Enforcing laws the focus of shale conference

Times Leader Staff

STATE COLLEGE – Law enforcement officials learned about environmental and financial crimes, first response measures and other issues associated with natural gas drilling in the at a two-day conference that ended Wednesday.

More than 200 federal, state and local officers, prosecutors and environmental officials from Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio, attended the Marcellus Shale Law Enforcement Training Conference, which was hosted by the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental and Natural Resources Division and the U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern, Western and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania.

The conference gave an overview of natural gas extraction activities and the state and federal requirements that companies and their subcontractors must follow to ensure that workers, the public and the environment are not put at risk. Topics included environmental and financial crimes, first response measures, wastewater disposal, heavy truck enforcement, as well as state and local law enforcement issues.

“As a result of innovations like hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling, oil and gas extraction is occurring with increasing frequency in certain concentrated regions across the nation, including the Marcellus Shale region,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice.  “Exploration of sources of domestic energy is vital to the national interest.  In doing so, we must ensure that all laws intended to protect human health, sources of drinking water, wildlife and the environment are well understood and enforced to mitigate any potential adverse effects.”

Peter J. Smith, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, said federal, state and local law enforcement must work together “to protect public health, the environment … and the communities that we live in from the harmful byproducts of rapid industrial development and social change. The conference presents us with a great opportunity to launch this joint effort.”

Presenters included the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigations Division, the FBI, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association, Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section, Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, Lycoming County Department of Public Safety, the Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Marcellus Center for Outreach & Research Penn State University and the Sierra Club.