Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.

Krancer Strikes A Chilly Tone In EPA Dimock Letter

January 9, 2012 | 6:26 PM
By Scott Detrow

Scott Detrow / StateIm­pact Pennsylvania

DEP Sec­re­tary Michael Krancer (l) and Energy Exec­u­tive Patrick Hen­der­son com­pare notes dur­ing a July Com­mis­sion meeting

Ever since he took office, Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Sec­re­tary Michael Krancer has been wary of the fed­eral Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. Again and again,he’s chided the EPA and other fed­eral orga­ni­za­tions for get­ting involved in issues he thinks should be reg­u­lated by Pennsylvania.

Now, as the EPA weighs an effec­tive over­ride of a major DEP deci­sion - deliv­er­ing water to res­i­dents of Dimock, Susque­hanna County, after the state told Cabot Oil and Gas it could stop pro­vid­ing potable flu­ids — Krancer has fired off another deri­sive letter.

In a mis­sive dated Jan­u­ary 5, Krancer keeps a polite, civil tone, but makes it clear he thinks the EPA has no idea what it’s talk­ing about, when it comes to methane migra­tion in Dimock. “Based on my con­ver­sa­tions with you it was clear the EPA is really at the very early stages of its learn­ing curve with respect to Dimock,” he writes, call­ing the fed­eral agency’s grasp of the facts, and DEP’s enforce­ment actions, “rudimentary.”

Krancer goes on to ques­tion the EPA’s recent pre­lim­i­nary dis­cov­ery of frack­ing fluid in a Wyoming aquifer. (Read the full let­ter after the jump.)

The EPA is cur­rently con­sid­er­ing whether to deliver to res­i­dents of Dimock whose water has been con­t­a­m­i­nated by methane migra­tion. Up until Decem­ber, Cabot Oil and Gas had been pro­vid­ing water to the dozen fam­i­lies, in accor­dance with a legal agree­ment it had reached with DEP, under the Ren­dell Admin­is­tra­tion. In Novem­ber, the depart­ment allowed Cabot to stop deliv­er­ies, after the com­pany had ful­filled all its requirements.

Here’s Krancer’s full letter:

Comments

  • Anony­mous

    Maybe that vast amount of data will actu­ally include lab sheets.

  • Mike Knapp

    Excel­lent let­ter by the secretary. 

    • http://twitter.com/jkikyoshi Carl Long

      http://online.wsj.com/article/AP5c9a4c2931444d5e95d515bae4060f6e.html

      Get your head out of your Gas ..well and read read how good of a job your sec­re­tary is doing as head of the DEP… 500 Gas wells unac­counted for and 181 with­out per­mits already drilled. Thats your man Cor­betts’ boy!

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WT33KN3N7JACNBKRTWQRCFEPS4 RIDGERUNNER

        Pol­luters (Carl Long and the other 1%) raise THEIR stan­dard of liv­ing by LOWERING EVERYONE ELSE’S stan­dard of liv­ing.  1,000 gen­er­a­tions of hunters and cold water fish­er­men are being destroyed by Carl and his south­ern carpetbaggers. 

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CT6QLLGIMOMI77F34MXIBUXMDY Word­Smith

      Mike in my world your a pup­pet too. No I mean an actual pup­pet and Krancer has to decide how much of a pup­pet he is will­ing to be for Cor­bett. The let­ter was folly and a weak attemt to inter­ject him­self back into the process after being removed from the process.

  • Dory Hip­pauf

    Krancer will suit up and walk around in a mine, but he won’t go to Dimock and drink the water…
    http://enviropoliticsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/profile-of-pennsylvanias-dep-chief.htmlOlson tells how Krancer, as a judge on the state’s Envi­ron­men­tal Hear­ing Board, which con­sid­ers appeals on cer­tain DEP deci­sions, had to rule on an appeal brought, in 2001, by The United Mine Work­ers. The union was chal­leng­ing an exemp­tion approved by the DEP regard­ing methane test­ing at 84 Min­ing Co.‘s mine in South Strabane.The union said the exemp­tion was unsafe, despite DEP’s con­sent.
    Nor­mally, a hear­ing board judge would make a deci­sion based solely on legal argu­ments from both sides. Not Krancer. Don Carmelite, Krancer’s his first law clerk at the board recalls:
    “The guy suited up in all the gear and got the train­ing, and he walked around in a mine a mile below the sur­face, in thigh-high water. It was con­sis­tent with what he did to get it right.”

  • Rousseau

    You must be jok­ing, the let­ter is noth­ing but a stall tac­tic.
    Sec­re­tary Krancer has no notion of what sci­ence is and cer­tainly no idea what­so­ever about what peer review is. Read some of opin­ions as a judge.  He is igno­rant of 40 years of research in envi­ron­men­tal and resource eco­nom­ics. 
    Krancer is work­ing for oil and gas com­pa­nies and him­self, not the cit­i­zens of PA.  When he leaves the state he will walk through the per­pet­ual revolv­ing door and  work for the oil and gas com­pa­nies, just like so many oth­ers from DEP and the governor’s office.   The ques­tion is, how much dam­age will he do?  How many more unec­ces­sary spills?  How many more of our cit­i­zens will he put at risk?  How many more of our chil­dren will get sick?   

  • http://twitter.com/Idaho_RAGE ID RAGE

    Is Tom Krancer an elected offi­cial?  If so, you should be tak­ing the steps to recall him.  In the case he’s an appointee of your Gov­er­nor, then you should be peti­tion­ing the Gov­er­nor to dis­miss him.  If the Gov­er­nor refuses to (which would more than likely be the case with Tom Cor­bett), then you should start an IMMEDIATE recall of the Gov­er­nor!  Here’s a link that is a good jump­ing off point.  Get your neigh­bors in NY involved– they have fam­ily, friends and busi­ness asso­ciates in PA!  Don’t let Krancer and Cor­bett get away with this!  Where’s the Recall Tom Cor­bett NOW Face­book page?  How a Tom Krancer Account­abil­ity Mat­ters!  Face­book page?  GET TO WORK PA– and by all means let us know what those of us in other states can do to help!   :-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Julieann-Wozniak/100002513093193 Julieann Woz­niak

    All this piece of boil­er­plate demon­strates is the fact that we can­not trust PADEP to pro­tect our health and safety from run­away shale gas drilling. The same way we could never trust this agency to pro­tect us from the rav­ages of badly reg­u­lated coal min­ing. I wel­come EPA with open arms. Dunkard Creek is STILL dead, thanks to PADEP.s  too cozy rela­tion­ship with CONSOL and its sub­sidiary CNX.

About StateImpact

StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives.
Learn More »

Education