SRBC Scales Back Withdrawal Ban

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.

August 12, 2011 | 12:00 PM

Recent rains have raised water levels along central Pennsylvania waterways, so the Susquehanna River Basin Commission has scaled back its ban on water withdrawals.
The suspension remains in effect at 18 locations, barring natural gas drillers from taking water out of those creeks and rivers.
The ban began in mid-July, and applied to 41 different points at its peak.
Drilling never ground to a halt, though, since most energy companies get their water from multiple sources, and count on occasional withdrawal moratoriums during the hot, dry, summer months.
Read the full SRBC press release after the jump.

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC www.srbc.net) today announced that 18 separate water withdrawals approved by SRBC in 6 Pennsylvania counties remain temporarily suspended due to localized lower stream flow levels (see below for list of suspended withdrawals).
Streams have responded positively to recent rainfall events, reducing the number of suspended water withdrawals by more than half this week. The vast majority of the temporarily suspended withdrawals are related to water for natural gas projects.
The suspended withdrawals are part of SRBC’s passby flow requirement to protect aquatic resources and downstream water users. When streams drop below pre-determined protective flow levels, project sponsors who are required to meet SRBC’s passby requirement must stop taking water. They cannot resume taking water until streams have recovered above the protected level for at least 48 hours.
SRBC and its regulated project sponsors monitor real-time stream flow data generated by stream gages maintained and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey. Regulated project sponsors also are required to install tamper-proof water meters that automatically record their water withdrawals on a daily basis. SRBC requires that information be reported quarterly, in addition to continuous spot-inspections conducted by SRBC field staff working out of the field office in Sayre, Bradford County, Pennsylvania.
WATER WITHDRAWALS STILL TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED AS OF AUGUST 11, 2011:
BLAIR COUNTY
Smith Transport Warehouse, Bald Eagle Creek
BRADFORD COUNTY
Chesapeake Appalachia, Chemung River (Barrett) and Sugar Creek (Isbell)
Healthy Properties, Sugar Creek
Talisman Energy, Fall Brook, Seeley Creek, Sugar Creek, Towanda Creek, and Tributary to North Branch Sugar Creek
Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Towanda Creek
Towanda Country Club, Little Wysox Creek
LYCOMING COUNTY
Pennsylvania General Energy Company, Pine Creek (Poust)
POTTER COUNTY
Ultra Resources, Pine Creek
TIOGA COUNTY
LDG Innovations, Tioga River
Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Tioga River and Unnamed tributary of North Elk Run
Ultra Resources, Cowanesque River
WYOMING COUNTY
Sugar Hollow Trout Park and Hatchery, Hatchery Effluent