LITTLE ROCK — A coalition of landowners in the natural-gas producing Fayetteville Shale region said that a recent independent review of the state’s hydraulic fracturing rules didn’t go far enough.
United for Responsible Gas Extraction, or URGE, said in a release that the State Review of Oil and Gas Environmental Regulations report ignored water and air issues.
“Water quality and quantity issues were barely mentioned, and air contamination was dismissed entirely,” said Debbie Doss, an URGE member who observed the review process. “These are two of the greatest public health concerns and they need greater scrutiny within the industry and state agencies.”
But Wilma Subra, an environmentalist from Louisiana and member of the review team for Arkansas, said the focus was intentionally only on hydraulic fracturing regulations.
The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission “only asked us to do a hydraulic fracturing review,” she said Friday. “Things like wastewater pits [and] sediment erosion would have been covered if we had done a complete review.”
She said the State Review of Oil and Gas Environmental Regulations is currently creating suggested guidelines for air quality. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t require air permits for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells.
Fracking is the process of injecting thousands of barrels of water mixed with sand and chemicals into a well to maximize oil or natural gas flow. Combined with horizontal drilling, it has led to a surge in natural gas drilling in the Fayetteville Shale formation in north-central Arkansas and in other formations throughout the country.
With the uptick in fracking, the Oklahoma City-based State Review of Oil and Gas Environmental Regulations has been looking at states’ regulation of the process.
The team that studied Arkansas’ was composed of Subra, as well as Lori Wrotenbery, a director for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission oil and gas conservation division, that state’s regulatory agency, and Jim Collins of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a group that represents oil and natural gas producers.
The review concluded that the state’s fracking regulations are “well managed” and meet the group’s guidelines.
The group made some recommendations: notifying the Oil and Gas Commission before fracking commences, more funding for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and a bigger commission staff.
Getting more money for bigger staffs would require legislative action.
The review was requested by Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, chairman of the Fayetteville Shale Caucus, a group of legislators formed during the 2011 legislative session with the goal of protecting the natural-gas industry from proposed legisla- tion. Rapert said last week he would “assist [the Oil and Gas Commission] in pursuing funding for new inspectors if needed” during the 2013 legislative session.
The review also called for the commission to adjust policy to allow inspections during the fracking process to ensure that spills don’t occur and to witness fracking operations.
The fact that inspections are not made during the fracking process was unsettling to URGE Chairman Shannon Hensley.
“They are always telling us fracking is safe, that we have nothing to worry about,” she said Thursday.
Shane Khoury, deputy director of the Oil and Gas Commission staff and its chief counsel, said it’s not the fracking itself that is unsafe but all the activity on the well pad that raises a safety concern.
“With all the moving trucks and equipment it can be unsafe for our inspectors,” Khoury said. “We are evaluating if, and how often, we need to inspect a well during fracking.”
Hensley also said that water runoff from drilling operations is getting into ponds, lakes and rivers near her house and that the review should have included more details about that particular situation.
The review “missed a lot and glossed over a few things,” she said. “[It] fails to call for the substantial improvements and the implementation of ‘best management practices’ in natural gas development that we need in Arkansas.”
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the Oil and Gas Commission require companies to follow practices to prevent erosion and sedimentation runoff, among other hazards.
Hensley acknowledged that since the regulatory agencies in October 2011 began conducting more stringent inspections that things have improved. But she said that further review and oversight are needed to continue to improve the rules, Department of Environmental Quality Regulation No. 34 and Oil and Gas Commission Rule B-17.
Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks said that the most frequent complaint in the Fayetteville Shale is sediment from erosion or storm-water runoff, but that the complaints have decreased in the past few years.
According to a report put out last year by the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, a nonprofit group assisting URGE and other environmental groups, more than 500 water violations were discovered in the Fayetteville Shale during 289 inspections between 2006 and 2010 by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. Many of the violations were minor and led to warnings, while others were more serious, leading to fines.
“One of the biggest complaints we get around natural gas drilling activity developments, especially hydraulic fracturing, is sediment erosion,” Marks said. “That’s gotten better since we put provisions in the permit that requires ‘best management practices’ must be used to prevent sediment erosion.”
Sediment can disrupt ecosystems and be costly to correct.
A. Scott Anderson, a senior policy adviser with the San Francisco-based Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group, said those practices are not always implemented.
“The people in the field don’t always do what the people in the office want them to do,” he said.
He suggested more site inspections would encourage workers to follow the practices.
Kelly Robbins, executive vice president of the Arkansas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners, a group that calls itself the voice of the natural gas industry in the state, said people should be pleased with the review.
“Both [Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] have responded to complaints of water well contamination and neither agency has found any evidence of contamination from hydraulic fracturing in any of the water wells tested,” Robbins said. “Our member companies are and will continue to be committed to the safe, responsible production of oil and natural gas.”
Business, Pages 63 on 03/18/2012