DEP Puts More Drilling Information Online

Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Protection

DEP’s new site for oil and gas reports

The Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion has improved the drilling infor­ma­tion avail­able on its web­site. As the Scran­ton Times-Tribune reports, users can now view indi­vid­ual inspec­tion reports online. That’s some­thing Gov­er­nor Corbett’s Mar­cel­lus Shale Advi­sory Com­mis­sion recommended.

At the heart of the new site are sev­eral data tools that will be updated auto­mat­i­cally and nearly imme­di­ately rather than man­u­ally by a DEP staff mem­ber every month or so. For the first time, vis­i­tors to the new com­pli­ance data­base will find details for every inspec­tion, not just those that uncover a vio­la­tion at a well site.

The com­pli­ance data­base, which takes the place of what DEP spokesman Kevin Sun­day called a “cum­ber­some” but “work­able Mar­cel­lus Shale Excel spread­sheet,” also presents years of enforce­ment infor­ma­tion in one place.

“You can check out an oper­a­tor and get a look at how they’ve per­formed over the last few years, how much they’ve paid in penal­ties, what the vio­la­tions were,” he said. “This is one stan­dard for­mat that def­i­nitely improves our trans­parency and our communication.”