Fracking bill deep-sixed
An update on an earlier post - the bill calling for a two-year study of natural gas drilling in western Maryland's Marcellus shale deposits is dead.
Drew Cobbs, a lobbyist for the natural gas industry, said he was informed recently that the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee has given up on trying to forge a consensus on the bill, HB852/SB634. A committee staffer confirmed it.
Cobbs, director of the Maryland Petroleum Council, said what killed the bill was the O'Malley administration's insistence on limiting the ability of state regulators to approve natural gas wells after the first year of the study.
Talks between the gas industry, legislative leaders and the administration had yielded a tentative agreement to ban any drilling using hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," for the first year of the study.
Industry representatives had wanted the Maryland Department of the Environment free to approve drilling and natural gas production after the first year if regulators felt they had learned enough by then about what safeguards to impose to prevent potential environmental impacts of the drilling technique.
Administration officials, though, wanted the bill to allow only limited "exploratory" drilling in the second year, without any gas production -- even though, Cobbs contended, regulators already have ample authority to hold up permits if they feel they need more information.
Two requests for permits to drill in Garrett County have been under study by MDE now for more than a year.
Without a bill, the state still is publicly pledged to study the impacts of "fracking" for up to two years, but there will be no fees collected - more than $1 million worth - to help pay for the study.
Comments
It is unfortunately that HB-852 was ever drafted & submitted for the General Assembly's consideration.
If the sponsor & co-sponsors had investigated what the current Maryland MDE regulations were they would have found Title 26 Subtitle 19 of COMAR gives MDE complete and totally unfettered authority in the permitting process to include any requirements it deems appropriate.
They would have also found if they'd asked MDE that since 2006 there have been two (2) natural gas storage wells drilled in Garrett County with the new vertical to horizontal drilling method through the Marcellus Shale layer and the waste water from those wells was captured and trucked to an Ohio injection well designed for that disposal purpose.
Both legislators & journalists should do their homework before wasting the entire General Assembly's time!
Posted by: Dave Moe | April 12, 2011 1:06 PM
Dave Moe said "....gives MDE complete and totally unfettered authority in the permitting process to include any requirements it deems appropriate...."
And who pays for that Moe? No fees will be collected from the industry that destroys OUR land. Taxpayers will. With a constrained budget, this will be limited if not neglected entirely.
Posted by: Questioner of Moe The Gas Industry Lobbyist | April 12, 2011 2:35 PM
Dear Questioner…. Please read the COMAR regulations I referenced above. If you do you will find with each permit to be issued MDE will set a "permit fee". You will also see there are "bonding requirements” also contained in MDE's regulatory regulation and, of course, site reclamation requirements which must be met before the “bond” funds will be released back to the permit holder.
Of course you could ask MDE exactly where the two wells I referenced are. You could go there and inspect those sites yourself to see if the “industry destroys OUR land.” You could even while there take pictures and send them to a Baltimore Sun journalist for publication to justify your allegations.
There’s a lot you could do. But what you shouldn’t do is assume MDE doesn’t have the necessary regulatory tools to protect our land and waters while allowing our economy to grow and become less reliant on foreign Middle Eastern oil.
That dog don’t hunt!
Posted by: Dave Moe | April 13, 2011 8:26 AM
" You could even while there take pictures and send them to a Baltimore Sun journalist for publication to justify your allegations."
How exactly do you take pictures of toxic and radioactive chemicals leaching into the groundwater?
How do you photograph wholesale release of methane gas into the atmosphere?
How do you photograph the energy used to produce millions of gallons of water, a dwindling prescoius resource, that are forced into the ground?
I can go on and on. You can't photograph. The suggestion is asbsurd. Correlating a prety well-site to everything is just dandy is absurd.
Posted by: Moe Qeustioner | April 18, 2011 3:45 PM
Infrared camera of pollution coming from a compressor station in Dimock, PA on February 16, 2011.
(Attached a video, I hope it appears)
Posted by: Mountain Momma | April 19, 2011 4:35 PM
Dave Moe let’s talk about “dogs that don’t hunt”
#1) As I have stated too many times to count, HB 852 was drafted by MDE, DNR and the Administration.
#2) As for COMARs how would you get around 26.19.01.11?
.11 Oil and Gas Correlative Rights
A. Unless the drilling and operating permit provides for controlled directional drilling or estimated natural deviation, a well may not vary more than 3 degrees from the vertical.
B. If a permittee needs to deviate more than 3 degrees from the vertical, the permittee shall notify the Department. Deviations larger than 3 degrees from vertical may be permitted by the Department in order to straighten the hole, sidetrack impenetrables, or to correct other mechanical difficulties, if correlative rights are not in dispute.
C. The Department may require the deviation to be less than 3 degrees to protect correlative rights.
D. The Department shall have the right to require the permittee to run a complete angular deviation and directional survey by a company knowledgeable about downhole surveys in directionally drilled wells at the permittee's sole cost and risk.
E. If an angular deviation and directional survey verifies violations of the approved well location or spacing requirements, the Department may require the well to be redrilled or plugged and abandoned
#3) Please show proof of the 2 permits which allowed “slick water” Hydrofracking and drilling vertical to horizontal into or thru the Marcellus shale here in Garrett County.
#4) Not sure what planet you live on, but here on Earth and specifically here in America, we import oil mainly for transportation and use Natural gas for manufacturing and heating. As for “Middle Eastern oil” again here in America we import the majority of our oil from the other “terrorist nation”: Canada.
Dave, you really need to spend a little less time typing and more reading.
Posted by: Eric Robison | April 20, 2011 8:32 AM