The shale gas industry reported 12,816 wells produced 3,007,170,936 gallons of liquid waste (234,641.4 gallons/well) and 823,946 tons of solid wastes (64.3 tons/well) in 2025.
The conventional oil and gas industry reported 23,662 wells produced 42,674,478 gallons of contaminated water (1,803.5 gallons/well) and 1,263 tons of solid wastes (0.1 tons/well).
Conventional Well Reporting
DEP confirmed the owners of approximately 105,000 conventional oil and gas wells are required to report oil and gas production and the amount of waste they produce annually.
Specifically on waste, 25 Pa Code Chapter 78.121 says-- “The annual production report must include information on the amount and type of waste produced and the method of waste disposal or reuse.”
For the reporting year 2025, the FracTracker Alliance said the owners of 79,836 conventional oil and gas wells reported their production out of the approximately 105,000 wells required to report.
FracTracker said owners of just 23,662 conventional oil and gas wells reported any information on the amount of waste they produced and how it was disposed.
It is important to note, as long as conventional wells produce oil and gas they produce waste.
Based on FracTracker’s report, approximately 56,174 conventional wells that reported production failed to report any information on waste they produced.
FracTracker also reported that while DEP requires conventional well owners to provide an explanation for not reporting any production when they file their annual reports, there is no such requirement to explain why no information was reported for waste produced or disposed.
DEP confirmed it did not receive any information on waste produced or disposed from the owners of approximately 81,000 conventional oil and gas wells for the 2025 reporting year.
Breaking Down Failure To Report
Of the more than 81,000 wells that failed to report any information on waste, DEP said--
-- Owners of 21,000 conventional wells submitted no production or waste reports at all; and
-- Approximately 8,000 wells are known not to have any production so they would not produce waste, but they still failed to report any information on waste leaving that line blank.
Response To Analysis
In response to the FracTracker analysis and its own review of the 2025 reporting data, DEP said-- “The Department has been prioritizing an ongoing enforcement effort to address this compliance issue.”
“While the escalated enforcement actions it has taken in 2026 related to reporting were focused on failures to report production or submit mechanical integrity assessment of oil and gas wells, the reporting of waste is also of great importance.”
DEP said-- “It is important to point out that there are plausible scenarios that explain why no reportable waste was generated during the reporting period.”
“Waste is to be reported to the Department when it is disposed or reused. Waste stored onsite pending disposal or reuse is not required to be reported.”
DEP Reporting Changes
DEP said-- “[The] current functionality of the Department’s production and waste reporting application does not require operators to provide a comment explaining why no waste has been reported.
“The agency is looking into implementing various enhancements to the production/waste reporting application, including the requirement for operators to provide a comment when no waste is reported for a well.”
“The Department remains committed to ensuring operators report all required reporting data to the Department.
“More specifically, the Department is considering engaging conventional operators that have reported production data for the 2025 annual reporting period, but did not report any waste data for that period.
“Such work will be considered in the context of other agency priorities.
“Based on the available information, it is plausible that the most frequent reason for not reporting waste is that no reportable waste was generated during the reporting period.”
Waste Reporting Weaknesses
These analyses of the 2025 production/waste reports from conventional oil and gas well owners are not the first to identify serious issues with reporting compliance.
A first-ever compliance report on the conventional industry in December 2022 found there was “widespread” noncompliance with production, waste and well integrating reporting requirements. Read more here.
The report said “only around 30% of such operators report their production or mechanical integrity assessments on time. Even including operators who do eventually submit information after the compliance date, the annual compliance rate fails to climb above 50%.”
The consequence of failing to report the amount of waste being produced leads to a wildly distorted picture of the waste issues faced by this industry.
For example, FracTracker’s report said 42,674,478 gallons of waste were reported to DEP-- about 1,803.5 gallons for each of the 23,662 conventional wells reporting waste
Industry reports to DEP also said there were 56,174 conventional wells producing oil and gas and must, therefore, be producing waste, except nothing was reported.
Simple math shows these non-reporting wells could be producing 101.3 million gallons of contaminated water.
DEP does point out as many as 42,000 of the wells not reporting any information on waste are conventional gas wells that generally produce less waste than oil wells.
However, even cutting the amount of waste produced in half, or by two-thirds or by 80% still leaves a lot of waste unreported.
A report in 2017 by the PA Independent Oil and Gas Association on waste produced by conventional oil and gas wells said the average conventional well produced 5.88 gallons of contaminated water a day or 2,146.2 gallons per year.
By this industry measure, conventional well reporting could be missing 120.5 million gallons of contaminated water.
Other reports have shown gaps in waste reporting.
A 2023 University of Pittsburgh study that found at least 800,000 tons of solid waste generated by conventional and unconventional oil and gas industry was unaccounted for in the amount of waste received by landfills in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York in 2019. Read more here
A 2019 Physicians, Scientists and Engineers For Healthy Energy report analyzing waste data reported to DEP by conventional oil and gas well owners found in 2017 the industry reported producing 93.4 million gallons of contaminated water, compared to 42.6 million gallons reported in 202). Read more here.
Of that amount, the industry said it spread 8.1 million gallons of contaminated water on roads.
A 2021 report by the Better Path Coalition pointed out holes and weaknesses in conventional oil and gas well reporting related to road dumping contaminated water. Read more here.
The bottomline is this-- we don’t know how much waste is being generated and where it is being disposed or reused because the owners of over 81,000 conventional oil and gas wells fail to report any waste information.
What’s In Contaminated Water From Conventional Wells?
A 2022 Penn State study funded by DEP found the contaminated groundwater discharged by conventional wells contains at least 25 chemicals that exceed environmental and health standards and radioactive radium levels that exceed industrial waste discharge standards. Read more here.
The study also found contaminated groundwater from conventional wells contain two-and-a-half times the amount of salt in ordinary seawater [Read more here - page 39].
Penn State study author Dr. William Burgos said during a state Senate hearing-- “There’s no more research that needs to be done” to justify adopting a state ban on the road dumping of contaminated water from conventional oil and gas wells. Read more here.
A 2023 Penn State study of intentionally produced contaminated groundwater “brines” found they are chemically and physically the same as contaminated groundwater produced by other conventional wells, which makes sense because the water comes from the similar geologic formations.
DEP banned the road spreading of unconventional shale gas wastewater in regulations adopted in 2016. [Chapter 78a.70 & 78a.70a]
A 2020 Penn State study concluded there were not a lot of differences in the chemical and physical make-up of conventional contaminated groundwater and unconventional wastewater. Read more here.
Related Articles This Week:
-- FracTracker Alliance/DEP Report Owners Of Over 81,000 Conventional Oil & Gas Wells Did Not Report How Much Waste They Produced In 2025; DEP Proposes Changes To Eliminate Failure To Report Waste information [PaEN]
-- DEP Issues 17 More Violations For Abandoning, Not Plugging Conventional Oil & Gas Wells To 15 Companies In 11 Counties; Total Of 42 Abandoned Well Violations In September [PaEN]
-- DEP: Equipment Failure At Catalyst Energy Injection Well Results In Contaminated Water Discharges In Keating Twp., McKean County [PaEN]
-- DEP - Day 202: Ows Acquisition Co Conventional Well Site Still Discharging Contaminated Water In the City Of Hermitage, Mercer County [PaEN]
-- DEP - Day 873: Contaminated Water Still Leaking From Stonehaven Energy Conventional Oil & Gas Well Storage Tank In Clearfield County [PaEN]
-- DEP: Pipeline Excavation Hits Conventional Oil & Gas Well Drill Cuttings Disposal Area At Eastern Gas Transmission Oakford Gas Storage Area In Westmoreland County [PaEN]
-- Marcellus Drilling News: 2 EQT Shale Gas Subsidiaries Lose Bid To Toss West Virginia Kids Health Lawsuit From Federal Court [PaEN]
[Posted: October 1, 2026] PA Environment Digest
No comments:
Post a Comment