 | By Corrina BeallLegislative and Political Director |
In early August, a Panel tasked with a procedural review of Virginia’s oil and gas drilling standards, including those regulating fracking, met in Abingdon. The Oklahoma-based nonprofit, State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations, Inc. – also known as Stronger – was invited to Virginia by our Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME). The Stronger process is not a statutorily binding one, and will merely be a review and update to a previous review conducted twelve years ago, in 2004.
The three-member Stronger panel was made up of a state official from the Office of Oil and Gas Management in Pennsylvania, where hydraulic fracturing for gas is prevalent; the energy program director of Earthworks, a nonprofit group that protects communities from adverse impacts of energy development; and a geological adviser from EnerVest Operating, an oil and gas company. Official observers representing the oil and gas industry, the Environmental Protection Agency, and King George County were present and allowed to ask questions of the panel and participate in discussion, but do not have voting privileges on the final report.
The Department of Mines Minerals and Energy has conducted a partial review of Virginia’s regulations, with some changes including new fracking regulations expected in December, but Stronger’s review focused on the existing standards only. Stronger’s report is also expected in December of this year.
Stronger’s partial review of state regulations was too limited to produce a report that will adequately protect Virginians from the hazards of fracking. Fundamental considerations including public health and safety, impact on seismic activity, well construction standards, and the sharing of information with localities and first responders were considered outside the scope of Stronger’s review, and therefore not discussed.
Environmental groups including the Sierra Club recently petitioned the Governor on the serious shortcomings of partial reviews, and have called for a comprehensive review of risks to public health and the environment. Some of these shortcomings include the use of open air fracking waste storage pits, the areas allowed for disposal of fracking wastewater, and a failure to prohibit drilling through drinking aquifers used for drinking water. Other shortcomings include:
- Disposal of fracking wastewater by spreading it on agricultural or forest land.
- Inadequate setbacks from gas wells and infrastructure to protect springs, rivers, lakes, streams, flood plains, parks, playgrounds, schools, hospitals, and other important natural and community resources.
- Drilling companies must have plans approved for thoroughly and safely testing, labeling, transporting, and disposing of drilling waste. Drilling waste must not simply be buried at the well site, as the draft standard would allow in western Virginia.
- Using injection waste wells should be prohibited in seismically active parts of Virginia due to earthquake risks. Injection wells should also be prohibited within 100 miles of nuclear power plants due to the definitive link between injection wells and earthquakes, which have been shown to increase the number and severity of earthquakes.
- The standard should address serious air pollution risks, including methane leaks and flaring, from wells and related infrastructure.
Many of the most serious risks of fracking are to human health. Conspicuously absent from the Stronger Panel was anyone with a public health background. A more thorough review relying on public health professionals with expertise in the health issues associated with shale gas fracking operations should be conducted before any fracking permits are issued in Virginia.
Stronger, Inc. is funded through grants from organizations including the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. Representatives from API were present every day during the three-day Panel. We are skeptical that an entity funded partly by grants from API will produce a report pushing Virginia to better protect our environment. We have concerns that this Panel will fail to demand in its final report a high standard of accountability from industry, or recommend that all loopholes are closed.
The Stronger meetings were held in Abingdon, more than five hours away from the Taylorsville basin region, where fracking is being hotly contested. A Texas company has leased drilling rights to 84,000 acres in the Taylorsville basin south and east of Fredericksburg where an estimated trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas lies deep in the ground. Fracking has never been done in this region bounded by the Potomac, Rappahannock and York rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.
One week after the Panel adjourned, the King George Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted amendments to the county’s Comprehensive Plan and its zoning ordinance to put guidelines and rules in place to limit fracking. The zoning ordinance prohibits drilling within 750 feet of any public road, occupied building or resource protected area such as creeks and waterways, which means only 9% of the county land is eligible for drilling.
Fracking has led to serious harm to human and animal health, and contamination of air and water in other states. Yet, Virginia refuses to undertake a comprehensive review of regulations and instead continues to rely on weak, outdated standards that won’t protect local citizens and communities from the dangers of fracking. The bottom line is this: the Stronger process and the DMME's partial review of state regulations are both inadequate to protect Virginians' from the dangers of fracking. We need a comprehensive review and significant revisions to our standards to ensure public health and safety. No new permits should be issued until this has taken place.