Charleston Gazette Saturday
20 August 20111:
August 19, 2011 by Ken Ward Jr.
More than a month after Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, acting as governor, ordered “emergency” rules to toughen regulation of natural gas drilling in West Virginia, and the state Department of Environmental Protection has yet to issue those rules.
We still don’t know what role the oil and gas industry’s lobbyists played in crafting Tomblin’s executive order, or what role they may be playing behind the scenes in developing the WVDEP’s rules. Are any significant changes being made at industry’s behest?
In the Daily Mail, Ry Rivard reports that a new law on drilling practices is unlikely to happen before the end of this year — and some lawmakers seem in no hurry to work on such legislation.
Meanwhile, a coalition of citizen groups are planning dual events in Morgantown and Charleston on Monday to call attention to what they say are weaknesses in the Tomblin executive order. According to a press advisory from the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization:
West Virginia citizens need strong protection from a range of effects of Marcellus shale and other natural gas drilling and production. Representatives from participating organizations will address such issues as air, land, and water pollution from drilling operations; water usage and waste disposal; light and noise pollution; lack of surface owners’ rights; and lack of sufficient DEP inspectors to enforce the law and ensure safety. Participants are critical of the measures proposed in Governor Tomblin’s Executive Order as being insufficient to provide the protections citizens are demanding and are calling on the legislature to act swiftly.
The advisory added:
The Charleston event will also include testimony from the Hagy family. The Hagy’s water well became contaminated and family members became sick after a natural gas company drilled and hydraulically fractured three natural gas wells on their property in Jackson County.
Readers may recall that the Hagy’s experience was outlined in great detail in a recent report by the Environmental Working Group.
In a commentary today, Hoppy Kercheval of West Virginia MetroNews talked up his belief that a draft report from an Obama administration advisory panel on shale-gas drilling “provides balance” and dismisses concerns about water pollution from increased gas drilling activity.
Hoppy must have missed this part of the draft Department of Energy report:
Intensive shale gas development can potentially have serious impacts on public health, the environment and quality of life – even when individual operators conduct their activities in ways that meet and exceed regulatory requirements. The combination of impacts from multiple drilling and production operations, support infrastructure (pipelines, road networks, etc.) and related activities can overwhelm ecosystems and communities.
The Subcommittee believes that federal, regional, state and local jurisdictions need to place greater effort on examining these cumulative impacts in a more holistic manner; discrete permitting activity that focuses narrowly on individual activities does not reach to these issues.