No free pass

Conventional drillers must obey standards, too

Every picture tells a story, but the state’s conventional oil and gas drillers say the ones collected by the Department of Environmental Protection don’t tell the whole story.

Field inspectors have taken hundreds of photographs in recent years to document violations at the traditional, shallow wells, pictures of the industry at its worst. Regulators plan to include them in their attempt to win an upgrade to Pennsylvania’s safety requirements for the wells. The development of the new rules has been going on since 2011, and DEP officials say they’ve listened to what the industry has to say.

That’s why DEP dropped earlier proposals that would have required conventional operators to remove all buried tanks from their well sites within three years and install locks on tank valves and lids. The industry still would face changes in standards for cleaning up spills, identifying underground hazards and protecting public resources — water sources, for example — around their sites if the new regulations are adopted.

Industry advocates are right that it is not fair to judge all conventional drillers based on the misdeeds of a few bad operators, but recent DEP inspections suggest that the violations aren’t as unusual as they should be.

DEP found 210 violations during 2,400 inspections this year alone, more than double the number of violations that inspectors found at the unconventional Marcellus Shale wells they visited this year.

Last year, the state House and Senate passed measures that mean different rules must be in place for conventional and unconventional drillers, but that doesn’t mean the conventional well sites, which have been in operation far longer, should get a pass on revisions that bring them up to date with Pennsylvania’s expectations for safe standards.

That picture is clear.