New Bill Would Set Statewide Water Well Standards

A Repub­li­can state law­maker is wad­ing into the polit­i­cally con­tentious issue of stan­dards for pri­vate water wells.

York County Repub­li­can Ron Miller says guide­lines for pri­vate wells could limit both naturally-occurring and nat­ural gas drilling-related methane migra­tion, as Penn­syl­va­nia Pub­lic Radio’s Mary Wil­son reports:

“Many of my col­lege room­mates and friends were from the north­ern tier, and there were sto­ries then of peo­ple who could hold a match to their faucet and light the water on fire,” said Miller.  “Nat­ural gas migra­tion– it exists.  It existed long before the Mar­cel­lus gas wells were drilled, long before fracking.”

Nat­ural gas migra­tion is one of the prob­lems Miller said could be avoided if the state had bet­ter rules gov­ern­ing how pri­vate water wells are drilled.  He’s propos­ing new con­struc­tion stan­dards, some­thing that has been tried and failed in the past ten years.  Past efforts to reg­u­late pri­vate water wells have been mired in con­tro­versy – con­tro­versy that Miller said has long been based on a misconception.

“It wasn’t true, but what was alleged at the time was that peo­ple would be charged for usage of their well-water.  That absolutely wasn’t true at that time and is absolutely not true now.”

In fact, said Miller, a 2002 Penn­syl­va­nia law pro­hibits the state from meter­ing pri­vate wells.

Gov­er­nor Corbett’s Mar­cel­lus Shale Advi­sory Com­mis­sion rec­om­mended pri­vate well stan­dards, but pre­vi­ous attempts to impose statewide guide­lines have failed. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem Joe Scar­nati, a Repub­li­can who rep­re­sents a rural dis­trict, told StateIm­pact this sum­mer that a bill like Miller’s will never pass. “You want to see a revolt? You start telling peo­ple back in these rural areas that you’ve got to have a cer­tain stan­dard, mon­i­tored. That’s just not going to fly in rural Pennsylvania.”