PA Environment Digest Blog: DEP Issued Record 6,860 Notices Of Violation To Conventional Oil & Gas Operators In 2023-- Nearly 52% More Than In 2021; ‘Culture Of Non-Compliance’ Continues

The Department of Environmental Protection issued a record 6,860 notices of violation to conventional oil and gas operators in 2023, according to DEP’s December 29, 2023 Weekly Workload Report.

That’s 51.9% more than in 2021 and 26.6% more than in 2022 and 569.9% more than in 2015.

DEP’s 2022 Oil and Gas Annual Report said 5,416 notices of violation were issued to conventional operators in 2022 and 4,514 violations in 2021 and in 2015, DEP issued just 1,024 violations to conventional operators. Read more here.

On January 9, PA Environment Digest reported DEP has issued or continued at least 512 notices of violation to 95 conventional oil and gas operators for abandoning their wells without plugging them in 2023, according to DEP’s Oil & Gas Compliance Reporting Database. Read more here.

Just one conventional operator-- John B. Best-- was issued over 64 notices of violation for abandoning conventional wells. John B. Best has 166 conventional wells registered in his name. Read more here.

2022 Violations

The most frequent conventional operator violations in 2022 were--

-- 671 for failure to plug conventional wells after they are abandoned by operators;

-- 168 for failure to construct and operate wells as required by law and regulations;

-- 161 for failing to manage conventional well residual waste as required by law and regulations;

-- 101 for drilling or operating, or altering a well without a permit.

Click Here to read the 2022 compliance report summary.

‘Culture Of Non-Compliance’

On December 29, 2022. the Department of Environmental Protection released the first-ever assessment of how well conventional oil and gas drillers comply with state environmental laws and concluded, “(the) conventional oil and gas industry’s recent record of compliance with Pennsylvania law is simply not good, particularly with regard to improper abandonment of wells.”

“A significant change in the culture of non-compliance as an acceptable norm in the conventional oil and gas industry will need to occur before meaningful improvement can happen.”

“This record of non-compliance will require DEP to further develop and refine its techniques for deterring violations and encouraging compliance with relevant statutory and regulatory provisions.”

Click Here to read more.

It is clear, just from the preliminary numbers in 2023, non-compliance by the conventional oil and gas industry continues to increase dramatically.

Significant Conventional Compliance Events In 2023

Here are just a few significant conventional well operator compliance events in 2023--

-- Illegal Road Dumping Wastewater Continues: In spite of the fact it is illegal to dump conventional oil and gas wastewater on roads, it is still happening unabated in conventional oil and gas drilling areas of the state, according to local citizen reports. It is not clear what, if any action is being taken to stop the illegal practices.

Conventional operators are still fighting to make road dumping their wastewater legal. Read more here.

-- Conventional Well Wastewater Takes Out Village Of Reno Water Supply: In July, a conventional oil well wastewater release from Petro Erie, Inc. production wastewater tanks was discovered on July 20 and was found to have contaminated the Village of Reno’s water supply in Sugarcreek Borough, Venango County leaving the community of over 550 residents and businesses without clean water for more than six weeks.

Petro Erie, Inc. appealed DEP’s cleanup orders saying the “Appellant lacks the financial ability to comply with the Order.” Read more here.

As of November 13, there was little headway in cleaning up the wastewater spill by the operator. Read more here.

-- DEP Responds To Gas Well Leak At Plum Boro Elementary School, Allegheny County: On December 6, 2023, DEP responded to a complaint about a natural gas odor at the Pivik Elementary School 2 conventional gas well in Plum Borough, Allegheny County operated by Penneco Oil Co. Inc. “The well is located on elementary school grounds behind the school next to a sports field. A leak was detected on the well head and immediately fixed by operator personnel on site.” Read more here. Plum Borough was the site of a natural gas home explosion in August that killed six people. Read more here.

-- Fire At Conventional Oil Well Storage Tanks: On December 19, 2023, DEP inspected the Dutter 235 conventional oil well in Wetmore Township, McKean County in response to a notification from the well operator MSL Oil & Gas Corp. a fire occurred at the well earlier in the day. The fire occurred at three 5,880 gallon tanks containing crude oil and a subsurface production wastewater tank. Read more here.

"The evening prior to the incident, two of the tanks were full of crude oil and being heated to prepare for oil pick up. The third tank contained approximately 1.6 ft of crude oil.

“The two tanks that were being heated have an open pipe constructed through the bottom of the tanks which allows for an open flame to heat the oil.

“It is speculated that the vapors and crude oil from the partially filled tank that was not being heated, caught fire due to the open flame heating set up on one of the adjacent tanks." Read more here.

-- Attorney General Files Criminal Charges Against Equitrans For 2018 Natural Gas Home Explosion: On November 1, 2023 Attorney General Michelle Henry announced criminal charges against Equitrans, L.P. regarding the energy company’s failure to fix a natural gas leak that caused a house explosion in Greene County in 2018.

Three occupants of the home, a couple and their four-year-old son, sustained severe burns after the house at 161 Bowser Road exploded and caught fire on October 31, 2018.

An investigation by the Office of Attorney General revealed that a conventional storage well near the White family home was deteriorating and leaking gas for years, resulting in methane contamination of the home’s water supply. Read more here.

-- Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area Groundwater Contamination Still Not Resolved: DEP continues to try to resolve groundwater contamination issues from conventional wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Facility in Jackson Township, Cambria County, the site of the 1.1 billion cubic foot uncontrolled venting of natural gas in November 2022.

Through 2023, DEP inspection reports said the same thing, “Equitrans has not yet demonstrated to the Department that groundwater impacts have been resolved” from the well plugging operations undertaken by the company to try to control the uncontrolled venting of gas.

DEP continues to take water samples from monitoring wells and other locations around the well site to test for indicators of contamination and continue to find pollution.

In September, DEP issued NOVs to Equitrans for failing to provide DEP inspectors access to their facilities when requested. Read more here.

DEP inspections on December 11, 12, 13, 2023, confirmed groundwater contamination issues still not resolved. Read more here.

-- DEP Trying To Get Conventional Operator To Plug A Well Since 2018: DEP inspection reports document how DEP has been trying to get Tatonka Oil Co. LLC to plug just one well-- Nancy 13 in Warren County-- that has been venting gas since at least 2018. Finally, in January 2024, DEP reported the operator had plugged the well with cement. DEP still needs to determine if it worked to stop the venting. Read more here.

-- Conventional Well Leaking Natural Gas In Erie: As an example of the emergencies DEP and other companies respond to, in October DEP investigated a gas migration case reported by National Fuel Gas involving the Edward Bronakowski 1 conventional gas well operated by JF Pitonyak in Summit Township, Erie County.

A routine gas line check found gas coming from the ground at 1260 Robinson Road and National Fuel Gas took action to dig up the area and insert a steel casing over the well to capture gas coming from the well.

“A National Fuel gas vacuum truck is used to suck the gas from the ground in the areas with high percentage readings daily.” Read more here.

-- Family Evacuates Home To Escape Impacts Of Abandoned Conventional Well: In October, a woman and her two young children had to move out of their home in Washington County to escape the impacts of an abandoned conventional well on their water supply and the air quality in their home after months dealing with the issues. DEP made a commitment to plug the conventional wells near her home to try to resolve the issues. Read more here.

-- “Routine” Venting Of New Conventional Gas Wells: DEP’s inspection reports document the fact venting natural gas to the atmosphere is a “routine” part of new conventional well construction, in spite of recently passed Air Quality regulations that limit methane emissions from conventional wells.

Every conventional gas well is vented to the atmosphere for days to remove stray solids and liquids and other foreign matter from the well that could contaminate the stream of natural gas. Read more here.

-- DEP Plugging 19 Abandoned Conventional Wastewater Injections Wells For EPA: In June, DEP started the process to plug 23 abandoned conventional oil and gas wastewater injection wells owned by ARG Resources, Inc. and Pennzoil Company in Elk County. The plugging contracts are being funded by well plugging bonds forfeited to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Underground Injection Well Program. Read more here.

-- DEP Trying For Years To Get Operator To Submit Annual Waste, Integrity Reports: DEP issued an administrative order to River Ridge Gravel Co in June 2022 requiring them to submit annual production, waste generation and well integrity reports for many of the 111 conventional wells it owns in Venango County. Failure to submit the reports, which are vital to determine the condition of the wells and where the waste they generate goes for disposal or treatment, goes back to at least 2021. So far the operator has failed to submit the reports. Read more here.

Weekly Compliance Dashboard

To learn more about the conventional industry’s “culture of non-compliance,” read PA Environment Digest’s Weekly Compliance Dashboard reports from DEP’s Oil & Gas Compliance Reporting Database.

DEP’s online posting of oil and gas inspection reports provide an unprecedented window into the conditions and practices their inspectors find in the field every day with conventional oil and gas well operations.

The weekly reports posted during 2023 are below.

Updates To Conventional Drilling Regulations Still Pending

Since 2016, when an update to conventional oil and gas drilling regulations were killed by the General Assembly and Gov. Wolf, DEP has been trying to get a new package of updates out for formal public comment.

Last December, Kurt Klapkowski, DEP Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management, said the schedule for considering updates to environmental protection standards for conventional oil and gas drillers will be up to the incoming Shapiro-Davis Administration. Read more here.

Report Violations

To report oil and gas violations or any environmental emergency or complaint, visit DEP’s Environmental Complaint webpage.

Check These Resources

Visit DEP’s Compliance Reporting Database webpage to search their compliance records by date and operator and the Inspection Reports Viewer.

Sign up for DEP’s eNOTICE service which sends you information on oil and gas and other permits submitted to DEP for review in your community.

[Note: The 2023 numbers are not complete due to the way DEP keeps adding inspection reports to its Oil & Gas Compliance Reporting Database. The database does not indicate if or how these violations were resolved.]

[Note: If you believe your company was listed in error, contact DEP’s Oil and Gas Program.]

[Note: These may not be all the NOVs issued to oil and gas companies during this time period. Additional inspection reports may be added to DEP’s Oil and Gas Compliance Database.]

2023 Oil & Gas Compliance Reports:

-- DEP Issued At Least 512 Violations To 95 Conventional Oil & Gas Operators For Abandoning Wells Without Plugging Them In 2023; 10 Shale Gas Operators Were Issued NOVs For Abandoning Wells [PaEN]

-- DEP Issues Record 6,860 Notices Of Violation To Conventional Oil & Gas Operators In 2023-- Nearly 52% More Than In 2021; ‘Culture Of Non-Compliance’ Continues [PaEN]

-- 2023 Shale Gas Operator Compliance Report: 1,310 Violations; Explosions; Pad Fire, Evacuation; Uncontrolled Gas Venting; Frack-Outs; Polluting Water Supply; Spills; Pipeline Crashing Thru A Home; More [PaEN]

-- PA Environment Digest: Articles On Oil & Gas Facility Impacts

Resource Links - Conventional Noncompliance:

-- DEP Report Finds: Conventional Oil & Gas Drillers Routinely Abandon Wells; Fail To Report How Millions Of Gallons Of Waste Is Disposed; And Non-Compliance Is An ‘Acceptable Norm’ [PaEN]

-- House Hearing: Let’s Work Together To Make Conventional Oil & Gas Industry Practices Cleaner, Respect Property Rights, Protect Taxpayers And Prevent New Abandoned Wells [PaEN]

-- Conventional Oil & Natural Gas Drilling: An Industrial Machine Moving Across The PA Countryside Leaving Behind Big Liabilities & Spreading Pollution Everywhere It Goes [PaEN]

-- Feature: 60 Years Of Fracking, 20 Years Of Shale Gas: Pennsylvania’s Oil & Gas Industrial Infrastructure Is Hiding In Plain Sight [PaEN]

-- EDF: Pennsylvania Has 55,000 Oil/Gas Wells At High Risk Of Being Abandoned; 51,000 Wells At Risk Of Being Transferred To Low Solvency Owners; Current Conventional Well Owners Abandon 561 Wells A Year, On Average [PaEN]

-- EDF: Conventional Gas Wells In Allegheny National Forest Leaked Over 6 Billion Cubic Feet Of Natural Gas In 2019; Conventional Operators Seek To Block Methane Limits [PaEN]