WVDEP Wants to Double Oil and Gas Staff
Charleston Gazette
7 January 2011
By Ken Ward Jr.
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has what
amounts to a final draft of its proposed new oil and gas drilling
legislation, and I’m told that Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has signed
off on the package.
The bill won’t be a governor’s bill, but Tomblin has given WVDEP the OK
to seek its own sponsor and to work toward passage when lawmakers come
to town next week for the start of the session. (See previous posts
about the upcoming debate on oil and gas drilling legislation here,
here and here).
Chief among the WVDEP’s hopes for the bill — which I’ve posted here —
is approval of a new special fee on horizontal wells that would provide
enough money for the agency to double the size of its oil and gas
office staff.
DEP Secretary Randy Huffman said yesterday:
We’ve got to have these people and to do that we’ve got to have money.
Some readers may recall that WVDEP’s small inspection staff for
drilling operations — just 18 inspectors statewide — drew the attention
last year of the ongoing investigation of oil and gas issues by
ProPublica.
Under Huffman’s proposal, WVDEP would add 34 people to its oil and gas
office’s current staff of 32, including doubling the number of
inspectors to 36.
URL for above ProPublica report:
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/watchdog/2010/01/04/propublica-report-gas-drilling-inspectors-spread-thin/