Aqua chief backs more gas regs

MATT HUGHES

mhughes@timesleader.com

KINGSTON TWP. – The former secretary of the state Department of Environmental Resources thinks the government needs to do more to regulate the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania.

Nicholas DeBenedictis, now head of public water company Aqua America Inc. and DER secretary from 1983 to 1986, was in Kingston Township on Thursday to tour Sunrise Estates, where Aqua America is installing 5,900 feet of upgraded pipeline.

The former DER secretary said he supports the recommendations by sitting state Secretary Michael Krancer, who in a letter sent May 27 to Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission suggested a sweeping set of amendments -- more than 20 in all -- be made to the state Oil and Gas Act, the supreme state law governing natural gas drilling.

The recommendations include increasing well setbacks from 200 feet to 500 feet from private water wells and to 1,000 feet from a public water supply, prohibiting well sites in floodplains, ramping up the civil and criminal penalties DEP may levy for violating environmental laws and increasing DEP’s autonomy in levying fines.

The DER split into two bodies in 1995: the DEP and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

“We were very supportive of Sec. Krancer’s latest order; that there will be none of the wastewater discharged by public treatment plants,” DeBenedictis said. “We agree with that because we’re downstream; we collect water from the streams, even though there hasn’t been any problem.”

He added that the changes to the Oil and Gas Act Krancer has recommended are some of the strongest regulations imposed on the gas drilling industry in the country.

DeBenedictis said gas drilling has and will contribute to the development of the economy in the state, and that Aqua America sells water for use in drilling. But traffic congestion, the amount of water driller’s use and the risk of methane migration from improperly sealed wells are also real concerns that regulations must address.

Gas drilling offers Pennsylvania a chance at a fourth energy boom, following historic booms in timber, oil and more recently coal.

“This is our shot now with this energy boom to do it right,” he said.