DRBC Changes Its Regulations Ahead Of 11/21 Vote

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

November 8, 2011 | 3:14 PM

News from the Delaware River Basin Commission:

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Delaware River Basin Commission has tweaked the regulations it plans to impose on the natural gas drilling industry.
The commission published the draft regulations on its website Tuesday and plans to vote on them later this month. The rules are designed to allow drilling in the watershed while protecting water quality in the Delaware and its tributaries.

The Commission is scheduled to meet on November 21 to consider the new regulations. You can read about the changes at the DRBC’s website. Here’s its summary of the “tweaks”:

The revised draft regulations are divided into sections that address the purpose, authority and scope of the rule (7.1); definitions (7.2); administrative processes (7.3); water sources and conditions of bulk water use and management approvals for natural gas development projects (7.4); the protection of high value water resource landscapes and Commission-designated Special Protection Waters through mandatory Natural Gas Development Plans (“NGDPs”) for lease holdings of 3,200 acres or more and for all project sponsors who intend to develop more than five well pads (7.5); and the transfer, treatment and discharge of wastewater generated by natural gas development activities (7.6). The Commission will rely on the oil and gas program of the state in which a natural gas well is located to regulate the construction and operation activities of the natural gas well and well pad for which separate administration by the Commission would result in unnecessary duplication. If a state or federal regulatory requirement is more stringent than a DRBC requirement, the more stringent regulation would apply.