State's Expedited Permits for Gas Drilling Appealed
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
9 September 2009
By Don Hopey
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has challenged the state's new expedited
permitting process for Marcellus Shale gas wells that it says fails to
police drilling and doesn't protect streams from erosion and
sedimentation runoff.
The foundation filed an appeal today with the state's Environmental
Hearing Board of permits granted without technical or field review to
Fortuna Energy Inc. to drill in the Tioga State Forest in Tioga County
by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Last week, the foundation filed Environmental Hearing Board appeals of
two other DEP permits granted for wells on private land in Tioga County.
All of the permits were granted by the DEP since April when the
department stripped County Conservation Districts of the authority to
review gas well drilling erosion and sedimentation plans and instituted
an expedited permitting process that requires only an administrative
review to determine if all paperwork has been submitted.
"The DEP is rubber-stamping permit applications without any independent
environmental review," said Matt Royer, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
attorney. "And it's putting Pennsylvania's precious waters and streams
at risk."
He said the Tioga County Conservation District had approved an erosion
and sedimentation plan for earth disturbance caused by construction of
a single eight-acre well pad after doing field surveys of wetlands and
stormwater runoff conditions in the state forest.
But in recent months the DEP has approved 13 amendments to that permit,
including nine for additional well pads and three for impoundments for
drilling waste water that authorized clearing 105 acres of timberland
without conducting any technical reviews of the plans or their
cumulative effects on the forest or nearby streams.
Teresa Tandori, a DEP spokeswoman, said that the department doesn't
comment on legal appeals.