Bill to Protect Waterways Clears One Committee Hurdle

West Virginia Public Broadcasting
8 March 2010
By Erica Peterson

On Monday in the Senate, the Committee on Natural Resources considered a bill that would strengthen reporting requirements for Marcellus shale drilling.

Environmentalists and regulators want the bill, but some oil and gas representatives think it’s unnecessary.

House Bill 4513 would call for oil and gas drillers to submit records of water taken out, as well as fluid discharged into, West Virginia waterways. The bill’s proponents say tougher reporting requirements could avoid a repeat of the massive fish kill on Dunkard Creek last fall. Though the fish kill was caused by golden algae, many believe nearby oil and gas operations could have contributed to brackish water.

Delegate Tim Manchin (D-Marion) is the bill’s lead sponsor. He says the bill is the result of two years of study by the joint standing committee on water resources.

“What protections are there for sensitive streams?” he asked. “In other words, if they go in and they need to withdraw two-and-a-half million gallons from a stream back up in the headwaters, what protections are there for that stream and the environment? And what we really learned at that point in time, is that there’s very little, if any.”

The Department of Environmental Protection supports the bill. James Martin of the DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas says the agency already has some reporting requirements, but the bill would implement several more.

“The bill, specifically I guess under Paragraph A, those first few items there, that’s part of the permit addendum, where we’re looking at type of the source and that part of it,” Martin said. “I think some other parts of the bill are additional to addendum.”

But the bill’s stakeholders disagree about whether the bill is necessary. Nick Casey stood to represent EQT, one of the companies involved in drilling the Marcellus shale.

“EQT took a look at this when the joint committee was working on it and there were various meetings—I don’t think they had quorum,” he said. “But at that meeting, EQT had representatives there who took some energy to communicate and talk about the information that was in the bill. And EQT found it to be acceptable.

“It’s consistent with the kind of information that they currently accumulate and gather for their own internal purposes. So they didn’t consider this to be an additional burden and from a policy perspective, they didn’t have any problem with it, so they find it to be acceptable.”

Ann Bradley of the Independent Oil and Gas Association maintains that the bill is redundant, when viewed alongside the DEP’s current reporting requirements.

“You’ve already heard that a lot of this information is already required by DEP under their existing authority,” she said. “They’re to be commended because they’ve used their regulatory authority, they’ve used guidance, they’ve used permit application form amendments to respond to this industry that’s developing very rapidly and making technological changes rapidly. And they’ve been innovative in using their existing authority to address those changes. Our position is that we think the legislation is unnecessary.”

The committee passed the bill, but it still has to pass through the Energy, Industry and Mining committee before being read on the Senate floor.

After today’s floor session, the Labor Committee held a meeting at the back of the Senate chamber to discuss House Bill 4359. The bill would affect whether or not public construction jobs have to hire local labor. Committee vice-chairman Bob Williams (D-Taylor) explains the bill.

“Well, we currently require any construction job over a million dollars to hire 75 percent of its labor from West Virginia labor forces that are within 75 miles of the borders of West Virginia: that’s where the pool had to come from,” Williams said. “What we did was we reduced that from one million to $500,000 and we reduced the circle of potential employees from 75 miles to 50 miles.”

The bill eventually passed the committee, but Sen. Clark Barnes (R-Randolph) had some concerns. The bill takes out a stipulation that the “local labor market” includes counties that border West Virginia, and he worried whether that would actually spur job creation.

“So when we are actually changing the qualifications for some of these beneficial contracts to go actually farther outside the state,” he said. “Our language before said if it was a county that bordered West Virginia, that it actually touched West Virginia that it was included in that local labor market. And now, even though we have reduced the mileage from 75 to 50, we are no longer saying that county has to border. And what I’m concerned about is that we are potentially passing this bill to protect labor organizations rather than West Virginia labor.”

The bill next goes to the Finance Committee.

Below is from Joe Cavalier, Rivesville WV. I agree with Joe in that it is difficult to get anything done for the environment, given industry money and lobbying, and, given that those who care about the environment don’t have money and equal lobbing clout.

Our best bet re WV legislature and executive is to support the West Virginia Environmental Council, http://www.wvecouncil.org . Our Upper Mon River Association so does!

And, Sierra Club, Highlands Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, and many other organizations concerned with the environment.