Worse than that, not "worth than that". Sorry.
Frank
----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Young" fyoung@mountain.net To: "Elizabeth Little" blittle@citynet.net; "James Kotcon" jkotcon@wvu.edu Cc: ec@osenergy.org Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 8:18 PM Subject: Re: [EC] EarthWorks report "Breaking All The Rules"
It's worth than that, Beth. The law does require one thing of DEP- that it issue permits if the applicants have simply jumped through the paperwork hoops, but which hoops are very, very low. To not issue a permit immediately puts the burden on DEP to show that it was prudent to deny the permit. And usually DEP is too paralyzed by inertia and too bound by political pressure to make realistic findings of relative prudency.
Frank Young
----- Original Message ----- From: "Elizabeth Little" blittle@citynet.net To: "James Kotcon" jkotcon@wvu.edu Cc: ec@osenergy.org Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 8:07 PM Subject: Re: [EC] EarthWorks report "Breaking All The Rules"
It sounds like WV, but they didn't include WV. If it's this bad elsewhere, imagine how bad it is here. Example: Antero and Halls Drilling have had violation, accident, spill, etc. one after another, starting with the spill in Buckeye Run that Louanne discovered, and the DEP just lets them keep going.
The really frustrating thing is that there is nothing we can legally do. When we had that call with several lawyers about filing an action to make the DEP do what the law says, it came out that the regulations don't require the DEP to do anything. The language is all that they "may" inspect or "may" require thus and so.
Arrrrgh!
If ever there was a timely report to justify our Moratorium call, here it is. Caution, 3 MB, about 150 pages.
http://www.earthworksaction.org/library/detail/breaking_all_the_rules_the_cr...
JBK
----- Original Message ----- From: Alan Septoff ( mailto:aseptoff@earthworksaction.org ) To: cog Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 1:39 PM Subject: [COG] Earthworks' response to John Hanger re our enforcement report
http://www.earthworksaction.org/earthblog/detail/public_health_isnt_a_number...
Public health isnâ?Tt a numbers game - a response to John Hanger By Nadia Steinzor ( http://www.earthworksaction.org/earthblog/byauthor/8 ) September 28, 2012 This post was co-authored with Alan Septoff ( http://www.earthworksaction.org/earthblog/byauthor/10 ). The most fundamental truth uncovered in Earthworksâ?T just-released report Breaking All the Rules: the Crisis in Oil & Gas Regulation ( http://www.earthworksaction.org/library/detail/breaking_all_the_rules_the_cr... ), is that states are falling tragically short in enforcing their own oil and gas development rules. It is good to see that John Hanger ( http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2012/09/reviewing-earthworks-report-ripping.h... ), ex-Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), does not argue that truth. As a result of this inadequate enforcementâ?"a problem in all of the six states we reviewedâ?"Breaking All the Rules concludes that so many problems with oil and gas development are left undiscovered, undocumented and unresolved, the public cannot have confidence that their health, air, and water are being protected. Again, John Hanger does not argue against that conclusion. As a former regulator, he knows how complicated it is to oversee an industry based on a â?odrill and permit now, figure out how to oversee laterâ? approach. Even with an increase in the number of inspectors and improved reporting and data protocolsâ?"facts that Earthworks acknowledges in the report. John Hanger also argues that we should not have looked at all producing wells, since it is primarily shale gas wells â?othat are the focus of attention and concern.â? However, all active wells require oversight. Production may be minimal, but potential contamination issues still exist from produced water and leaks, especially since the older equipment at these sites may be more prone to corrosion and failure. And when the DEP wrote its recommended inspection policyâ?"still the basis for current activitiesâ?"shale gas wells did not even exist. John Hangerâ?Ts response to the report is also based on the idea that because DEP increased its enforcement efforts from 2010 to 2011, our use of 2010 data skews the results so much that the report isnâ?Tt useful. As we stated on on page 23 of the full report, because 2011 data were not available for all statesâ?"and Earthworks wanted to do a comparable analysis across six statesâ?"we relied primarily on 2010 data. (For example, DEPâ?Ts 2011 data on wells, permits, and other aspects were not completely available to the public until July 2012.) Nonetheless, we did include 2011 data where available -- in the full report within table A6-1 and in the Pennsylvania-specific report prominently on page 2 ( http://www.earthworksaction.org/library/detail/enforcement_report_pa_dep ): "In 2010 DEP failed to inspect more than 82,000 or 91 percent of active wells. In 2011, more than 66,000 active wells (86 percent) did not receive DEP oversight." But even if the numbers shift a bit in some months, the key question that was the impetus to this research remains: "Can the public have confidence that their health, air and water are being protected?â? Citing different numbers does not even begin to answer this question because the Pennsylvania DEP addressed its enforcement inadequacies in the same manner that allowed the problem to develop in the first place: DEP looked at the amount of drilling as something outside their control, and defined their ability to govern that drilling in terms of the limited resources available to them. We hope that anyone who reads Breaking All the Rulesâ?"including regulators and policymakersâ?"takes away the core lesson learned from an in-depth analysis of regulatory agenciesâ?T own data: Right now, states take the amount of drilling as given, and then figure out how they can best do their jobs with scarce resources available. That equation must be reversed. The amount of drilling that takes place should be contingent upon what resource strapped state agencies can safely regulate -- ensuring that public health and the environment are fully protected as top priority. If a state enforcement agency can't guarantee that the next proposal for a well, compressor station, or other facility will not cause harm (and that it will be properly overseen during construction and operation), they shouldn't permit it. Plain and simple. In the end, protecting communities isn't a numbers game, and solutions to very real and very serious problems in the gas patches of the United States wonâ?Tt be found comparing one yearâ?Ts marginally improved inspection and enforcement performance to another. (Though any meaningful improvement would be welcome.) What it will require from regulatory agencies is that they revisit their rules in a public and transparent manner to determine what constitutes enforcement that credibly protects the public and the environmentâ?"and then allow only the amount of development that meets that strong enforcement standard. And no more. A continued rush to drill without such change will continue to harm communities and result in even more violations and problems on the groundâ?"a scenario that the regulatory agencies themselves should want to avoid.
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