Natural Gas Drillers are willing to do whatever they can to dispose of wastewater without getting shut down. They would love to have a way to dump it into the Philadelphia water supply. It's just a matter of time, in fact, until they do. This industry has only begun.

Right now, natural gas drillers are drilling away all over the state, generating more water than they know what to do with (and they really don't know what to do with it), water that's full of benzene, radium, hydrochloric acid, antibiotics and lots and lots of salt. All of this stuff kills fish and it isn't great to drink, either.

DEP has proposed a set of regulations that would lay out guidelines for the salt at least. It's the main problem, anyway, so that's not a bad start. The environmental community supports their salt guidelines (total dissolved solids, in the lingo). We support these guidelines, we just think they also need to deal with the other pollutants and make sure that drillers are accounting for all the water they take out of our rivers. If they don't account for it, that means that it's probably getting dumped untreated somewhere.

The industry is saying that the regs are too harsh. Please. They are fine, but the industry sees opportunity in Pennsylvania. We have the biggest, richest gas field, a governor who's easily swayed by industry and a Senate that's... I don't even want to say. So they have groused about every proposed requirement, because every bit of accountability they prevent is a dollar saved and that's more profit for the industry. Damn the torpedoes.

You can weigh in on these regs now. You have until Feb 12th. Go here. Remember, much of the water that gets dumped will eventually make its way into our water supply.

Other Marcellus News:

Rep. Bud George has introduced HB 2213, which does five things which I think are all praiseworthy.

1) It explicitly requires DEP to visit every Marcellus site when it is sited, drilled, cased, cemented, completed, altered and stimulated (frakked). That is, an inspector has to stop by EACH TIME. This is a very big deal. I daresay it's the most important thing we could do to make a serious impact on drillers' ability to wreck our state.

2) It expands the zone of presumption of guilt for screwing up someone's water well from 1000 feet to 2500 feet. That's pretty good. Too bad it doesn't say more about the process further out, and make that a little more consumer friendly. Still, this is progress.

3) It requires drillers to disclose what they are putting in the ground using the Chemical Abstract Service registry number. This is important because chemicals have lots of names, but the Abstract Service has a standardized list of names that labs can work with. Plus, we'll finally know what chemiclas these whackos are exposing us all too, and how much.

4) It requires a $150,000 bond for Marcellus wells. Right now, they are paying $2500, the same as any little shallow well drilling site. It's craziness. This makes a lot more sense.

5) The bill affirms the Western PA court ruling that _says towns have a right to regulate where rigs go and in what hours they can operate_ (it still says they can't regulate the substantive details of operation, tho). This is good, because Rep. Solobay is trying to strip towns of even that power. As the folks in Dimock will tell you, the rigs will run 24/7 if a town lets them, and they are not quiet.

I spent all day yesterday with Natural Gas Drilling activists. I think this is a bill we can finally rally around. So watch for more on this from us. It's also worth knowing that our state's environmental champ, Rep. Vitali from DelCo, introduced HB 2235, which puts a five year moratorium on leasing any more state lands for drilling.

Also good.

There's a lot of great potential out there, but we need to move from the proposal state to the enactment/promulgation stage. More to come.