Grand Jury Report Presents Damning Evidence on the Dangers of Fracking and Pennsylvania State Government’s Consistent Failure to Protect the Public
PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 25, 2020) – Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the findings today of a Statewide Investigating Grand Jury report on the fracking industry in Pennsylvania. The report reveals the damage the unconventional oil and gas industry has done to Pennsylvanians and how, during the Corbett administration, leadership at the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Health gave a clear message to agency staff: leave fracking alone. Since then, and throughout the fracking boom in Pennsylvania, relevant state agencies have actively suppressed information on that damage and essentially allowed the gas industry to run unchecked throughout the state. The report makes recommendations for how to better protect Pennsylvanians (1), including greater setbacks from fracking wells and having the Department of Health treat fracking as the public health crisis it is.
Joseph Otis Minott, Esq., Executive Director and Chief Counsel of Clean Air Council, issued the following statement:
Attorney General Shapiro’s diligent work with the Grand Jury to investigate the Pennsylvania shale gas boom has yielded a monumentally important report. For over a decade, the fracking industry has run roughshod over the people of Pennsylvania. The Grand Jury’s report reveals the tragic consequences of our state government’s hands-off approach to fracking. The gas industry has destroyed too many lives and livelihoods. It raises the legitimate question as to whether this is an industry that maintains any social license to operate.
The recommendations for reform made in the Grand Jury report are a significant recognition of the damage caused by the gas industry and the dire need for change. Those recommendations are only a start. Given the industry’s lack of integrity and the need to move away from fossil fuels to combat climate change, under what possible conditions could the public feel safe continuing to allow the industry to operate here?
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(1) Specifically, it makes eight recommendations, described as “necessary and obvious” and seeking “to impose some sanity and safety to how this industry operates in Pennsylvania”:
- Expanding no-drill zones in Pennsylvania from the required 500 feet to 2,500 feet;
- Requiring fracking companies to publicly disclose all chemicals used in drilling and hydraulic fracturing before they are used on-site;
- Requiring the regulation of gathering lines, used to transport unconventional gas hundreds of miles;
- Adding up all sources of air pollution in a given area to accurately assess air quality;
- Requiring safer transport of the contaminated waste created from fracking sites;
- Conducting a comprehensive health response to the effects of living near unconventional drilling sites;
- Limiting the ability of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection employees to be employed in the private sector immediately after leaving the Department;
- Allowing the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General original criminal jurisdiction over unconventional oil and gas companies.
Read the release and report from the Office of the Attorney General.
