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Delaware River Basin Commission Publishes Newly Proposed Gas Drilling Regulations

Mary Cummings Jordan / WHYY

View of the Delaware River from Bucks County, Pa.


A link to the DRBC’s revised natural gas drilling regulations are now up on their website. A much easier to read fact sheet can be viewed as well. The long awaited revisions are published ahead of the scheduled November 21 public meeting. The Commission plans to discuss the draft regulations, and take a vote. No public testimony will be taken at the meeting. This has activists up in arms.
A press release put out by a coalition of environmental groups lambasted the DRBC for not allowing more public input on the revised draft.
“DRBC is slamming the door in the public’s face and it’s simply unacceptable,” said Maya von Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper. “It’s a gross violation of the public trust not to hear what people have to say about these changed violations.”
The debate over drilling in the Delaware River Basin has raged for three years. The November 21 vote is expected to clear the way for drilling in Wayne and Pike counties. The Northeast Pennsylvania does lie above a potentially lucrative section of the Marcellus Shale. But the DRBC has set a moratorium on drilling in that part of the state until they approve new drilling rules.
The DRBC issued its original draft back in December, 2010. Hours of public testimony and thousand of public comments have been submitted to the DRBC since then. The Commission has twice postponed the public meeting on the revised rules, saying they needed more time to sort through all the public input. The environmental groups say residents should be allowed to weigh in on the revisions. Some sort of fireworks should be expected at November’s meeting.

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