Pennsylvania Groups Respond to Department of Energy Fracking Report

As expected, the Depart­ment of Energy’s frack­ing report is dom­i­nat­ing today’s drilling news. Here’s some Pennsylvania-based reac­tion to the document.

For­mer DCNR Sec­re­tary John Quigley, who works as a con­sul­tant for Pen­n­Fu­ture, calls it a “must-read.”

Air qual­ity, methane emis­sions, and water qual­ity pro­tec­tion receive impor­tant attention.

So, too, do the crit­i­cally impor­tant areas of man­ag­ing short-term andcumu­la­tive impacts of gas pro­duc­tion and trans­port on com­mu­ni­ties, land use, wildlife, and ecolo­gies. SGS calls for the preser­va­tion of unique/sensitive areas by declar­ing them off-limits to drilling and sup­port infra­struc­ture. The sub­com­mit­tee also calls for science-based analy­sis of impor­tant land­scapes, habi­tats and cor­ri­dors to improve plan­ning, pre­ven­tion, mit­i­ga­tion and recla­ma­tion of sur­face impacts.

Of cen­tral impor­tance, in my view, is that SGS stresses the impor­tance of adopt­ing a process of con­tin­u­ous improve­ment in all aspects of shale gas pro­duc­tion – one that relies on best prac­tices and is tied to mea­sure­ment and dis­clo­sure. Best man­age­ment prac­tices around shale gas pro­duc­tion are in a state of evo­lu­tion. What is under­stood as best prac­tice today may not be six months from now, as new infor­ma­tion is developed.

Here’s the response from the Mar­cel­lus Shale Coali­tion, who rep­re­sents the drilling indus­try in Pennsylvania:

“Taken together, these fact-based rec­om­men­da­tions rep­re­sent yet another key step toward ensur­ing that com­mon sense poli­cies must be in place to ensure that Amer­i­can nat­ural gas devel­op­ment con­tin­ues to be bal­anced with the proper envi­ron­men­tal safe­guards. On the heels of the Gov­er­nor Cor­bett commission’s rec­om­men­da­tions, this panel’s find­ings advance solutions-oriented poli­cies. We look for­ward to pro­vid­ing the panel with our industry’s input as this process con­tin­ues to move forward.”