Three cities in Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil passed municipal fracking bans, thanks to concerted grassroots campaigning. Nova Alvorada do Sul, Bataguassu, and Rio Negro join over 380 other cities across Brazil to have banned fracking.

Unfortunately, other places have backslid. On July 24, one day before summer recess, the UK government approved the first fracking site in the country after a decade of debate. Local groups there, like the community around the site in Lancashire, have been mobilizing to stop and ban fracking. The UK government is also trying to change the law to allow fracking without local planning applications. Find out more about what people are doing to stop them.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fracking-cuadrilla-lancashire-fossil-fuels-claire-perry-climate-change-a8462266.html

From an Article by Terry Morgan-Besecker, Citizen’s Voice, Wilkes-Barre, PA, July 14, 2018

A company that wants to drill for natural gas in the Delaware watershed will get a second chance to challenge the Delaware River Basin Commission’s authority to regulate the activity.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani erred when he dismissed a lawsuit filed by Wayne Land and Mineral Group, which seeks to construct a hydraulic fracking well pad to explore for natural gas within the watershed.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process that uses high pressure to inject a large volume of water, chemicals and sand into Marcellus Shale, causing it to crack and release natural gas.

The DRBC placed a moratorium on fracking within the watershed in 2010 until it could develop regulations to cover the practice. It still has not done so. Environmental groups viewed Wayne Land’s lawsuit as an attack on the moratorium.

The suit argued the DRBC did not have authority over fracking because the activity did not constitute a “project” as defined by the DRBC’s compact — an interstate agreement that regulates use of water from the Delaware River.

Mariani rejected the group’s challenge last year, finding that language within the compact clearly covers fracking. The 3rd Circuit court disagreed.

In a 48-page opinion filed earlier this month, the court said definition of a project was ambiguous. It sent the case back to Mariani with instructions to hear additional evidence to determine what types of activities the drafters of the compact meant to include.

David Overstreet of Pittsburgh, Wayne Land’s attorney, said the ruling is key victory for his client. The case reinstates the lawsuit, but more importantly the 3rd Circuit Court indicated it had concerns about how the DRBC defined a “project.”

In the opinion, the court said it was mindful of concerns about employing an overly broad interpretation of a project because it could “sweep nearly any activity that happens to use basin water.” That could “potentially include the construction of a new skyscraper in New York City or a small housing development in rural Pennsylvania,” the court said.

“The position of the commission is that anything that uses water is a project,” Overstreet said. “I think the court of appeals said that simply goes too far.”

Maya von Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group that intervened in the case, does not see the ruling as a defeat.

“It just means we get the opportunity to go back to court to build a record as to how devastating drilling and fracking operations are and why it is essential that DRBC regulates it,” she said.

The 3rd Circuit Court stressed it is not taking any position regarding the merits of arguments put forth by the DRBC, Wayne Land or others that intervened in the case. That issue must be decided by Mariani after further evidence is presented.

“To be clear, at this stage, we are not adopting or endorsing Wayne’s interpretation or the commission’s or anyone else’s,” the court said. “We are simply noting that the parties have posited reasonable interpretations that bear their own strengths and weaknesses.”

Source: https://www.citizensvoice.com/news/court-reinstates-lawsuit-over-fracking-in-delaware-river-basin-1.2361614

DRBC receives nearly 9,000 submissions on fracking ban proposal

Article by Kyle Bagenstose, Bucks County Courier Times, April 10, 2018

Public comment on the controversial proposal closed March 30.

With public comment closed on a controversial fracking ban proposal for the Delaware River basin, regulators must now tackle an arduous task: combing through nearly 9,000 submissions received over the past four months.

“It’s going to take some time,” said Peter Eschbach, spokesman for the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC).

The proposed regulations are among the most controversial in years put forth by the DRBC, an interstate regulatory group composed of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and the federal government. Introduced last fall, the proposal calls for the banning of hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — in the basin. The process involves injecting highly pressurized fluids underground to crack up rocks and release natural gas deposits.

Fracking arrived in Pennsylvania about a decade ago, leading to a boom that has made the state the nation’s second-highest producer of natural gas, but also caused concerns about pollution of the environment and drinking water. Eastern Pennsylvania has been shielded from any drilling since the DRBC declined to pass any regulations in 2011, creating a de facto moratorium.

Enter last fall, when the commission put forth updated proposals that would ban fracking in the basin — a measure long sought by environmentalists — but allow for the disposal of treated wastewater and extraction of river water for fracking operations outside the basin.

Now that public comment has concluded, even the number of comments submitted is subject to controversy. The DRBC’s website states it received 8,687 online submissions and 227 oral comments.

But on Tuesday, the Bristol Borough-based Delaware Riverkeeper Network blasted the numbers as misleading, claiming a network of anti-fracking groups submitted “at least 40,000” comments to the organization.

“This discrepancy is due to the fact that the DRBC counted thousands of individual comments submitted by members of the organizations as a single comment,” the Riverkeepers wrote in a statement.

Eschbach said this charge is untrue, and that DRBC staff technically look at each response as a “submission,” which could contain any number of individual “comments.”

Using a software system called SmartComment, staff mark down and catalogue each time a comment is made in a submission.

“We’re committed to making sure that everyone’s voice is heard,” Eschbach said.

SmartComment does recognize form letters and automatically condenses them into a single bucket, saving staff from analyzing each one, Eschbach said. But he added staff still keep a tally of how many such submissions it receives, and offered a single submission that included a petition of about 20,000 names as an example.

“The actual comment is about a paragraph long,” Eschbach said. “But it’s probably about 20,000 comments.”

Eschbach said commission staff have yet to count how many total comments have been received, which will only come after each submission is analyzed.

A review by this news organization of the last 100 submissions received ahead of the March 30 public input deadline showed a range of responses. About 62 percent said they wanted a full ban on all fracking-related activities, while another 12 percent said they opposed fracking generally. About 19 percent said they believed the DRBC proposals are unfair to the drilling industry and wanted the regulations withdrawn, while just 7 percent said they favored the regulations as currently proposed.

In addition to a more rigorous review of comments, also time consuming for the DRBC will be responding to the submissions. Eschbach said commission staff will have to respond to each type of comment, potentially after consulting with subject matter experts within the organization or even conducting new research.

The commission’s findings will be summarized in a “comment response document” that will be presented to the DRBC’s five representatives. Eschbach says that report will generalize how many comments were received in favor of each particular opinion, although it may not include the exact numbers. It will also include any changes to the proposal recommended by agency staff.

Ultimately, the decision will be a political one. The governors of Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware already voted to propose the regulations, meaning one would need a change of heart, or calculus, for the regulations to take a different path.

Groups on both sides of the debate used closing of public comment as an opportunity to reiterate their stance. In a press release, the pro-drilling industry group Marcellus Shale Coalition said the regulations violated the U.S. Constitution and lambasted the politics of the process.

“The proposed ban would represent the epitome of an illegal taking” of property owners’ mineral rights, the coalition argued. ”(And) it is clear that a majority of commissioners have already made up their political minds on this matter.”

The coalition also argued drilling could be done safely, claiming the industry has a 97 percent compliance rate with environmental regulations in the state and has spent “hundreds of millions” of dollars on environmental safeguards.

“Pennsylvania’s unconventional shale gas industry has a demonstrated track record of operating in a manner that protects our shared environment,” the release said.

Groups such as the Philadelphia-based environmental nonprofit PennFuture, on the other hand, argued in favor of a complete ban.

“The risks on water resources by fracking are well known,” wrote Abigal M. Jones, staff attorney. “The commission has the authority and duty to protect the important water resources and should adopt the proposed ban to fulfill that duty.”

Among the proponents of a ban are the Newtown Township supervisors, who recently voted 4-1 to submit a comment calling for a ban of all fracking-related activities. But the town is also considering preemptive action, with supervisors saying they may dust off a proposal to amend the township’s joint municipal zoning ordinance, which it shares with Upper Makefield and Wrightstown.

The amendment would establish “oil and gas drilling, processing and transport” as a new land use, requiring conditional approval for fracking. It would also only allow drilling in Wrightstown’s rural industrial and quarry/agriculture districts, not on any property subject to a conservation easement or open space restrictions.

Newtown Township Supervisor John Mack said board members recently had discussed resuming work on that amendment, though it has not yet been placed on any planning commission meeting agenda.

The proposed amendment came under review at a January 2017 community meeting, where attorney Jordan Yeager, of Doylestown Township’s Curtin & Heefner law fim, discussed its pros and cons as a way to regulate gas and oil drilling at the municipal level.

Yeager noted in a letter to the Riverkeepers that officials in the jointure municipalities should not approve the amendment without first revising it, saying a lack of scientific due diligence could render the municipalities vulnerable to legal challenges under the state’s environmental laws.

Amendments to the joint zoning ordinance cannot go into effect until all three municipalities approve them.

Wrightstown supervisors have considered the fracking jointure amendment on and off for the past two years, said Chester Pogonowski, the board’s chairman. Right now, he said, there is no consensus and there is no scheduled discussion.

The amendment has not yet been in front of Upper Makefield’s board of supervisors, said Chairman Tom Cino. Some environmental groups have been critical of the proposal, saying it could signal to drillers that the township is open for business.