
Dead vegetation around a conventional well site in Warren County indicates a possible brine spill.
Dead vegetation around a conventional well site in Warren County indicates a possible brine spill.
Dead vegetation around a conventional well site in Warren County indicates a possible brine spill.
Courtesy Pennsylvania DEP
Dead vegetation around a conventional well site in Warren County indicates a possible brine spill.
The legislature is teeing up another attempt to loosen environmental standards for conventional oil and gas drillers.
It’s the latest attempt to resolve a 2016 agreement between lawmakers and the Wolf Administration that smaller, conventional drillers should be treated differently than the large, unconventional drillers fracking in the Marcellus Shale.
Under House Bill 1144, companies wouldn’t have to report oil spills under five barrels or brine spills under 15 barrels “unless there is an immediate threat to public health, safety or the environment.” It also revives a controversial provision that would let companies dump drilling fluids on roads.
The new measure is similar to a bill that the legislature passed last session and Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed. He said it posed a risk to public health and safety and that it likely wouldn’t withstand a legal challenge.
The Environmental Defense Fund and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council say the new measure would dramatically reduce health and environmental protections.
“While we recognize that low commodity prices have hampered the conventional industry, that challenge is wholly unrelated to protection standards,” the groups wrote in a letter to lawmakers. “It certainly does not warrant the unraveling of standards that have been in place, and practiced by both the conventional and unconventional industries, for decades.”
Rep. Danielle Friel Otten (D-Chester) opposes the bill. She cited a 2018 study that looked at environmental and health impacts of spreading wastewater in Pennsylvania.
“Spreading conventional oil and gas wastewater brine on roads released 200 times more of the carcinogen radium than all oil and gas industry spills combined,” Otten said.
Supporters of the bill say the conventional industry has been operating safely in the state for 160 years and needs to be protected from burdensome regulations meant for the more intensive shale industry. They emphasize conventional wells produce gallons, not barrels, of oil each day.
Rep. Kathy Rapp (R-Warren) represents a part of northwestern Pennsylvania where the oil industry started.
“It’s kind of a slap in the face to the good people where I live, to say that — to imply that we do not want clean air and clean water,” she said.
The bill passed the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee on a near party-line vote Tuesday and now goes before the full House.
StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.
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StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.
Climate Solutions, a collaboration of news organizations, educational institutions and a theater company, uses engagement, education and storytelling to help central Pennsylvanians toward climate change literacy, resilience and adaptation. Our work will amplify how people are finding solutions to the challenges presented by a warming world.