Come clean
Testimony by high-ranking state Department of Environmental Protection employees has uncovered some uncomfortable questions about the agency that is supposed to be protecting Pennsylvania’s environment.
One employee said the DEP Bureau of Laboratories reran parts of its residential water tests for fracking pollution and, in some cases, the numbers differed substantially and could not say which number — the higher or the lower — was reported to homeowners.
And testimony by another DEP employee revealed that the department requires no formal training for its water quality specialists and has no Marcellus shale-specific training.
These revelations come courtesy of Washington County state representative Jesse White, who on Nov. 1 revealed that in deposition testimony the DEP, in its analysis of residential drinking water, is not reporting all the chemicals discovered in the test results because the department does not consider the substances related to waste water from gas drilling. The DEP, it turns out, only reports back to residents a portion of the test’s findings.
The information is part of a deposition in the case of Loren Kiskadden of Amwell in Washington County, who brought the case against both Range Resources and the state DEP, claims the DEP report of his water contamination complaint is inaccurate and incomplete.
During the deposition DEP Bureau of Laboratories technical director Taru Upadhyay said Kiskadden’s water was also found to contain zinc, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, titanium and boron, all results not included in his water contamination report. The lab also found acetone, chloroform and T-butyl alcohol in Kiskadden’s water, the latter of which is known to be used in fracking fluid. The DEP has said these findings were from lab error and ruled that Kiskadden’s water was not contaminated as a result of fracking occurring 3,000 feet from his home.
Former DEP Secretary John Hanger, who held the position from 2008 to 2011 under former Gov. Ed. Rendell, doesn’t agree with the DEP’s testing practice.
“My view is that the [DEP] should release all the test results of any substances found,” he said.
“It’s just better to release all the substances to the owner of where the water was taken, whether or not the pollutant of substances [found] are relevant to an investigatory purpose. It would concern me if the department found a high [concentration] of a substance that posed a threat to the health of the owner and would not release it.”
We can’t help but agree with Hanger in this case. There is no reason the DEP should not be completely forthright with the residents who are concerned about the safety of their water. We are always in favor of governmental transparency — and in cases of safe drinking water, there’s no reason any safety-related information should be withheld.
Also troubling from the deposition was the revelation that the DEP requires no formal training for its water quality specialists, and it does not require any Marcellus shale-specific testing related to water contamination. In fact, the only specific certifications for the job is a driver’s license. This is appalling, to say the least, and only compounded by the fact that, according to DEP water-quality specialist John Carson’s Oct. 12 deposition, that of the few seminars in the way of training he had — some were sponsored by the oil and gas industry.
Now, forgive us for being cynical, but we doubt the oil and gas industry should be training the regulators that are supposed to be overseeing the oil and gas industry.
The DEP is supposed to be watching out for Pennsylvanians in order to ensure that the oil and gas below our feet is extracted as safely as possible. Based on the revelations from the Washington County depositions, the DEP has a long way to go before we believe it can fulfill that role.