DEP Head Wants Tougher Laws on Shale Gas Drilling
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
3 May 2010
By Don Hopey
Pennsylvania needs tougher regulations for Marcellus shale gas
drilling, aggressive, independent enforcement and a severance tax on
the gas extracted, according to state Department of Environmental
Protection Secretary John Hanger.
And yesterday would not be soon enough to get all of that done and
"done right" to protect the state's water resources, said Mr. Hanger in
a forceful keynote speech opening the Marcellus Shale Policy Conference
at Duquesne University today.
Citing environmental damage done by Pennsylvania's early history of
unregulated coal mining, the oil well disaster and widening slick in
the Gulf of Mexico and the 29 dead miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine
in West Virginia, Mr. Hanger challenged state legislators, regulators
and the natural gas industry not to make those kinds of mistakes again.
"Let me be clear: Self regulation doesn't work. That's not
contestable," Mr. Hanger said to the audience of about 250, including a
significant number of gas industry representatives. "We've made
mistakes before. We have to get this right or the costs will overwhelm
the benefits."
Mr. Hanger said Pennsylvania needs stronger regulations to protect its
rivers and creeks from well waste water pollution, tougher and more
comprehensive well construction standards, rules limiting toxic air
pollution from wells and compressor pumping stations and bigger bonds
to cover capping of wells when they stop producing.
"The bonding regulations are pitiful -- $2,500 a well or $25,000 for
all the wells a company drills in the state," Mr. Hanger said,
provoking a couple of chuckles from the audience. "Well the joke will
be on us when the first company leaves Pennsylvania. Right now clearly
the rational economic decision would be forfeit the bond and walk away."
The two-day conference is sponsored by Duquesne University and the
Pennsylvania Environmental Council, which intends to release a
blueprint for effective regulation of the drilling industry later this
year. According to a news release, PEC will release a policy report and
recommendations based on information developed at the conference, which
concludes Tuesday.
More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.