Several Marcellus Shale firms left off pollution reporting list
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The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection didn't notify several big companies involved in Marcellus Shale gas development that they must monitor and report emissions, and an environmental organization said that could render an ongoing, federally mandated state air pollution inventory inaccurate.
According to the Clean Air Council, although the DEP said it sent pollution inventory notification letters to 99 Marcellus Shale gas companies at the beginning of December, it actually sent notices to only 73 different companies. Twenty of the companies on DEP's notification list were sent two, three or four notifications, according to a list provided to the council by the DEP.
Many other companies involved in the Marcellus Shale play -- including MarkWest Energy Partners; NiSource Inc., a subsidiary of Columbia Natural Gas of Pennsylvania; and Central New York Oil and Gas Co., a subsidiary of Inergy Midstream, and Inergy -- did not receive notifications to submit their emissions inventory records.
And according to state law, only those companies notified that emissions reports are necessary are required to submit reports.
The information about companies not notified of reporting requirements and the state law requiring notification was part of a Clean Air Council release Tuesday and was included in a letter from Joseph Minott, council executive director, to DEP Secretary Michael Krancer.
"Each stage of Marcellus Shale operations emits harmful air pollution and an emissions inventory is an essential tool to protect Pennsylvania's air quality," Mr. Minott said. "It is unclear how [the DEP] can impose monitoring and reporting requirements upon a portion of the Marcellus Shale industry at the end of 2011 and expect a complete inventory."
The DEP could not be reached for comment about how it prepared the notifications list or whether companies not notified must provide inventories.
The notified companies must submit emissions data to the DEP by March for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, airborne particles or soot, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and total hazardous air pollutants.
The DEP will compile the inventory and is required to submit it to the EPA by the end of 2012. The inventory is used by the EPA to ensure that air quality is maintained and doesn't deteriorte.
The 2012 submission to the EPA is the first to include emissions data from Marcellus Shale drilling, production, processing and piping companies.
First Published January 3, 2012 4:31 pm
