The Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee has just released "Exploring the Environmental Effects of Shale Gas Development in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed," based on an April 2012 workshop designed to engaged scientists from across the nation to review the state-of-the science regarding shale gas development on the Bay.

Two sets of recommendations are made in the report, one for the Chesapeake Bay Program and a second set for the general scientific, industry and policy-making audiences.

Chesapeake Bay Program

-- Evaluate existing monitoring data to begin to assess the impact that Marcellus Shale drilling, production and transport activities may have on sediment loading to the Bay.

-- Implement monitoring of nitrogen deposition which may be very high locally near gas rigs, compressor stations and processing plants.

-- Add infrastructure associated with Marcellus Shale gas drilling, production and transport into the Bay land cover/land use maps.

-- Investigate if any existing CBWM land uses may be appropriate for uses associated with these Marcellus Shale gas play activities by with a range of parameter values.

-- Investigate if the sediment loss from dirt and gravel roads used for production are effectively simulated in the CBWM.

-- Provide a framework to centralize the data for well pads, land use/cover changes. 

-- Investigate any scale-effects (cumulative effects) associated effectively simulate the sediment loading from Marcellus Shale transport activities. 

-- Investigate how the Marcellus Shale gas play may affect land projections, and in turn, how those adjusted projections affect to the Bay.

-- Implement real-time monitoring at headwaters where shale gas place or proposed. 

Industry, Scientific, and Policy-Making Communities

-- Federal agencies should take the initiative to monitor and development, recognizing that funding and coordinating such challenge. 

-- A more local focus for monitoring and research should be taken cannot wait for the lag time to observe a larger Bay-wide impact. 

-- More research should be done on metals and other pollutants that TMDL.

-- Data on pad and pipeline locations and installation and

centralized. 

-- The industry should implement set back distances for pads from riparian buffers, and implement all mandatory and voluntary BMPs in cumulative impact to the Chesapeake Bay. 

-- Does Pennsylvania (PA) regulation for oil and gas activity Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) should encourage that are amended and developed as necessary. 

-- States should change the permitting process to be project-based site-based and to require that permits provide potential build-out better potential cumulative effects information.

-- Industry personnel and state regulators signing permits must be implementation/certification training.

-- Better state-to-state sharing of information via an ad-hoc group gathered (data and research results) be synthesized, centralized, public. 

A copy of the complete report is available online.

This report has been submitted to CBP Management Board and a response has been requested on its specific recommendations.

2/11/2013