What fines reveal about drilling in state
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When Chief Oil & Gas landed near the top of several lists -- including the most fines of any Marcellus Shale drilling company in Pennsylvania -- its leadership asked for a meeting with the head of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Chief's operations leadership flew up from Dallas because "they were not pleased," recalled then-DEP Secretary John Hanger recently of that meeting last summer. "They told me they were taking steps to improve their environmental performance, improving their control of water, improving their command and control on site."
PG CHARTChief was moved to change after it saw DEP figures showing it had more violations than almost any Marcellus Shale driller in the state and more fines -- eight, but soon to be nine, for a total of $99,100. Half of its fines were for the same reasons: overflows or failures of drill pits that held water, drill cuttings and mud.
"No one wants to be on a list," said Chief's spokeswoman Kristi Gittins. "We've been drilling shale for 15 years and we're good at it, so, we were surprised by the list of violations and fines we received" in Pennsylvania.
It was exactly the response the state was looking for.
If violations were "the equivalent of a teacher sending a letter home to your parents" since they come with no direct financial cost beyond correcting for them, Mr. Hanger said fines "might be the equivalent of school detention or suspension" designed to get your attention even more.
He said he wanted to reserve fines for the worst violations, where there was a potential harm either to the environment or to people -- or if the company was a repeat offender that hadn't changed its habits after the first case.
"One of the things I very much believe in is working with a company that demonstrates sincerely that they get the message -- and Chief did," said Mr. Hanger, whose administration oversaw nearly every fine assessed on Marcellus Shale drillers to date.
First Published April 17, 2011 12:00 am
