DEP published notice of final technical guidance relating to Standards and Guidelines for Identifying, Tracking and Resolving Oil and Gas Violations in the January 17 PA Bulletin.  A comment/response document was also posted Friday.

The new proposed enforcement policy, DEP said in October when the guidance was released for comment, was to reflect changes to the organizational structure of the agency and to update the policies and procedures to reflect current oil and gas development activities in Pennsylvania.

The policy provides direction to Department staff in determining enforcement actions the Department will pursue to resolve violations and achieve compliance with applicable laws and regulations related to conventional and unconventional oil and gas development.

The proposed policy includes an entirely new section on water supply contamination investigations.

The policy was developed in part to respond to some of the issues raised by the Auditor General in his audit of the Marcellus Shale-related drilling regulatory program starting in 2003.

DEP finalized the related Oil and Gas Program Spill Reporting and Cleanup technical guidance on January 3 along with a comment/response document.  Click Here for a copy of both documents.

Neither the draft or final technical guidance were reviewed by DEP’s Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board.

Click Here for a copy of the final enforcement policy.  Click Here for a copy of the related comment/response document.

1/16/2015