Opinion: Pennsylvania must energize efforts to regulate its oil and gas industry

Pennsylvania is the nation's second-largest natural gas producer, yet the Commonwealth does not provide sufficient resources to its Department of Environmental Protection to properly regulate this industry. Gas wells are routinely abandoned, many drillers fail to report their drilling activity as required by law and drilling wastewater is illegally dumped on roadways. In the upcoming state budget, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania’s General Assembly must provide additional staffing for the DEP’s Oil and Gas Program to address these problems.

DEP’s oil and gas program has regulatory authority over more than 120,000 active oil and gas wells. The program also has responsibility for the plugging of an estimated 100,000 to 560,000 orphaned or abandoned oil and gas wells.

A December 2022 DEP report found that the improper abandoning of oil and gas wells and the widespread failure to report required drilling activity was almost a routine practice by the conventional drilling industry. The situation continues to this day.

According to recent DEP data, up to 1,154 oil and gas wells may have been illegally abandoned since 2022. “Wells that are improperly abandoned may pose environmental and public health and safety threats such as gas migration into occupied structures, water supply impacts, surface water impacts, hazardous air pollutant emissions, methane emissions, and soil and groundwater contamination,” according to the head of DEP’s Oil and Gas program

During the Shapiro administration, about 300 gas wells have been plugged to date, but wells are being abandoned at more than double the rate at which they are being plugged.

According to DEP, conventional well operators failed to submit the required 2023 annual production report for a third of their wells. These reports help DEP determine whether a well has been abandoned and whether the well’s wastewater has been properly managed.

Some drillers looking for an inexpensive disposal solution illegally dump this wastewater on gravel roads in drilling regions. This wastewater contains radioactive and harmful substances such as Radium 226 and 228, salts/chlorides, and heavy metals like iron, manganese, strontium, barium, aluminum, zinc, lithium, copper and lead. These substances are known to, among other things, increase the risk of cancer, cause kidney and liver problems and increase blood pressure.

In 2015, the oil and gas program had an authorized complement of 226 staff positions. Today, that complement is down to 190. However, during that same period, the workload of DEP has grown significantly. For example, over 4,500 more unconventional wells have been drilled.

Last year, the head of DEP’s Oil and Gas program testified that “increased oversight of the conventional oil and gas industry and enforcement will require additional resources, especially in the DEP Office of Chief Counsel and the Bureau of District Oil and Gas Operations.” Unfortunately, there were no positions in Gov. Shapiro’s proposed budget for these purposes.  DEP’s Oil and Gas Program should receive at least 36 more positions to bring it back to its 2015 complement of 226 positions.

Gov. Shapiro must join with the General Assembly to pass a budget this June that provides more resources to DEP’s Oil and Gas Program so it can properly regulate the oil and gas industry.