State environmental regulators urged the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday to allow a handful of postponed requirements for shale gas drilling operations to take effect like the rest of a suite of stricter fracking rules put in place last year.
The delayed rules, which were put on hold by a lower court judge, are meant to protect against risks such as a “geyser-like explosion” that can happen when new wells intersect with some of the state’s 300,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection attorney Elizabeth Davis said during an argument session held Downtown.
The Supreme Court justices are reviewing whether a Commonwealth Court judge made legal errors when he decided to temporarily pause specific parts of the regulations last November until the lower court rules on a broader legal challenge to the well site standards.
The North Fayette-based Marcellus Shale Coalition, which sued over the rules, said the Commonwealth Court judge used proper caution when he delayed select provisions that could cause the industry irreparable harm, generally by costing companies money that they can’t get back if the challenged sections are later thrown out.
That stay affected standards for planning well sites near playgrounds, constructing large fluid holding ponds, restoring landscapes after drilling and monitoring abandoned wells near fracking operations. It did not apply to most of the drilling rules DEP developed during a stormy public process that lasted six years.
“There is no dispute that these provisions impose immediate, substantial costs on industry,” the coalition’s attorney Jean Mosites said.
Several justices suggested with their questions Wednesday that waiting for the Commonwealth Court to rule on the heart of the industry’s legal challenge might be the clearest way to address the dispute, without the high court having to intercede before the case is fully developed.
“What if we decide not to rule on this case?” Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy asked. “Should we just sit back and do nothing?”
Chief Justice Thomas Saylor said it seemed to him that moving the lower court case along “would resolve the matter.”
Since the injunction was issued last fall, more than 700 shale gas wells have been drilled in the commonwealth “all without the protections afforded by the regulations” that were enjoined by the lower court, Ms. Davis said.
“The provisions that are in these regulations are needed today to protect the public and to protect the environment,” she said.
Laura Legere: llegere@post-gazette.com.
First Published: October 18, 2017, 8:27 p.m.
