Report: the DEP is deeply fracked
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Auditor General Eugene A. DePasquale issued a scathing 146-page audit accusing the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) of not adequately monitoring the impact of natural-gas drilling on water quality.
According to the audit, the DEP failed to order polluters to remedy water contamination as required by law, and “chose instead to seek voluntary compliance and encouraged operators to work out a solution with affected parties.” The soft-touch oversight means the “DEP risks losing the relevance and authority it holds as a regulator. ”
Of 15 cases reviewed where the DEP had confirmed a complaint of water pollution, the agency “issued just one order to an operator to restore/replace the adversely impacted water supply.”
The DEP issued a response, claiming that “orders were not necessary” in those cases because operators “had already remediated the affected water supplies without an order” and that the audit discovered “no instances where DEP failed to protect public health, safety or the environment with respect to unconventional gas drilling activities.” The agency also said that because the review only covered the period of 2009 to 2012, “most of this audit reflects how our Oil and Gas Program formerly operated” — not current practice.
The Auditor General’s report backs environmentalists’ criticism of the way that Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, whose campaigns have been heavily backed by energy interests, has handled the state’s booming natural-gas industry.
“The report could not be clearer: DEP needs additional funding, more cops on the beat and a much more robust inspection system,” according to a statement released by John Norbeck, vice president of the environmental group PennFuture. “It also points to a failure in leadership — and a startling lack of transparency and accountability.” The DEP, he writes, is “effectively allowing the industry to police itself.”
According to the Auditor General’s report, the DEP disagreed with every single one of the report’s critical findings but rejected only seven of its 29 recommendations for improvement.
The audit also found that the DEP failed to clearly communicate findings to citizens who made complaints, did not share adequate data and inspection findings with the public, did not have a clear policy for inspecting gas wells, and monitored shale waste using data self-reported by the industry — the accuracy of which was never verified.
In a letter accompanying the report, DePasquale, a Democrat, states that the agency has not kept up with the natural-gas industry’s growth and has been left “underfunded, understaffed” and without the necessary infrastructure. The audit also notes that the Auditor General did not have “full access” to DEP’s documents because of the agency’s “egregiously poor” documentation.
The audit comes at a sensitive time for Corbett. Natural gas drilling has sparked widespread concern over water pollution. Many have also been critical of the governor’s refusal to impose a severance tax on drilling in the face of massive education budget cuts. Demo-cratic challenger Tom Wolf is strongly outpolling Corbett and likely to make both matters top issues ahead of the November election.
