Pa. 1 of 3 states with eye on big Shell plant
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Pa__1_of_3_states_with_eye_on_big_Shell_plant_09-04-2011.html
Posted: September 4, 2011
West Virginia, Ohio also in running for multibillion-dollar petrochemical refinery.
PITTSBURGH — Big industry may be coming back to the northeast United States. Shell Oil Co. is nearing a decision on where in the Appalachians to build a huge new petrochemical refinery — a project that could bring thousands of jobs and change the face of the region for decades. The plans are driven by the gas reserves discovered in the Marcellus Shale.
The scale of the multibillion-dollar project is unlike anything seen for decades in the region, said David Hounshell, a professor of technology and social change at Carnegie Mellon University.
Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said the company plans to decide by the end of the year where to build the plant, which would convert natural gas liquids to other chemicals.
The complex would likely attract many smaller, specialized chemical plants, since the main product, ethylene, is used to make chemicals that go into everything from plastics to tires to antifreeze, according to the American Chemistry Council.
The council estimated the complex could attract up to $16 billion in private investment and create more than 17,000 jobs and billions in tax revenue.
Other U.S. and overseas companies are also considering similar projects in the region.
Severance tax compromise bill introduced
http://citizensvoice.com/news/severance-tax-compromise-bill-introduced-1.1193680#axzz1W8W33D4G
Published: August 26, 2011
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre, has introduced a bill he believes is a compromise on a Marcellus Shale natural gas severance tax.
Pashinski’s House Bill 1804, which has been referred to the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, calls for a competitive severance tax on natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale.
The tax revenue would be kept in a restricted account until state lawmakers agree on a formula for distribution.
Pashinski said the issue is a matter of fairness because Pennsylvania is the only major natural-gas-producing state without a severance tax.
“The time for action has come,” Pashinski said. “This is a commonsense approach that is fair to the drillers and the public. The taxpayers would stop losing hundreds of millions of dollars as the debate over how to use the money is resolved.”
Pashinski stated that the public and drillers support a severance tax. A recent poll found seven in 10 people want a drilling tax, and an executive with Chief Oil and Gas, a leading driller in the state, said at a House Democratic policy hearing Pashinski hosted that the company has no problem with a reasonable tax.
“Other businesses pay their taxes and residents are facing property tax hikes and higher costs for food, necessities and even college tuition,” Pashinski stated. “At the same time, companies drilling for natural gas are enjoying tremendous profits without paying their fair share.”
Webinars will focus on business opportunities related to Marcellus gas
http://live.psu.edu/story/54563#nw69
The Marcellus Shale formation deep underground -- and the natural gas it holds -- represents a huge economic engine for Pennsylvania.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A series of Web-based seminars aimed at helping local businesses prosper from natural-gas drilling and development will be offered this fall by Penn State Extension’s Marcellus Educational Consortium.
“Your Business and Marcellus Shale: Moving Forward 2011” is a five-part program intended to help local businesses understand and take advantage of the opportunities arising from development of the Marcellus Shale.
“Participants will expand their knowledge of the opportunities that exist in the market and learn how to make connections and plan for doing business in this growing industry,” said Jonathan Laughner, extension educator in Beaver County who is moderating the sessions, one of which will be held every other week. Each webinar will feature speakers who are experts in the field.
“Our webinar speakers will include natural-gas industry representatives, local business people successfully responding to opportunities, financial specialists and business-development representatives,” Laughner said. “Anyone interested in learning more about this aspect of the industry is welcome to attend.”
Each session will last approximately 75 minutes, from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. Following is the webinar schedule:
–Sept 13, “Local Business View: Experience in the Northeast”
–Sept. 26, “Industry View: What Does Industry Look For?”
–Oct. 11, “Local Business View: Experience in the Southwest”
–Oct. 24, “The Process: How Do You Sell Into Industry?”
–Nov. 8, “The Work Plan: Financial and Planning Suggestions”
This webinar series is for educational purposes only, Laughner cautioned. No part of the presentations is to be considered legal advice. “Please consult with your attorney before signing any legal document,” he said. “Where trade and/or company names appear, no discrimination is intended, and no endorsement by Penn State Cooperative Extension is implied.”
The website for the webinars is https://meeting.psu.edu/marcellusbiz. Webinar access requires a free Friends of Penn State account, which can be obtained at https://fps.psu.edu.
For more information, contact Carol Loveland, Penn State Extension energy development and special projects coordinator, at 570-433-3040 or by e-mail at cal24@psu.edu.
Marcellus waste increase attributable to new rules, errors
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/marcellus-waste-increase-attributable-to-new-rules-errors-1.1190648#axzz1Vf1dbwq2
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: August 19, 2011
Marcellus Shale natural gas drillers in Pennsylvania reportedly produced vastly more fluid and solid waste in the first half of 2011 than the previous six-month period, but changes in reporting requirements and mistakes in data entry account for some of the surge.
More than 34 million barrels of salt- and metals-laden wastewater flowed from the state’s Marcellus wells in the first six months of 2011, according to industry-reported data published by the state Department of Environmental Protection. That is more than eight times the amount reported in the last six months of 2010, despite the fact that drilling did not markedly increase between the two periods.
• Database: Marcellus Shale production (January to June 2011)
http://thetimes-tribune.com/data-center/database-marcellus-shale-production-jan-to-june-2011-1.1190149#axzz1VR8Lf1y7
• Database: Marcellus Shale waste (January to June 2011)
http://thetimes-tribune.com/data-center/database-marcellus-shale-waste-jan-to-june-2011-1.1190150#axzz1VR8Ufhx6
Chesapeake Energy reported the vast majority of the wastewater – 24.5 million barrels – a pronounced spike from the second half of 2010 when the company reported producing only 60,704 barrels of the fluid.
The company attributed the spike to changes in state reporting requirements as well as an increase in production from its wells.
In a change from past practice, the state now requires operators to include all of the wastewater they reuse or recycle not just the waste that is disposed of in the six-month reports, said Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources.
“We believe the current advances are more transparent and make more sense,” he said.
Recycling and reuse has become common practice since the state restricted the amount of salty drilling wastewater that can be discharged into rivers from treatment plants that cannot remove all of the contaminants.
In the first half of 2011, operators reused or recycled 29 million barrels of the wastewater that flows back from the wells or about 86 percent of the waste.
About 3 million barrels of the waste was taken to 15 treatments plants that Marcellus drillers have largely stopped using since mid-May at the request of DEP Secretary Michael Krancer.
Another 800,000 barrels of the wastewater was injected into deep disposal wells, mostly in Ohio, according to the state data.
The amount of rock and lubricant waste, called drill cuttings, that is displaced as operators bore to and through the shale also apparently surged in the first half of 2011. The reported cuttings increased by 254 times to 50.4 million tons between the last six months of 2010 and the first six months of 2011.
But 50 million of the 50.4 million tons of drill cuttings were mistakenly reported by EOG Resources, which made an error when it entered the data, a spokeswoman said Thursday.
“EOG inadvertently submitted its original data in pounds rather than tons,” spokeswoman K Leonard said. “EOG should have reported 25,000 tons of cuttings for the first half of 2011.”
The company is submitting a revised report to state regulators, she said.
The actual amount of cuttings produced by all operators was closer to 405,000 tons, compared with 198,000 tons produced in the last half of 2010.
That increase also reflects changes in reporting requirements, Pitzarella said.
The industry did not previously have to include in its six-month reports the cuttings that were encapsulated and buried at well sites. As operators move away from using lined pits at well sites, very few cuttings are being encapsulated and more of it is being reported.
“Most is now going to approved landfills,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Researchers: Marcellus gas not hurting or helping municipal finances
http://live.psu.edu/story/54506#nw69
Monday, August 15, 2011
Michael Jacobson
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While being credited by many as a major new economic engine for Pennsylvania, Marcellus shale gas-development so far may not be having much of an effect on the finances of local municipalities, according to a study by two researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
Michael Jacobson, associate professor of forest resources, and Tim Kelsey, professor of agricultural economics, examined how gas drilling and production activities are affecting municipal government and services in two rural counties where they are occurring.
They examined a decade of revenue and expenditure data from more than three dozen townships in Washington and Susquehanna counties, all of which are experiencing significant Marcellus Shale activity.
“Surprisingly, we found no significant differences in spending or revenue collection before and after Marcellus activity in those townships,” said Jacobson, who specializes in forest economics, finance and policy. “The statistical analysis of the audit information showed no clear relationships between Marcellus Shale activity and municipal finances.”
The researchers cautioned, however, that as the scale of Marcellus development increases, municipalities may need to provide new services they do not currently support. Municipalities also may discover they need to expand existing services such as planning and management.
“We had only two solid years of fiscal data as gas development is relatively new,” Jacobson said. “I think as the gas play expands, our conclusions will change — a lot will depend on the rate of scaling up development and accompanying fiscal impacts.”
The researchers noted that in the townships studied, gas companies were mostly proactive in repairing and upgrading roads damaged by gas-related traffic, and that helped municipal budgets as road maintenance and repair account for a large share of municipal spending.
But some municipalities reported having to hire new staff to deal with Marcellus issues — an unanticipated cost — or having to shift responsibilities of existing staff.
“Municipalities identified a range of impacts their local governments were experiencing as a result of Marcellus Shale development, but they stated that so far, most have been either nonmonetary or they have internally shifted resources to cover them, so the impacts do not appear in the municipal budget,” Jacobson said.
“Even with significant gas development, some officials said they have not ‘spent a nickel’ on gas-related issues.”
In addition to examining local government audit data for each year from 2001 to 2009, the researchers conducted focus group interviews with municipal officials in both counties.
“There may be unforeseen costs that crop up — environmental and infrastructure-related come to mind,” Jacobson said. “On the positive side, the play already has brought new jobs, industry and development that will provide added revenues to help offset the cost of these services.”
A Marcellus Education Fact Sheet detailing the findings of the research is available at http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/PDFS/EE0006.pdf online.
This research was supported by the Marcellus Seed Grant Research Program, an initiative of the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research with funding from the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment and the Penn State Social Science Research Institute. For more information, visit http://www.marcellus.psu.edu/ online.
Information about the Marcellus Seed Grant Research Program can be found at http://marcellus.psu.edu/research/seedGrant.php online.
To learn about other research supported by the center, visit http://marcellus.psu.edu/resources/publications.php online.
For more information, contact the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at 814-865-1587 or at marcellus@psu.edu.
Aug. 25 webinar to examine effect of Marcellus gas activity on habitat
http://live.psu.edu/story/54504#nw69
Thursday, August 11, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the Marcellus natural-gas boom has reverberated around Pennsylvania, residents and scientists alike have expressed concern about the impact extensive drilling and associated infrastructure development is having on wildlife habitat.
Wildlife managers and protectors are worried about forest fragmentation, the advance of invasive plant species and the effect the Marcellus play is having on activities such as hunting, fishing, bird watching and wildlife viewing.
There have been more than 2,350 wells drilled into the deep Marcellus formation under Pennsylvania in the last few years, primarily in the southwest, northeast and northcentral regions.
A Web-based seminar presented by Penn State Extension will offer a look at the latest information on the subject. Titled, “A Research Update on the Effects of Marcellus Shale Drilling on Wildlife Habitat,” the one-hour session will take place at 1 p.m. on Aug. 25.
Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources in the College of Agricultural Sciences
“The webinar will cover landscape and habitat changes associated with Marcellus Shale exploration and development, and how that may affect Pennsylvania wildlife and wildlife-associated recreation,” said presenter Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
“I will discuss research we recently have completed on shallow wells and give an overview of our current research project, which is looking at the effects of Marcellus Shale gas exploration and development on wildlife habitat in general and forest songbirds in particular.”
Pennsylvania contains internationally important breeding habitat for a number of neotropical migrant songbirds that — if degraded — would affect world populations, Brittingham noted. And much of the extensive gas development is occurring in the state’s northern tier, where some of the densest forests in North America provide ecologically vital bird habitat.
However, that new research is in its early phase, Brittingham explained. “We currently are collecting baseline data and determining whether there are any detectable changes at this stage of development,” she said.
“I will conclude the webinar by discussing habitat-restoration needs, guidelines and opportunities, both for minimizing potential problems and enhancing habitat quality.”
The webinar is part of a series of online workshops addressing opportunities and challenges related to the state’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. Information about how to register for the session is available on the webinar page of Penn State Extension’s natural-gas website at http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas/webinars.
A webinar at 1 p.m. on Sept. 15 will focus on current legal issues in shale-gas development.
Previous webinars, publications and information on topics such as air pollution from gas development; the gas boom’s effect on landfills; water use and quality; zoning; gas-leasing considerations for landowners; implications for local communities; and gas pipelines and right-of-way issues also are available on the Penn State Extension natural-gas website (http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas).
For more information about the webinar, contact John Turack, extension educator in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or by email at jdt15@psu.edu.
Spread the natural gas drilling wealth
http://citizensvoice.com/news/senators-spread-the-natural-gas-drilling-wealth-1.1187598#axzz1UojFUOX3
By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: August 12, 2011
WILKES-BARRE – With the Susquehanna River as a backdrop, state and local officials made a pitch for environmentally responsible Marcellus Shale development that will create jobs throughout Pennsylvania and a tax on natural gas extraction that will generate revenue for the entire state.
At a press conference at the River Commons on Wednesday, two state senators – Energy Committee Minority Chairman John Yudichak, D-Nanticoke, and Democratic Leader Jay Costa, D-Homestead – stressed the importance of environmental protection and employment opportunities.
Costa’s constituency is in Allegheny County, which has natural gas drilling. Yudichak’s Luzerne County district most likely will not, after exploratory wells came up dry.
But the senators would like to spread the wealth, not only in terms of revenue from a severance tax, but also as far as job creation.
“We’re a commonwealth, and we need to share all of our resources,” Costa said.
The senators believe part of the severance tax revenue should go into a statewide pool of money for environmental grants. Yudichak pointed out how Northeastern Pennsylvania has benefited from similar programs, such as the Growing Greener program.
Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority Director Jim Brozena wants cut state funding restored for programs to help communities damaged in “unforeseen weather events,” like the July 3 flash flooding in Plymouth Township and Plymouth Borough.
Michael Kwashnik, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 163, brought up the need for safety while on the job.
There is no specific program through the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to regulate safety at natural gas job sites, Kwashnik said.
He said local IBEW members often work on compressor stations – if a company doesn’t bring in out-of-state or undocumented workers or unlicensed subcontractors.
It’s up to each individual gas company to have its own safety program implemented, Kwashnik said. Many of them have safe work sites and hire skilled, trained professionals, but there are a few “wildcat” companies only looking to make a quick buck, he said.
“Some of them are very safe. Others throw safety to the wind,” he said.
In one case, IBEW members were called in to fix a compressor station near Elmira, N.Y. that blew up two days after it was completed, Kwashnik said. He said it turned out the gas company had hired 22 undocumented workers.
The drilling industry needs millions of gallons of water for hydraulic fracturing, which involves blasting the chemical-treated water thousands of feet underground to break up the shale and release the gas. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission regulates water withdrawals from all sources in the river’s watershed.
Paul Swartz said in his 20 years with the commission, potential effects of natural gas drilling on the river have caused more concern than any other issue.
Swartz said the commission’s position on natural gas drilling is “you can have your cake and eat it too.” But only if proper regulations and laws are in place and agencies like the Susquehanna River Basin Commission have the ability to enforce them, he said.
Swartz said he does not want to see the same type of issues as with coal mining and timbering.
Yudichak also brought up the legacy of environmental degradation left by the coal barons for the taxpayers to clean up.
That’s what Shavertown resident Audrey Simpson, who held a sign stating, “Gas drilling boom-bust economy is not the answer,” fears.
“When the gas companies are done with Pennsylvania, what economy are we going to have left?” she said. “There will be no tourism, no state parks, no state forests. What kind of future is that?”
Jim Straub of Kingston wanted to know whether the state and local municipalities would get royalties for drilling underneath roads. He doesn’t oppose drilling.
“This is not going to stop,” he said. “We’ve just got to make sure we get enough compensation in the meantime.”
Costa said compensation might not come in the form of royalties, but municipalities would receive money for infrastructure with a severance tax or impact fee.
eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072
Air, rail needs emphasized for Marcellus Shale region
http://republicanherald.com/news/air-rail-needs-emphasized-for-marcellus-shale-region-1.1184992
BY ROBERT SWIFT (HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF rswift@timesshamrock.com)
Published: August 6, 2011
HARRISBURG – Freight railroad lines and airports in the Marcellus Shale drilling regions would be targeted for improvements under recommendations made by two gubernatorial commissions.
The Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission and Transportation Funding Advisory Commission both addressed the issue in reports released within the past two weeks.
Commission members suggested that improving both types of transportation will help the long-term development of deep gas reserves and reduce highway congestion from truck traffic associated with drilling operations. One recommendation would earmark revenue from an existing state surcharge on tickets issued for speeding and other moving vehicle violations to a new fund to pay for rail, airport and port infrastructure projects statewide.
The various recommendations are now being studied by Gov. Tom Corbett and lawmakers.
The Marcellus commission recommends giving priority to an evaluation of rail freight systems in the Marcellus regions in order to relieve the burden on roads and bridges from transporting sand, water and pipe to serve gas well operations. Another suggestion is for the state to partner with local rail authorities to seek federal rail freight dollars for this effort.
The Marcellus commission also recommends the state Transportation Department’s Aviation Bureau undertake a detailed assessment of air service needs at airports in the region in order to capitalize on economic opportunities from gas drilling.
The transportation commission focused more on finding new revenue sources for the state’s transportation system. The commission’s report noted short-line railroads in the northern tier counties need money to fix and maintain track, bridges and switches in order to support drilling operations. If more drilling materials can be shipped by rail, it will reduce truck traffic, the report states.
Pennsylvania airports get revenue from a tax on jet fuel, but revenue only covers a quarter of the improvements needed, the report states.
To address these needs, the commission recommends creating an “Intermodal Transportation Fund” for rail freight, aviation, passenger rail and ports across the state. Revenue from an existing surcharge on tickets for moving vehicle violations that currently goes to the all-purpose state General Fund could be diverted to the new intermodal fund, the commission said.
If that happens, its report projects $7 million in new revenue for aviation in fiscal 2012-13 going up to $11 million in five years and $9 million for rail freight in fiscal 2012-13 going up to $17 million in five years. The entire fund would have $54 million in 2012-13.
Before this, lawmakers have sought to provide potential funding for rail freight projects in the Marcellus region in a piecemeal fashion by adding authorizations to capital budget bills. The state pays for capital projects through the sale of bonds to investors and the governor decides which projects get the green light. It’s a tough competition and projects can remain on lists for years.
DEP boss: We won’t leave scars
http://standardspeaker.com/news/dep-boss-we-won-t-leave-scars-1.1185041#axzz1UFlEFGtR
By KENT JACKSON (Staff Writer)
Published: August 6, 2011
Speakers at a conference in Hazleton about pollution from abandoned coal mines hope that environmental problems won’t result from Pennsylvania’s latest energy boom – drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation.
Michael Krancer, the secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, who opened the conference on Friday at Best Western Genetti Inn and Suites, said he will police gas drilling so companies don’t pollute air and water.
“We’re very sensitive to leaving a legacy,” Krancer said, while adding that public sensibilities are different now than a century ago when coal mining left its mark.
“People today won’t tolerate scars on the land” or pollution in the air, he said.
An attorney and former judge on the state Environmental Hearing Board, Krancer said he encourages companies to be good neighbors and said those that cheat on environmental rules ruin the free market and the natural world.
“That is my core belief,” he said.
When asked, however, about taxing gas companies today to remediate the problems created by coal companies of yesteryear, Krancer said that won’t happen.
“Given my boss’ view of taxes,” he said of Gov. Tom Corbett’s stance against taxing gas companies, “it’s a non-starter.”
Krancer further said the gas deposits are personal property and compared a plan to tax them to borrowing the car of the man who raised the question for government use. He did say the legislators show strong support for charging companies fees to offset the impact on communities where drilling occurs.
Krancer approves using water polluted by draining through mines to drill for gas.
“That’s a no-brainer” was his reaction when he first heard of the concept, and he said he hasn’t changed his views. Legal questions, however, have arisen about whether gas companies inherit responsibility for treating water under the doctrine of “You use it, you own it.”
Sandra McSurdy, in one of 15 seminars that followed Krancer’s address, talked about a study of using acid mine drainage in gas drilling that she manages for the U.S. Department of Energy.
The plan might work better in the southwestern part of the state where mine pools overlap gas wells better than they do in the northeast.
Using mine water, she said, reduces the water that drillers will draw from rivers, streams and public drinking supplies. It also could cut down the traffic from trucks carrying water to mines or hauling contaminated water that flowed back from gas wells to Ohio for disposal in deep wells there.
Some gas drillers seeking to avoid legal responsibility for treating mine water refuse to use it.
For drillers that would use mine water, meanwhile, McSurdy described some of the interactions with chemicals in water that flows back from the gas wells.
Sulfate in mine water, for example, is excellent at removing barium and iron, but not strontium, from flowback water, McSurdy said. Adding sodium bicarbonate, meanwhile, helps take out strontium, she said.
Radisav Vidic at the University of Pittsburgh is leading the research and looking at how fast the chemical reactions occur between mine and drilling waters, McSurdy said.
Some samples of the flowback water contain radioactivity from radon below ground, which can be removed by sulfate. The resulting solid would need to be disposed as low-level nuclear waste, McSurdy said.
Mine water also has been used to wash coal, provide a source of steam in coal-burning plants and has been suggested as a water source for the coal-to-diesel plant that Jack Rich of Reading Anthracite wants to build in Schuylkill County, Charles Cravotta III, a hydrogeologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said.
Cravotta and colleagues did a study that estimated 60 billion to 220 billion gallons might be pooled in mines in the Western Middle Anthracite Fields, which are primarily in the watersheds of the Mahanoy and Shamokin creeks.
Thomas Clark of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission looked at the top 20 sites in the anthracite region, including the Jeddo Tunnel, that send acid mine drainage into the river. Prefacing his remarks by saying he is not an engineer, Clark said 10 treatment plants might be built to handle the flow from 16 of the top sources, plus 20 other discharge points.
In his plan, the Nescopeck Creek, which is fed by the Jeddo Mine Tunnel and accounts for 56 percent of aluminum entering the Susquehanna in the region, would get a separate treatment plant. Other plants would treat water from two or more sites.
Together, the plants would remove 68 percent of iron, 73 percent of manganese, 79 percent of aluminum and 60 percent of acidity flowing into the Susquehanna from the region.
Mine engineer Michael Korb of Hazleton, after reporting on a never-realized plan from the 1950s to send mine drainage from Pennsylvania to Maryland through a 137-mile tunnel, suggested diverting water from mines so it doesn’t become polluted rather than building treatment plants. Treatment plants require constant maintenance and passive plants have been disabled by storms, he said.
Even diversion systems, such as ditches and flumes, require maintenance, said Korb, who pointed out that most of the systems installed in the 1950s in lieu of the giant tunnel stopped being effective after the coal companies went out of business and stopped the upkeep.
kjackson@standardspeaker.com
Environmentalists file to block N.E. Pa. drilling
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/126813168.html
By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted on Fri, Aug. 5, 2011
In another potential roadblock to natural-gas drilling in the upper Delaware River basin, a consortium of environmental groups filed suit in federal court Thursday seeking to delay the adoption of regulations until environmental impacts are studied.
The groups contend that the Delaware River Basin Commission, which governs water quality and withdrawals, is subject to federal rules requiring environmental reviews of major projects.
The commission “has acknowledged the value of it, and they have simply chosen not to do it,” said Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, one of the groups that filed the suit.
The industry called the suit frivolous and obstructive.
Ultimately, the issue centers on whether the commission is a federal agency and therefore covered by the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the examination of the environmental impacts of major projects before undertaking them, said Kenneth Kristl, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Widener University.
The commission was formed by a 1961 compact signed by the federal government and the four states with land in the basin – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware. Members include the states and a federal representative, the Army Corps of Engineers, which was also named in the lawsuit.
Kristl’s clinic, which has represented drilling opponents, contends that the commission is subject to the act. Because the compact was ratified by Congress, he said, “technically, it is a creature of federal law.”
“The flip side of the argument is that it is not a typical federal agency in the sense that it is not controlled by the federal government,” he said.
“That is going to be the interesting legal issue. . . . If they are subject to it, they have not done anything to comply with it.”
The Delaware is a high-stakes area. Most of the upper basin is underlain by the rich Marcellus Shale formation, a potential source of cheap natural gas as well as income for people who own land where drilling is targeted.
But the upper river and many of its tributaries are under special protections because of their high water quality. And the Delaware provides drinking water for 15 million people, including those in Philadelphia and some suburbs.
The commission has put a halt to drilling until regulations are in place. So while more than 3,500 Marcellus wells have been drilled in the rest of Pennsylvania, state records show, none are active in the northeastern area within the basin.
Regulations were proposed in December, and a public comment period ended April 15.Ever since, the battle has become one of timing.
Commission staff had estimated that the soonest the 58,000 submissions received during the comment period could be analyzed and responded to would be by the commission’s September meeting.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey want to proceed.
New Jersey’s representative on the commission, John Plonski, a water resources manager in the Department of Environmental Protection, has threatened to withhold payments to the financially strapped commission if it does not vote on the regulations in September.
But the state attorney general in New York, which is doing its own environmental-impact study, filed a federal lawsuit May 31 that is similar to the one filed Thursday by the environmental groups. New York’s suit named the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies, not the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC).
On Monday, an assistant U.S. attorney wrote to U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the case was filed, saying she planned to ask that the suit be dismissed because it was the DRBC that proposed the regulations.
The attorney, Sandra L. Levy, who is representing the federal government, contended that New York’s suit was “an effort to make an end run around” the matter.
Thursday’s suit by the environmental groups, also filed in Brooklyn, names both the Army Corps and the DRBC.
As such, it is “better positioned than the first suit,” said Ross H. Pifer, a Pennsylvania State University law professor. “But the plaintiffs here still must clear the critical hurdle of establishing that DRBC is a federal agency.”
Spokesmen for both the commission and the Army Corps said they had not yet reviewed the complaint and could not comment.
Travis Windle, spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said “frivolous lawsuits like this . . . fundamentally disregard legal precedent and do nothing to help create jobs, protect the environment, or make America more energy secure.”
He said they obstructed “the responsible development of clean-burning American natural gas.”
The commission itself once sought an environmental review, but it had no money to do one. U.S. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D., N.Y.) and others tried to get a $1 million appropriation in the 2001 federal budget, but they failed.
Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147, sbauers@phillynews.com, or @sbauers on Twitter. Visit her blog at philly.com/greenspace.