The Department of Environmental Protection reported from April 20 to 26 the agency inspected 168 conventional oil and gas well facilities and found 94 violations.

If there was 1 violation per facility, that means nearly 56 percent of the conventional facilities had violations.

During that same period, DEP inspected 278 unconventional (Shale gas) facilities and found 11 violations.  If there was 1 violation per facility, that means just under 4 percent of facilities had violations.

The same report shows from January 1 to April 26, DEP inspections found 462 violations at 4,050 conventional facilities or about 11.4 percent with violations (assuming 1 violation per facility)

From January 1 to April 26, DEP inspected 4,449 unconventional facilities and found 201 violations or about 4.5 percent with violations (assuming 1 violation per facility).

Click Here for a copy of the report.

In DEP's 2017 Oil and Gas Annual Report (the latest available), DEP reported the number of conventional oil and gas well violations more than tripled between 2015 and 2017 from 1,024 to 3,273.

Of the conventional well violations in 2017, 1,803 were environmental health and safety-related violations and 1,470 were administratively-related violations.  In 2016, of the 1,804 violations-- 870 were environmental health and safety and 960 were administrative.

The number of violations found with unconventional (shale gas) wells also increased from 404 in 2015 to 821 in 2017.

Of the 821 unconventional well violations  in 2017, 754 were environmental health and safety-related violations and 67 were administratively-related violations.  In 2016, of the 465 violations-- 438 were environmental health and safety and 18 were administrative.

For 2017, DEP reported site inspections increased 2 percent over 2016, for a total of 36,288 inspections-- 16,296 conventional well inspections, 15,243 unconventional well inspections and 4,749 administrative/well site inspections.

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DEP: Conventional Oil & Gas Well Violations More Than Triple Between 2015-2017

[Posted: May 3, 2019]

5/6/2019