Safeguards Not Uniform in Drilling
Environmental safeguards intermittent in natural gas drilling
Albany, NY Times Union
14 December 2009
By Abraham Lustgarten
Special to the Albany Times Union
As environmental concerns mount about natural gas drilling projects in
New York and other gas-rich states, energy companies have quietly
developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation's
reserves without polluting air and drinking water.
They've figured out how to drill wells with fewer toxic chemicals,
enclose wastewater so it can't contaminate streams and groundwater, and
curb emissions from everything from truck traffic to leaky gas well
valves. Some techniques make good business sense because they boost
productivity and save the industry money.
Yet ProPublica found that these environmental safeguards are used only
intermittently in the 32 states where natural gas is drilled. The
energy industry is exempted from many federal environmental laws, so
regulation of this growing industry is left almost entirely to the
states, which often recommend, but seldom mandate, the use of these
techniques. In one Wyoming gas field, for instance, drillers have taken
steps to curb emissions, while 100 miles away in the same state, they
have not.
Interviews with environmental regulators and industry executives show
the industry tends to use environmental safeguards only when political,
regulatory, cost or social pressures force it to do so.
When states have tried to toughen regulations aimed at protecting the
environment or institutionalizing these practices, energy companies
have fought hard to defend the status quo. They argue that current laws
are sufficient, that mandating practices imposes specific solutions on
regions where they may not work best, and that the cost of complying
with additional laws and safeguards would bankrupt them.
Few notions have sparked more hope among environmentalists than the
possibility of replacing toxic chemicals used in drilling process known
as hydraulic fracturing with what are called "green" or nontoxic
drilling fluids.
New York's Department of Environmental Conservation suggested in its
review that "green" chemicals be used in the Marcellus Shale, but
decided not to require them "because presently there is no metric or
chemicals approvals process in place in the U.S."
Such standards exist, but only for the fracturing fluids used in
offshore drilling, where U.S. regulations dictate that chemicals must
be safe enough to not kill fish.
Abrahm Lustgarten is a reporter for ProPublica, an independent,
nonprofit news organization that produces investigative journalism.
On the Web
An expanded version of this story is available at http://propublica.org/drilling