Clean Air Council Petitions EPA to Find that PA DEP is Failing to Properly Regulate Marcellus Shale Air Pollution

PHILADELPHIA, PA – February 16, 2012 Today the Clean Air Council submitted a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson asking her to make findings that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) is failing to implement crucial parts of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and its own state air plan when permitting Marcellus Shale operations and to apply sanctions over these failures.

 

An adequate source determination is an absolute prerequisite to an adequate demonstration that PA DEP is in compliance with the CAA and its required programs. When determining whether a source is major or minor and should be permitted as such, PA DEP must aggregate all sources that are under common control, that are part of the same industry and are contiguous or adjacent. Because of the very nature of natural gas operations, which can cover many miles, single source determinations are complex but crucial.

 

The Council’s petition explains that in 2011 alone the Council reviewed well over twenty proposed permits and found either no aggregation analysis or a failure to properly aggregate. “When performed, single source determinations for the Marcellus Shale industry in Pennsylvania have been incomplete and inconsistent at best and contrary to the CAA and Pennsylvania [State Implementation Plan] at worst,” states Clean Air Council Executive Director, Joseph Otis Minott, Esq. in the petition. The failure to aggregate these sources means that in places such as Washington County or Susquehanna County the gas industry is placing dozens of pollution-emitting facilities within a small area and each is regulated as a minor source of pollution even though in the aggregate they have a detrimental effect on the air quality. Among other things, Title V , major source permits require stricter control technologies as well as increased monitoring, reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

 

The petition also focuses on PA DEP’s October 12, 2011, “Aggregation Guidance,” which the EPA stated in comments submitted to PA DEP, contains policy pronouncements which differ from established federal law and the Commonwealth’s own State Implementation Plan. PA DEP has indicated that they do not agree with the EPA’s analysis.