out of the disagreement between Cabot and 11 affected families that have sued the company over the contamination.
Township solicitor Sam Lewis said signing a mutual aid agreement inviting an out-of-state municipality to provide free water to private residents raised “significant liability issues” for the township and was potentially outside of the board’s authority.
“If people want to, out of the goodness of their own heart, provide water to these 11 families, that’s fine,” he said. “The question is whether the township should be involved with that joint venture and from that standpoint the legal answer is no.”
The statement drew sustained applause in the township garage crowded with 140 residents.
The hour-long meeting, attended by a state police constable and punctuated by jeers, highlighted the division in the township, an epicenter for natural gas extraction from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale. Residents seeking water deliveries insisted that their well water contains contaminants other than methane that make it a risk to them and their children, while residents who support Cabot blamed their neighbors for tarnishing Dimock’s reputation and failing to accept the gas company’s offered help.
Some Dimock residents with methane-tainted water accepted new water wells, treatment systems or other remedies provided by Cabot, which denies it caused the contamination. The affected families that received delivered water said the treatment systems do not work, do not remove contaminants other than methane and do not meet the obligation under state law for a driller to restore or replace water supplies they damage.
Water paid for by an environmental group was delivered Monday to some of the residents using a City of Binghamton truck, an arrangement Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan said did not require a mutual aid agreement because it was a gift from an outside organization.
“Why not let people help?” he asked before suggesting that if the township declined the mutual aid agreement and residents got sick from drinking their water, the community could face a lawsuit.
Supervisor Matthew Neenan bristled at the suggestion.
“Why should we haul them water? They got themselves into this,” he said. “You keep your nose in Binghamton, I’ll give you that advice. We’ll worry about Dimock Township.”
Outside the meeting, Norma Fiorentino sat on a fold-out chair with moist eyes and shook her head. One of the residents with elevated methane in her water, she said her son-in-law is a supervisor who voted against the aid agreement that would have brought her water.
“It’s just hard to see neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, family against family, she said.
Dimock supervisors to meet tonight on water delivery offer
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/dimock-supervisors-to-meet-tonight-on-water-delivery-offer-1.1240848#axzz1frMxDI58
By Laura Legere, Staff Writer
Published: December 5, 2011
Dimock Township supervisors will consider tonight whether to accept a tanker of fresh water offered by the mayor of Binghamton, N.Y., to township residents whose water deliveries were stopped last week by the natural gas driller blamed for tainting their wells.
Scott Ely holds a glass of brown water that came from his 300-feet deep water well at his Dimock Township property in November. (Michael J. Mullen / Times-Shamrock)
The Dimock officials postponed signing a mutual aid agreement offered Friday by Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan, who wants to deliver water to 11 families at odds with Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., the company the state deemed responsible for contaminating township wells with methane.
Cabot says it is not responsible for the contamination, and federal regulators said Friday that a preliminary review of past water tests “does not indicate that the well water presents an immediate health threat.”
The families’ lawyer asked Friday for a retraction of that statement, citing water tests that show elevated metals and the presence of chemicals for which there are no drinking water standards.
Supervisor Paul Jennings said Sunday the board would not sign the mutual aid agreement or any legal document without consulting its solicitor, who was not available to review the document on Friday.
He did not know if the board will take official action on the offer tonight.
“We’re going to at least discuss it,” he said, “and I don’t know what the outcome is going to be.”
While considered more a gesture than a permanent fix for the families’ desire for fresh water, Ryan’s offer was immediately controversial among Dimock residents. Cabot supporters gathered at the township building Friday to argue against accepting the mayor’s offer. Jennings said all three supervisors were present at the township building at the time but no meeting was held.
Cabot critics called the gathering a violation of the state’s open meetings law and were outraged when a Cabot spokesman was quoted by a Binghamton television station saying the township supervisors had “no desire to request mutual aid.”
Jennings said the spokesman was not representing the township board.
“Obviously he can’t speak for us,” he said. “Nobody can until we meet to discuss it.”
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the township building.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA: No threat to Dimock water
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/epa-no-threat-to-dimock-water-1.1240232#axzz1fO7zQV00
By David Falchek (Staff Writer)
Published: December 3, 2011
After a preliminary review of well water tests in the heavily-drilled area of Dimock, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told residents their water poses “no immediate health threat.”
The email sent to residents from Trish Taylor, community involvement coordinator for EPA Region 3, notes that the review is ongoing and pledged that the agency would continue to monitor the situation.
“While we are continuing our review, to date, the data does not indicate that the well water presents an immediate health threat to users,” said the e-mail. Taylor could not be reached for comment Friday.
While the EPA has no direct jurisdiction over Dimock water quality, residents invited the agency to review state and company water quality tests.
The EPA’s email came two days after Cabot’s state-ordered potable water deliveries stopped and the day after state Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard A. Labuskes Jr. denied residents an emergency hearing.
The EPA’s comments were embraced by drilling advocates and Cabot Oil & Gas officials, but met with skepticism from residents convinced that drilling activity fouled their well water.
Cabot officials interpreted the EPA’s email as confirmation of the company’s test results – most of which is done through state-certified laboratories. “The EPA’s findings are consistent with the results of thousands of water samples tested by Cabot over the last several years,” the company said in a statement.
But some residents of the area made famous by flaming faucets object to the EPA’s preliminary opinion. They say their water smells of natural gas or turpentine or is turbid and unusable.
Victoria Switzer, vocal skeptic of the gas industry, called the EPA statement “lunacy.” But she didn’t see it as a total setback, noting that the agency has yet to make a final determination. She notes the EPA did not do its own tests and she is hopeful the agency will continue to pay attention to the area.
An attorney for some residents asked Taylor to retract her statement. In a letter, Tate J. Kunke offered a list of substances found in Dimock water believed to have come from hydraulic fracturing fluid – substances rarely looked for in water testing.
“We do not feel it is wise for homeowners to potentially expose themselves to untested chemicals, even if a few that have been tested for appear to temporarily pass… standards,” Kunke wrote. “Chronic, low level exposure to fracking chemicals is too great a medical risk to assume. Our clients are not lab rats.”
dfalchek@timesshamrock.com
Researchers: Pa. gas drilling study had error
www.timesleader.com/news/Researchers__Pa__gas_drilling_study_had_error_12-02-2011.html
December 2, 2011
Far less evidence of well contamination by bromides than first suggested.
PITTSBURGH — A recently released study on natural gas drilling and contamination of water wells, contentious issues as drillers swarm to a lucrative shale formation beneath Pennsylvania, had an error, according to researchers from Penn State University.
The researchers reported that there is far less evidence of well contamination by bromides, salty mineral compounds that can combine with other elements to cause health problems, than first suggested.
The researchers are reviewing the entire study, released in October, after discovering that results from an independent water testing lab contained the error.
One water well, not seven, showed increased bromide levels after drilling, the researchers said in a statement issued last week by The Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a state-funded agency that first released the study.
One of the Penn State University researchers, Bryan Swistock, said in an email that the study didn’t go through an independent scientific peer review process because of a Center for Rural Pennsylvania policy that reports must first go to the General Assembly before outside publication.
The study is now being submitted for outside review, he said.
Patrick Creighton, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a gas industry group, said in an email that the error was “small” and that the key point is still that nearly 40 percent of the wells tested failed at least one water quality standard even before natural gas drilling started, along with nearly 20 percent that showed traces of methane before drilling.
The researchers said a corrected version of the study will be issued.
A gas drilling procedure called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves blasting chemical-laced water into the ground, has been studied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others as drillers flock to the Marcellus Shale region primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned.
Environmentalists and other critics say fracking could poison water supplies, but the natural gas industry says it’s been used safely for decades.
Pa. DEP head lobbies for gas drilling
www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20111123%2FNEWS%2F111230310%2F-1%2FNews
By Christina Tatu
Pocono Record Writer
November 23, 2011
Natural gas drilling would provide jobs, money and, contrary to naysayers, does not harm the environment, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer said at East Stroudsburg University Tuesday.
Krancer’s visit was just days after the Delaware River Basin Commission postponed a vote to allowing drilling in the Delaware River watershed.
Krancer had few comments on the delayed vote, but said it was “politically motivated” and that opponents are basing their opinions on misguided ideology, instead of facts.
The commission, which has board members representing the governors of Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania and the White House, abruptly postponed the vote last week after Delaware Gov. Jack Markell said he would vote against the rules, making the outcome uncertain.
Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Corbett is a supporter of natural gas drilling and was expected to vote in favor of the regulations.
Krancer, who was at ESU for a forum on sustainability, said Pennsylvanians are sitting on a huge natural resource, one so abundant, it would give the state a powerful edge in the energy market. Pennsylvania could sell energy to its large urban neighbors, like Boston and New York City, he said.
“If we are able to gather this resource and use it, we’ll clean the air, we’ll be more healthy and economically healthy,” he said.
Opponents say the method of extracting the gas, known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, endangers drinking water. The method involves pumping large amounts of water and chemicals thousands of feet underground to break up the Marcellus shale and release the natural gas.
Krancer dismissed those concerns Tuesday.
“The chemicals make up half a percent of what’s in fracking material, and many of those chemicals found in the water are food grade,” he said.
He also said it’s untrue the chemicals from fracking could end up in drinking water since they are pumped so far underground.
In Monroe County, there aren’t any private properties within the Delaware River basin that are large enough to allow for fracking, said DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly. However, property owners could band together if they were interested in permitting drilling on their land. There are properties in Pike County that are large enough to allow drilling, she said.
Federal environmental and health agencies collect data from Dimock families
citizensvoice.com/news/federal-environmental-and-health-agencies-collect-data-from-dimock-families-1.1232108#axzz1e4UZpkud
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: November 14, 2011
Officials from federal environmental and public health agencies met with residents of Dimock Township late last week to discuss the impacts of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling and to gather water-test results from families affected by methane migration.
Three representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry visited Thursday with families around Carter Road, an area of Susquehanna County where state regulators have linked increased methane in water supplies to faulty natural gas wells.
“They wanted information; they wanted documentation,” Dimock resident Scott Ely said. “They are looking to see if there is any environmental impact that would threaten life or health.”
Efforts to reach an EPA spokeswoman were unsuccessful Friday, when government offices were closed for Veterans Day.
Natural gas drilling is largely regulated in Pennsylvania by the state Department of Environmental Protection, but the EPA is conducting a multiyear study to determine if there is a link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and contaminated water supplies.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that works to prevent harmful exposures to toxic substances.
Dimock resident Victoria Switzer said the agencies were interested in copies of water sample results from her well, including data gathered by scientists not affiliated with the state or natural gas drilling contractors.
She also outlined her concerns that the state Department of Environmental Protection weakened enforcement actions against Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., the operator that DEP deemed responsible for increased methane in water supplies. Cabot denies it impacted the water and says the elevated methane pre-existed its operations.
“The watchdog is licking the hand of the thief that is giving it a steak,” she said. “We want to get this issue to a high place.”
Efforts to reach a DEP spokeswoman were unsuccessful Friday.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Key Delaware River gas drilling vote postponed
www.timesleader.com/news/ap?Key-Delaware-River-gas-drilling-vote-postponed&a=2209283&e=30097
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — With two of five members opposed, a multistate agency that has spent years developing regulations for natural gas drilling in the Delaware River watershed has delayed a key vote scheduled for Monday.
The Delaware River Basin Commission announced Friday it was postponing a vote on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to give the agency’s five commissioners more time to review the draft regulations. No new meeting date has been set.
The rules need three votes to pass, though the commission had been hoping for unanimous support.
Delaware Gov. Jack Markell told the commission Thursday that he would not support the regulations because of concerns over drinking water protections. Earlier, New York had announced it would vote no. New Jersey and Pennsylvania had not announced how they would vote, but it was believed both would vote yes. It’s not known how the fifth member, the federal Army Corps of Engineers, was planning to vote.
Fracking involves injecting water, sand and chemicals underground to break up shale and rock, releasing natural gas.
The commission manages water use for the Delaware River Basin, and environmentalists say the drilling would threaten drinking water for 15 million people.
The proposed rules would allow 300 natural gas wells in the Delaware River Basin, followed by a commission review before more are phased in. The eventual total could reach many thousands of wells.
Pennsylvania already allows drilling outside the watershed area. New Jersey has no Marcellus shale, so its interest in the issue revolves around water quality.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is studying the effects of fracking, with a draft report due next year.
Environmental groups have gathered more than 73,000 signatures on a petition opposing drilling in the watershed.