Marcellus Committee Beefs Up Draft Bill
7 amendments added to improve protection
Morgantown Dominion Post
3 August 2011
By David Beard
CHARLESTON — The Joint Select Committee on Marcellus Shale began
beefing up its draft regulation bill Tuesday by adding seven amendments
aimed at improving various protections.
The committee is using SB 424 — which passed the Senate but died in the
House, after substantial alteration, on the last day of the 2011
session — as its draft bill. After a review of the bill that took up
just over half of the twohour meeting, they began going through the
amendments with little or no discussion, except in one case.
In all but one case, the amendments were introduced by House members.
In the seventh amendment, Sen. Orphy Klempa, D- Ohio, was the lead
name, joined by the House members.
Amendment highlights
If a well operator violates its Division of Highways letter of
certification regarding a road maintenance agreement, the Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) will suspend the operator’s permit,
prohibit further work at the well and deny all other pending permits
until the violation is corrected.
The acreage for requiring engineering certification of a well pad and
the sediment and erosion control plan is reduced from five to three.
Waste pit liners must be taken to an approved landfill within 60 days
of expiration of their certificate of approval. The DEP must report to
the Legislature by July 1, 2012, on the safety of pits and impoundments
and evaluate whether further rules are needed regarding radioactivity
and toxins held in the pits and impoundments.
The DEP’s Air Quality Board must regulate and, if appropriate, issue
air-quality permits at well sites. For air quality permits, the DEP
must consider cumulative impacts of “multiple wells in a
localized geographic area."
By July 1, 2012, the DEP must report to the Legislature on the need for
further air pollution regulation — including inspections and health
impacts. If more are needed, the DEP must create rules accordingly.
All drinking water wells within 2,500 feet of a drilling rig’s water
supply well (when water is drawn from an underground well) shall be
flow-and-quality tested by the operator upon request of the drinking
well owner prior to operating the water supply well.
This one caused some confusion because most members weren’t sure what a
well’s water supply well was. Committee counsel Joe Altizer tried to
clarify, and Delegate Woody Ireland, R-Ritchie, explained that he saw a
water well drilled just a few feet from a river because the river
wasn’t supplying enough water for the frack job.
Members also questioned what was meant by quality testing. Sen. Corey
Palumbo, D-Kanawha, asked counsel to clarify the water supply well
language in the next draft.
Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, successfully changed
the amendment to direct DEP to create rules on appropriate supply and
quality testing.
Operators must provide employment information to the Division of Labor,
which will report the information annually to the Legislature. That
data will include in-state and out-of-state employee numbers and
payroll, employee residence, state where they pay income tax and more.
Contractors and subcontractors for an operation must also supply the
data.
Several more amendments await action when the committee meets today,
including one to eliminate the industry-dominated Oil and Gas Examining
Board in order to have the DEP hire gas well inspectors directly as
civil service employees. Committee co-chair Tim Manchin, D-Marion, said
he wanted to make sure the affected parties could attend the meeting.