SALEM, Ohio — The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Quality Board said it needs more time to consider a petition to increase setbacks from unconventional oil and gas wells, after the board received a barrage of last-minute pleas from the industry to reject the petition.
The petition, filed by the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project last fall, asked the EQB to increase setbacks from homes and businesses from 500 feet to 3,281 feet, pointing to public health concerns related to people who live close to fracking.
The board voted 16-3 on April 8 to table the petition, saying it needed additional time to review comments submitted at the last minute
“There have been letters being submitted by industry the past couple days, up to and including late last night or yesterday evening, said Kathryn Zerfuss, commissioner of Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and part of the EQB board. “It’s a lot of information. So suffice it to say there’s a lot of passion on the topic and on the petition.”
A delay
Groups that sent letters opposing the petition include the Marcellus Shale Coalition on April 2, Pennsylvania American Petroleum Institute on April 4 and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association and Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry on April 7.
The letters state the petition’s proposed setbacks would effectively “ban future production and development of Pennsylvania’s natural gas resources,” while putting jobs and landowners’ rights at risk.
“A GIS analysis conducted by the Marcellus Shale Coalition member companies shows that in most of the top natural gas producing counties, nearly 99% of all land mass is prohibited from hosting natural gas facilities,” said the Marcellus Shale Coalition’s letter to the board.
The American Petroleum Institute’s letter further argued that it is the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s job to determine setbacks, not the board.
Pennsylvania’s oil and gas law was last updated in 2012, which established a 500-foot setback distance from protected structures — homes and businesses — and water wells.
The petition
The rulemaking petition, filed Oct. 22, also calls for a 5,280-foot setback from schools and hospitals and a 750-foot setback from any surface water. It would allow landowners to waive the setback distance if they get approval from all landowners within the setback zone.
Included in the petition were 42 peer-reviewed scientific studies that encompass over a decade of research across various states detailing the impacts of fracking like air pollution, water contamination, public health impacts and threats to agriculture.
In recent years, communities in western Pennsylvania have sought to further regulate the industry at the local level. The petition could result in a state-level regulatory change.
During the hearing, Lisa Hallowell, senior attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, gave a presentation on the petition, containing photos and stories from residents living close to oil and gas wells.
For its part, the DEP recommended that the EQB accept the petition for further study. Despite this, board members voted to table the petition for more time to review recent letters sent by oil and gas groups opposing the petition.
The tabled petition could be taken up at the EQB’s next meeting in June or delayed even further. The Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project plan to have staff present at the next few meetings in case the petition is taken up again.
“While our petition hangs in limbo, more gas wells will be drilled by people’s homes and schools, more undisclosed chemicals will sully our air and water, and more children will be sickened and hospitalized,” said Alex Bomstein, Clean Air Council executive director, in a statement. “We need protective setbacks now to stop this public health emergency and we will do everything in our power to move them forward.”
Hallowell also remains committed to seeing the petition passed, despite what she calls a “delay.”
“I know that the Pennsylvania residents who have to deal and live near these sites on a daily basis, any delay seems like a huge setback to them. I sympathize greatly with that,” Hallowell said. “However, it certainly is not that; it is just a delay and we are really hopeful that this will move forward.”
(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.
