Agency again asks to tweak well rules

After pulling the proposal last month, Arkansas’ environmental regulatory agency this week plans to ask its rule-making body to let it start the process of changing pollution-prevention regulations for wastes produced by saltwater and oil field wells.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality will ask the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission to approve initiating the rule changes Friday at its monthly meeting. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. at the department’s 5301 Northshore Drive headquarters in North Little Rock.

Caleb Osborne, associate department director in charge of the Office of Water Quality, told commissioners last month that he was pulling the request from that meeting’s agenda because the department had not received approval from Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Documents attached to the meeting’s agenda this month state the governor’s approval is still pending.

In a two-page introduction to the petition to commissioners, Osborne said the changes to pollution-prevention regulations are to update definitions, change the name of the program, make typographical changes and eliminate the second permit for owners of disposal wells that are not high volume or commercial disposal.

Fewer than 100 of the 525 permitted wells fit that bill, according to supporting documents filed with the petition. The wells would save $250 per year in permit fees and would be subject only to the permitting program authorized under Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission regulations.

“The proposed rule continues to protect the natural environment because the [commission’s] permit requirements protect waters of the state by preventing pollution from oil field waste,” department officials wrote. The change would get rid of a “duplicative” permitting process, the department said.