PA Environment Digest Blog: Conventional Oil/Gas Industry Bothered By DEP Records Showing They Receive NOVs For Abandoning An Average Of 561 Oil/Gas Wells A Year

In December, DEP released its first-ever compliance report on conventional oil and gas operations which found DEP issued notices of violation for abandoning without plugging 2,246 conventional wells between 2017 and 2021-- an average of around 561 wells a year-- give or take. Read more here.

At the May 25 meeting of DCED’s PA Grade Crude [Oil] Development Advisory Council operators expressed concern about DEP’s records that show all those well abandonments.

[Note: So far this week, DEP issued notices of violation for abandoning without plugging three more conventional wells-- Dev Well Inc. (Clinton County); Pennfield Energy Inc. (Venango County); and Fred M. Schrecengost (Butler County), according to DEP’s Oil & Gas Compliance database.

[DEP issues between 400 and 600 NOVs a year to conventional operators for abandoning wells without plugging them.]

Several citizens from conventional drilling areas offered comments during the public comment portion of the meeting related to the failure of conventional operators and DEP to plug problem wells in their communities as they did during the last Council meeting.

Unfortunately, the remote access provided to the meeting had problems at that point, but the comments will be included in the record of the meeting.

Other key takeaways from the meeting include--

-- Penn State Study Of Road Dumping Wastewater: DEP declined to withdraw its acceptance of a Penn State study released last May showing conventional drilling wastewater dumped on dirt and gravel roads contained 32 chemicals that exceed health and environmental standards and failed to work any better than rain water as a dust suppressant. Read more here.

DEP said no decision has been made on banning the practice of road dumping wastewater by the conventional industry, and is reviewing other information on the issue, including a study from another state showing much the same results as Penn State.

The practice is currently banned for unconventional shale gas operators.

The practice is technically illegal under DEP’s Residual Waste Regulations because conventional operators have failed to meet the requirements of the regulations, but it is not banned.

In the 2022 Annual Report from the Council approved at the May 25 meeting, conventional operators acknowledged the fact it is illegal, saying “the practice has essentially been eliminated as a produced water management alternative in Pennsylvania.” Read more here.

However, reports from the field say road dumping is still happening like it did before and no action is being taken to stop it.

Conventional operators again suggested submitting a rulemaking petition to the Environmental Quality Board to adopt regulations covering all dust suppressants on the market because they felt their wastewater was being unfairly singled out.

DEP noted they may not have statutory authority to regulate commercial products, but they can regulate conventional wastewater because it is a waste. DEP said they would come back to the next Council meeting on October 12 with an answer on statutory authority.

-- Changes To Conventional Waste Regulations: DEP said it is still working on a package of regulation changes for managing conventional oil and gas-related waste. In response to a suggestion by the Advisory Council, DEP agreed to meet on September 7 on the proposed package with operators.

DEP said they would work to get a copy of the proposed waste package to the Council members as soon as possible, so they have something to review before the meeting.

-- Geothermal Energy Drilling: Representatives of Project Innerspace made a presentation to the Council to try to interest the conventional operators in diversifying their operations to include drilling deep wells to find sources of heat energy to do everything from commercial heating, pasteurizing milk, supporting manufacturing operations and generating electricity.

They said oil and gas operators in Texas and Oklahoma are also exploring the co-production of oil and natural gas and heat energy from these geothermal wells.

They pointed to CNX as one gas drilling company in Pennsylvania that has a team of people working on drilling for geothermal energy.

[Note: Pennsylvania has tremendous potential for geothermal energy from underground abandoned coal mine water pools as well [Read more here] and federal funding is available to develop this resource [Read more here].]

Routine Well Abandonments

Arthur Stewart, Cameron Energy and a frequent spokesperson for the conventional industry, said, “The legislature is of the impression that the conventional industry is actively abandoning 560 wells per year because the number of wells on the DEP abandoned list is growing significantly.”

Stewart raised the point that wells on the abandoned list could have been abandoned in 1986 or some other date, not just when the NOVs were issued by DEP.

Kurt Klapkowski, Acting DEP Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management, responded by saying, “I can tell you that every well that's on that list is a well that was active after 1985. Whether the operator passed away or they simply walked away from their obligations, I don't necessarily know the answer to that question, but I can say that they were active wells at a period of time in which the plugging requirements were on the books, and they should've been properly abandoned by that operator at some point in time.”

Klapkowski agreed, wells could have been abandoned at some time in the past, but the report DEP issued in December counted the number of NOVs that formally declared an abandonment without plugging violation by a known responsible well operator.

[Note: DEP could have added these were the NOVs they issued as a result of in-person inspections. The fact is the more inspections DEP does, the more NOVs they issue to conventional operators for abandoning wells without plugging them.

[Regardless of when the wells are abandoned by responsible operators, the fact remains they were still abandoned by responsible operators and DEP made it “official” with an NOV after an inspection.

[Click Here to read about the struggle to get just one conventional well abandoned by a responsible operator plugged since 2018. And it’s still not plugged.]

Conventional operators did not raise the fact an Environmental Defense Fund analysis found Pennsylvania has 55,000 mostly conventional oil and gas wells at high risk of being abandoned because of the financial condition of their operators. Read more here.

The report was released at an April 24 House Environmental Committee hearing on conventional oil and gas well abandonment and well plugging bonding. Read more here.

There was also no discussion of the other significant findings in the compliance report, like the fact that conventional well operators fail to file critical annual production, waste generation/ disposal reports for over 50 percent of the wells they operate-- over 61,600 wells-- give or take. Read more here.

Click Here for more on the full May 25 meeting agenda and available handouts.

The next meeting of DCED’s PA Grade Crude [Oil] Development Advisory Council will be on October 12 in State College.

Visit the Council webpage for more information when it becomes available.

NewsClip:

-- Citizens Voice Editorial: Renew Bonds To Close, Cleanup Conventional Oil, Gas Wells [PaEN]

PA Oil & Gas Public Notice Dashboards:

-- Struggle To Plug Tatonka Oil Co. LLC’s Nancy 13 Conventional Well Leaking Gas, Production Wastewater Since 2018; Citizen Complaint Finds ‘Bubbling’ Gas Well [PaEN]

-- Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Weekly Compliance Dashboard - May 20 to 26; DEP Issues More NOVs For Conventional Well Abandonments [PaEN]

-- PA Oil & Gas Industrial Facilities: Permit Notices/Opportunities To Comment - May 27 [PaEN]

-- DEP Posts 63 Pages Of Permit-Related Notices In May 27 PA Bulletin [PaEN]

PA Oil & Gas Compliance Reports

-- Feature: 60 Years Of Fracking, 20 Years Of Shale Gas: Pennsylvania’s Oil & Gas Industrial Infrastructure Is Hiding In Plain Sight [PaEN]