Following a decade-long moratorium, the Delaware River Basin Commission voted to ban hydraulic fracturing today in a move that ignores sound science and is a blow to constitutionally protected private property rights.
The action came during a DRBC vote this morning, in which the Wolf administration voted for the ban and the Biden administration abstained from voting, but pledged to support the outcome. Biden’s tacit support for a fracking ban on private lands today came despite promises from the then-candidate not to ban fracking.
“It may be a good day for those who seek higher energy prices for American consumers and a deeper dependence on foreign nations to fuel our economy, but this vote defies common sense, sound science, and is a grave blow to constitutionally protected private property rights,” MSC’s Callahan said in response to the vote.
The DRBC is comprised of representatives from each of the four states surrounding the Delaware River – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware – and also includes a representative from the federal government via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACE).
The ruling, which “prohibits high volume hydraulic fracturing” in the Basin is not only a politically-charged overreach of the Commission’s authority, but it also threatens job and economic growth, energy security, and robs landowners and rural Wayne and Pike Counties of their constitutional right to realize upwards of $40 billion worth of natural gas – which would also generate critical tax revenue to the state.
“I will not ban fracking. Period.” President Biden exclaimed at a rally in Luzerne County, which neighbors his home city of Scranton, last October. Yet the moment his administration had a chance to standup for the hardworking voters of this key battleground state, the administration failed to deliver:
“Due to the recent Administration transition, this coordination has not been completed, and we thus abstained from today’s vote. We respect the vote from each of the Commissioners representing their respective states,” Thomas Tickner, the Commissioner representing the federal government said.
Unconventional natural gas developing using hydraulic fracturing technology has been taking place in the Commonwealth for more than 15 years, with thousands of wells safely producing energy in the neighboring Susquehanna River Basin.
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission – which includes Susquehanna County, Pa.’s top natural gas producing county – began collecting water quality and quantity data in the Basin’s jurisdiction in 2010 via their Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network, and have since published three reports of their findings over the years, each of which conclude:
“To date, the Commission’s monitoring programs have not detected discernible impacts on the quality of the Basin’s water resources as a result of natural gas development.”
SRBC’s findings reaffirm numerous studies from state and federal government agencies, universities, and independent institutions that have also failed to find water-related impacts from hydraulic fracturing:
- Penn State (2018): “The most interesting thing we discovered was the groundwater chemistry in one of the areas most heavily developed for shale gas – an area with 1400 new gas wells – does not appear to be getting worse with time, and may even be getting better.”
- University of Cincinnati (2018): “We found no relationship between CH4 concentration or source in groundwater and proximity to active gas well sites.”
- U.S. Geological Survey (2017): “UOG [unconventional oil and gas] operations did not contribute substantial amounts of methane or benzene to the sample drinking-water wells.”
- Duke University (commissioned by NRDC, 2017): “Based on consistent evidence from comprehensive testing, we found no indication of groundwater contamination over the three-year course of our study.”
- U.S. EPA (2015): “Hydraulic fracturing activities have not led to widespread, systematic impacts to drinking water resources.”
- Syracuse University (2015): “We see no broad changes in variability of chemical quality in this large dataset to suggest any unusual salinization caused by possible release of produced waters from oil and gas operations, even after thousands of gas wells have been drilled among tens of thousands of domestic wells within the two areas studied.”
“There is no support to any claim that drilling results in widespread impacts to drinking water, rivers or groundwater,” Gene Barr, chief executive of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry said. “This was a political decision uninformed by science.”
Even Pa. DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell, who represents Pennsylvania on both the Susquehanna and Delaware River Basin Commissions, and voted in favor of today’s ban, has confirmed no threats to water quality have been detected in the Susquehanna River Basin.
“We are extremely disappointed in Governor Wolf, who aligned with out-of-state interests to jam through a fracking ban that directly harms working-class Pennsylvania families,” Callahan added.
