Environmental group: \u201cThe auditor general has confirmed what Pennsylvania residents have long been experiencing:\u00a0The impacts of gas development are real, intense, and not being addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lauren McCauley<\/em><\/p>\n Placing the health and wellbeing of Pennsylvania residents at great risk, the state\u2019s environmental regulatory body is “woefully” unprepared to monitor and regulate the shale oil and gas drilling boom,\u00a0charged<\/a>\u00a0a report released by the state\u2019s Inspector General on Tuesday.<\/p>\n According to the audit, the \u201cmeteoric growth\u201d of the shale gas industry, which is due largely to the proliferation of fracking, \u201ccaught the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) unprepared\u201d to effectively monitor well safety, protect drinking water, and provide clear and timely information to citizens.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is almost like firefighters trying to put out a five-alarm fire with a 20-foot garden hose,\u201d said Auditor General Eugene DePasquale in a statement on the report\u2019s release. \u201cThere is no question that DEP needs help and soon to protect clean water.\u201d<\/p>\n The IG report was released the same day that an investigation by the\u00a0Pittsburgh-Post Gazette<\/em>\u00a0revealed\u00a0<\/a>that\u2013according to the DEP\u2019s own public records which were forcibly obtained through a court order\u2013oil and gas extraction operations either contaminated or restricted the flow of water in the state 209 times since 2007.<\/p>\n Though the drilling industry dismissed those findings as being a small percentage of the thousands of shale wells drilled in the state, environmentalists say the actual number of incidents of drilling-related water contamination is likely far greater.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven what the Auditor General reported about DEP’s shoddy documentation and haphazard citizen response, there’s no doubt that the actual number of cases is higher,\u201d Nadia Steinzor, eastern program coordinator for\u00a0Earthwork\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Oil & Gas Accountability Project, told\u00a0Common Dreams.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cIndustry’s claim that water contamination has been minimal is based on a ‘if you don’t look you won’t see’ approach to regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n As Karen Feridun, founder of\u00a0Berk Gas Truth<\/a>, points out: 209 wells is not 209 people. With individuals wells often serving multiple families, she says it is a “mystery” how many people are actually affected. Further, she notes that 209 reflects the number of “concluded cases,” asking: \u201cHow many of those complaints of contamination remain inconclusive”?<\/p>\n Residents living in fracking-intensive regions for years have complained of symptoms ranging from nose bleeds and rashes to nausea and respiratory issues. Many of the over 700 chemicals used in the process have been\u00a0linked<\/a>\u00a0to cancer, birth defects, and infertility.<\/p>\n The IG audit, which examined the DEP\u2019s records and operations from 2009-2012, found that due to the department\u2019s policy of industry “voluntary compliance,” regulators have “failed to consistently issue official orders [to restore or replace the adversely impacted water supply] to well operators who had been determined by DEP to have adversely impacted water supplies.”<\/p>\n Feridun notes that, for the countless Pennsylvania residents who have complained of their well water being disrupted or contaminated, once their water “is gone, it\u2019s gone,” adding:\u00a0“It\u2019s not going to get better someday.”<\/p>\n The report describes the office\u2019s complaint tracking and handling system\u2013which documents environmental concerns raised by state residents\u2013as \u201cwoefully inadequate,\u201d saying that the auditors \u201ccould not determine whether all complaints received by DEP actually were entered into the system.\u201d If one\u2019s complaint was investigated, the IG report says that the DEP did a \u201cpoor job of communicating\u201d those results to the citizens who registered the complaint.<\/p>\n Further, the IG found scant guidelines for how the DEP must conduct \u201cthe most basic regulatory responsibility\u201d of inspecting shale drilling operations and that they lack a system to track fracking waste from well site to disposal. \u201cInstead DEP relies upon a disjointed process that includes self-reporting by well operators with no assurances that waste is disposed of properly,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n As Feridun explains, this lack of data is a \u201chuge frustration\u201d for those trying to assess the true damage wrought by fracking in Pennsylvania, or for those state residents who are unaware of potential contamination in their area.<\/p>\n \u201cThe auditor general has confirmed what Pennsylvania residents have long been saying and experiencing,\u201d Steinzor said in a\u00a0press statement.<\/a>\u201d The impacts of gas development are real, intense, and not being addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Environmental group: \u201cThe auditor general has confirmed what Pennsylvania residents have long been experiencing:\u00a0The impacts of gas development are real, intense, and not being addressed.\u201d Lauren McCauley Placing the health and wellbeing of Pennsylvania residents at great risk, the state\u2019s environmental regulatory body is “woefully” unprepared to monitor and regulate the shale oil and gas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-132883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-environmental-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}