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Environmentalists slam new DRBC fracking regs
The new draft regulations for shale gas drilling in the Delaware River are weaker than ever, environmental advocates warn.
Environmentalists slam new DRBC fracking regs
The interstate Delaware River Basin Commission will vote Nov. 21 on the adoption of new regulations for gas drilling in the river's watershed. Environmentalists are none too pleased. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection pushed to rid the DRBC's rules of redundancy, thereby reserving more regulatory power for the states. And it looks like they're about to get their way.
"It’s stunning that the DRBC has issued these substantially revised regulations, without any opportunity for public input, that essentially make a bad draft of half-baked regulations worse. All the same fatal flaws that existed in the original draft are intact, and some sections have been made even weaker; unfortunately it seems we can more clearly than ever see the heavy hand of politics and special interests in these unacceptable proposed rules,” said Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, in a statement.
Here are the chief complaints, according to a statement by a coalition of environmental advocates.
Top Ten Mistakes in DRBC Revised Gas Rules
1. They reduce the setbacks of gas well pads from a stream, water body, or wetland from 500 ft to 300 ft (greater of 300 ft. from wellbore or 100 ft. from nearest disturbance) exposing streams, rivers, and public surface water supplies to greater pollution. 500 feet is not adequate and 300 feet is even less. Setbacks recommended by commenters to DRBC were in the thousands of feet, not hundreds and are to be measured from the end of the horizontal wellbore, not the vertical well bore or surface disturbance.
2. They backed down on the treatability study DRBC was requiring for wastewater discharges and allow the host state or federal treatability study to be used instead. The host states do not require special treatability studies for the discharge of gas drilling wastewater and no treatment facilities have been built that can treat all of the contaminants in the wastewater, including Pennsylvania where the drilling frenzy is producing millions of gallons daily. Federal government agencies are studying hydraulic fracturing, including the wastewater. Due to the complexity of the technical issues involved, the Environmental Protection Agency’s study will not be done for several years; no federal guidance exists for treatability and without Delaware River-specific analysis, the Special Protection Waters requirements for the Delaware River cannot be met.
3. They continue the promotion of large centralized open wastewater pits that would hold toxic flowback and gas drilling wastewater. While the DRBC on one hand recommends closed tanks for this highly contaminated wastewater, on the other hand they promote very large basins that will hold hazardous fluids over long periods of time, open to the environment.
4. They encourage use of potentially contaminated sources of “reused” water for fracking without the institution of water quality standards to detoxify the fluids -- allowing minimal review of the quality and the source (even allowing for importation of wastewater into the Basin) of everything from mine drainage, gas flowback wastewater, non-contact cooling water from power plants and elsewhere, to treated sewage or industrial effluent, to be re-injected to frack a well.
5. They continue to relegate the regulation of gas well drilling and/or fracking of gas wells to the host states, where there is minimal regulation that, in practice, assures the pollution and degradation of our aquifers.
6. They have not completed a cumulative impact analysis or a comprehensive environmental study so they continue to lack the data and analysis necessary to accurately assess the potential effects or the means to prevent pollution and environmental and community degradation. The paltry 18 month Assessment provision is meaningless as a means to address cumulative impacts. A staff “review” after 18 months (with no defined scope) would then trigger a six-month review by the Commissioners for “adjustments”. Bottom line, the rules they vote on 11/21, if approved, will be carved in stone for two years with no limits on pace and density of well development – in PA 2,843 wells were drilled in 2010; so far in 2011 2,375 wells have been drilled – if that pace keeps up for the last 2 months of 2011, 2,855 wells will have been drilled. So that means in two years 5,693 wells were drilled in PA and could also occur in our Basin since DRBC has put no limits on development. There is no way that cumulative impacts (or individual well impacts) can be undone after the well(s) is drilled. DRBC is opening the flood gates to unbridled development of gas wells and the cumulative impacts will accrue uncontrolled.
7. Continue to allow drillers of 5 well pads (i.e. at 10-12 wells per pad that is 50 to 60 gas wells) or owners of less than 3200 acres of leaseholdings (and there are loopholes to escape that aggregation) to proceed with their operations without the benefit of any sort of comprehensive review or planning and without public participation in the review and permitting of these wells.
8. A new provision would allow fracking companies to self-monitor surface water for contamination, opening up serious conflicts of interest. The original regulations proposed have no mention of self-monitoring, just an imposed fee for monitoring to be conducted by DRBC. Considering that drillers in Pennsylvania are violating environmental permits at the rate of 10.5 violations per day and PADEP just can’t keep up with it, water pollution is even less likely to be caught and stopped.
9. The rules continue to default to weak and loophole-ridden stormwater management largely based on host state regulations which contain major exemptions for oil and gas activities. Where gas drilling and its infrastructure is surging forests are being cut to shreds by gas wells and the required appurtenant development, farms are being ruined by the industry’s heavy footprint, and streams are being loaded up with pollutants and sediment, choking out life and degrading water quality.
10. Continue to ignore air pollution, which is a major source of water contamination through the deposition of hazardous pollutants on the land and water surface. The local and far-reaching impacts of the emissions from gas well development is grossly unregulated due to exemptions in the law and people’s health and safety is paying the price of the substantial increase in air pollution.
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