Pennsylvania regulators ordered Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) to install pressure gauges costing as little as $600 on 114 of its wells after natural gas contaminated drinking water last year.
Officials rejected a call from environmental groups to order safety devices for all similar natural-gas wells, a requirement in neighboring Ohio.
A boom in gas production using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has led to a patchwork of local drilling standards. Now, several states are revising or formulating rules, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying the effects of fracking on drinking water and weighing nationwide regulations.
“What you’re seeing now is the federal government trying to get into the game of regulating hydraulic fracturing for the very first time,” Ken von Schaumburg, a Washington-based attorney and former EPA deputy general counsel in George W. Bush’s administration, said in an interview.
States are moving more aggressively as gas extracted from shale has expanded to a third of total U.S. production, up from 2 percent in 2001.
West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin backed a bill approved by the state legislature on Dec. 14 that he said “provides clear rules to the natural gas industry.” Colorado regulators on Dec. 13 approved requiring drillers to disclose every chemical used in fracking.
Extracting gas from shale will support 870,000 U.S. jobs and add $118 billion in economic growth in the next four years, according to a Dec. 6 report from IHS Global Insight, a forecaster based in Englewood, Colorado.
TVNL Comment: Profits for the Gas companies is overriding serious threats to the health of all Americans. Don't let it happen.