Impact Fees Differ On Buffer Zones

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.

November 28, 2011 | 10:51 AM

One of the many differences between the House and Senate impact fees: the size of buffer zones between natural gas and water wells. The Citizen’s Voice has more:

HARRISBURG – Establishing buffer zones to protect water sources from gas drilling remains a live issue as an effort begins to reconcile differences between two comprehensive Marcellus impact fee bills approved by the House and Senate.
Gov. Tom Corbett has expressed hope that a joint bill approved by both Republican-controlled chambers will reach his desk before year’s end. Protecting water sources from contamination by drilling wastewater or methane gas emerged as one of the earliest environmental issues after the Marcellus drilling boom got underway in 2007. The contamination of water wells with methane in Dimock Township after drilling nearby focused attention on the problem.
The Senate-passed measure would: increase the setback distance from a Marcellus well and existing water well from 200 to 500 feet; increase the setback between a well and spring or body of water identified on a topographic map from 100 feet to 300 feet; and restricts a well from being located within 1,000 feet of a public water supply. These setbacks are in line with recommendations by the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission. The House-passed measure would keep a gas well 300 feet away from any stream, spring or body of water and 1,000 feet from private wells and public water supplies.