Don’t Just Scratch the Surface
Make sure to add teeth when chewing on Marcellus shale drilling
proposals
Morgantown Dominion Post
13 January 2011
EDITORIAL
No one said this was going to be easy. Though there was a quorum of
state senators this time around for a session on regulating the
Marcellus shale gas industry, the only thing that got done was passing
the buck. The proposal did advance to the legislative interim’s joint
Judiciary Committee and will be before the full Legislature on Monday,
but without a recommendation for passage. Which, in legislative
parlance, translates into this bill needs work. Of course, you can look
at it another way, too, as Delegate Mike Caputo, D-Marion, did. After
initially moving to send the bill forward with a recommendation for
passage, he took the position that this proposal serves best as a point
of reference for what’s to come. One hold-up on this bill is the effort
to mesh the legislative proposal with the state Department of
Environmental Protection’s proposed regulations. The DEP has drafted
its own regulations for drilling into Marcellus shale. There’s
certainly good reason to review both these bills and integrate the best
of both into regulations that address all concerns, including polluted
waterways and truck damage to secondary roads.
Landowner issues, including pooling, the process of compensating people
for draining gas reserves they own by drilling nearby, appear headed
for separate legislation. One positive thing that has emerged in both
proposals is that permit fees will increase substantially to cover the
cost of hiring additional gas well inspectors.
That’s a start, however, we urge all legislators, especially our
delegation from this region, to ensure that this bill have some teeth.
A wishy-washy bill, like the one that died last year, will do little to
protect our environment, our roads or our communities.
Yet, Caputo’s right. It is important to start with a bill that gets
everyone to the table and keeps them there to tap meaningful
regulations.
Regulations that require drillers to manage water resources used in the
fracking process, and disclose the chemicals mixed with these high
volumes of water. That includes the amounts of chemicals drillers use
in addition to how they replace contaminated water. Drillers also
should be required to post bonds to cover damages to roadways. And
failure to conform to any of these measures should be subject to fines
and legal action. The environment and the economy are inseparable. The
wealth of our state may be a mile below our feet, but we will need to
do more than scratch the surface to regulate its extraction.