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    Alarming 12 Percent Error Rate on Pennsylvania Gas Wells

    By Susan Culver-Graybeal | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Mon, Jan 9, 2012
    This story comes from the Yahoo! Contributor Network, where individuals publish their unique perspectives on some of the world’s most popular websites.
    Do you have a story to tell? Become a Yahoo! contributor

    COMMENTARY | Living in an area rich in energy resources, I can well appreciate the economic benefits of the energy industry. I can also appreciate the regulations put in place to assure that resource extraction is done as safely as possible for both workers and the environment. I subscribe to the notion the energy industry can exist in a way that is mindful of the environment. That's how it should work, and it requires everyone working together. Somehow, Pennsylvania was absent for that particular lesson.

    In a rather startling display of incompetence, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has found 495 gas wells that were previously unaccounted for. According to the Associated Press, though the wells are producing gas or are ready to produce gas, they've never been recorded as being drilled and some of them don't appear on the permit list for the Marcellus Shale. The wells were discovered by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which reported on the issue on Sunday.

    The 12 percent error rate on wells is causing nightmares for local and state government, as well as environmentalists and the industry itself. Impact fees for communities where drilling is taking place can't be figured or collected without accurate information. State information contains errors about whether wells are vertical or horizontal.

    Completion reports haven't been filed or can't be found for wells drilled and all the spokesman for the state department can say is that there are problems with the way the data is presented and how it's coming in and that it's something the department hopes to clear up and get consistent at.

    Indeed, Pennsylvania. Indeed. You have a phenomenal boom on your hands with the Marcellus Shale. It spells a lot of money for your communities, but it also spells risk in more ways than one. Get it right.

     

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