SRBC Withdrawal Moratorium Still In Effect, Post-Hurricane

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.

September 2, 2011 | 1:00 PM

Even with a tropical storm and near-record rainfall in August, water levels at 15 central Pennsylvania locations are still too low for withdrawals. 11 of these streams provide water for natural gas drillers, according to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which oversees water use in the Susquehanna and its tributaries.
Here’s the SRBC’s latest update on the withdrawal moratorium, which began in early July:

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC www.srbc.net) today announced that 13 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). Of the 13 withdrawals still suspended, 11 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.

Though the release reads 13, an SRBC tweet from earlier today increased the total to 15.