DEP Issues Air Pollution Rules for Gas Drilling Sites
Washington PA Observer Reporter
14 October 2011
HARRISBURG - State environmental regulators will follow new
guidelines endorsed by a natural gas industry group for deciding
how to group together facilities such as wells, dehydrators and
compressors when enforcing air pollution standards on
Pennsylvania's booming drilling activity.
The Department of Environmental Protection issued the new
guidelines Wednesday and opened them up for public comment until
Nov. 21. The guidelines drew immediate criticism from clean air
advocates, who say they will allow the industry to pollute more
and weaken the ability of state regulators to gauge how much
pollution the industry is creating.
Facilities that pollute more are subject to tougher pollution
control standards. A group of minor polluters treated as separate
entities, however, would be subject to less stringent standards.
Faced with a natural gas drilling boom that has sullied the air in
some parts of the country, states have started to crack down on
some emissions from well sites. People living near drilling
activity in other states have complained of breathing trouble or
other health problems.
In the meantime, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is
considering adopting tougher rules for air pollution at oil and
gas well sites that focus on getting operators to capture and sell
natural gas that now escapes into the air.
The issue is getting more attention in Pennsylvania because of the
rapidly growing exploration of the Marcellus Shale formation, a
vast rock formation beneath Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, New
York and portions of other states that's believed to contain one
of the biggest deposits of natural gas in the world.
To be grouped together, or aggregated, different sources of air
pollution must belong to the same industrial grouping, located on
one or more contiguous or adjacent properties and must be under
the control of the same person, the Pennsylvania DEP said.
In Pennsylvania, the DEP said its technical guidance interprets
the words "contiguous or adjacent" in regulations to mean the
distance or spatial relationship between locations.
The approach is practical and common-sensical, DEP Secretary
Michael Krancer said Wednesday.
"Over time, there was a tendency by some regulators to morph the
meaning of 'contiguous' or 'adjacent' properties to mean only that
operations on the properties be 'interdependent,"' Krancer said.
That view has been expressed in various EPA recommendation letters
or policy statements in recent years, Krancer said. But he said
that interpretation is inconsistent with federal case law and
state regulations, which mirror federal regulations.
The Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre reported that an industry
group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, last year urged the state
not to group air pollution sources that are not contiguous or
adjacent, even if they are connected by pipelines. Instead, the
group recommended a quarter-mile rule that several other states
follow and which the Pennsylvania DEP said it would follow.
"This is essentially what the oil and gas industry asks every
state for," said Joe Osborne, the legal director of Group Against
Smog and Pollution, a Pittsburgh-based environmental advocate.
And while Krancer said the DEP will continue to apply the
guidelines on a case-by-case basis, Osborne said a compressor
station and the well pads that feed into it are often more than a
quarter-mile apart. Treating them as separate entities will allow
them to pollute more, he said.
"The reality is that if you place a limit on this of a
quarter-mile, there are lots of things that common sense would
dictate that are a single source that would be left out," said
Osborne, who is also a member of the DEP's Air Quality Technical
Advisory Committee.
If well sites are not grouped with bigger facilities, such as
compressors, they may not need permits at all, which means that
state inspectors may not know that the sites even exist or check
to see whether they are meeting pollution standards, Osborne said.
The new guidelines take effect immediately but are considered
interim for now.