Shale Gas Wells With Smaller Footprint to Get Greater Scrutiny

• Susan Phillips
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  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

One of the first Marcellus Shale wells to be permitted in the Delaware River watershed was neither horizontal, or hydraulically fracked. But environmentalists who challenged the permit issued by the Department of Environmental Protection say state regulators who approved the project took less than 35 minutes to review it and did not consider its impact on nearby rivers and streams. In a settlement announced by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network on Monday, the organization says those days of quick turn-around permit reviews are over.
“The DEP needs to do a better job of reviewing permits, rather than just using its rubber stamp,” said Delaware Riverkeeper Network attorney Jordan Yeagar.  “This settlement will help make that happen.”
The Riverkeeper Network, along with Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, filed an appeal of the permit to the Environmental Hearing Board. Newfield Appalachia PA, LLC applied to drill the “Woodlands” well in Damascus Township, Wayne County, Pa., less than half a mile from the Delaware river. The nearby Hollister Creek watershed is also designated as a “Special Protection High Quality” (HQ) watershed.
In a press release, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network says the DEP will now update it’s permitting process when it comes to shale gas wells located within designated high quality and exceptional value watersheds.

“Under the terms of the settlement, DEP has agreed that for future shale gas projects in special protection watersheds (designated or existing use of High Quality or Exceptional Value pursuant to 25 Pa. Code Chapter 93), applicants must demonstrate compliance with the Commonwealth’s anti-degradation regulations prior to the commencement of any earth disturbance activities.  Prior to this settlement, for projects under five (5) acres, the Department was not requiring applicants to demonstrate this.”

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network opposes shale gas drilling within the Delaware watershed without a cumulative impact study. DRN’s Maya von Rossum says although she welcomes the settlement’s terms, more oversight is needed.
“Our settlement definitely secured important improvements to the review process,” said von Rossum. “But we are under no misconception that this is in any way the cure for gas drilling in the Commonwealth.”
The Delaware River Basin Commissionhas imposed a de facto moratorium on any new permits for the watershed until the Commission agrees to new rules. But the multi-state/federal body has been at an impasse on those proposals for several months.
 

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