PA DEP TO APPROVE HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP FRACK WATER DISPOSAL WELLS

Earthquake protections to be built into Pa. permits for fracking waste disposal wells.

By Laura Legere / Harrisburg Bureau
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania environmental regulators are on the verge of approving two planned disposal wells for oil and gas waste fluids, on the condition that the operators take steps to limit the chances the wells will cause the kinds of earthquakes that have rocked other oil and gas producing regions.

Department of Environmental Protection officials said they will soon issue long-delayed permits to Pennsylvania General Energy Co. and Seneca Resources Corp. for disposal wells in Grant Township, Indiana County, and Highland Township, Elk County.

“The answer is going to be yes. It is just a question of what the conditions finally look like,” Scott Perry, DEP’s deputy secretary for oil and gas management, said at an advisory board meeting late last month. He said the agency expects to act on the applications “in the extremely near future.”

A DEP spokesman could not say, specifically, when the permits will be issued.

The applications for the wastewater wells have inspired an extraordinary degree of local opposition, especially for regions of the state that have a history of oil and gas development.

Voters in Highland Township, population 492, adopted a new form of local government in November with a home rule charter that makes it illegal to deposit oil and gas waste in the township.  Read more...