Inquirer Editorial: Can Corbett cut cash cord?

Gov.-elect Tom Corbett doesn't need to look very far to find important reasons to monitor natural-gas drillers with vigilance.

The incoming governor received large campaign donations from the industry, and ran on a promise not to impose a production tax on drillers. For the sake of public health, however, Corbett needs to show he takes tough regulation of his friends seriously.

At least 3.6 million barrels of polluted drilling water were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the year that ended June 30, an Associated Press review of state records found.

Pennsylvania allows its waterways to serve as the primary disposal site for drilling wastewater. Many other states require drillers to inject the tainted water deep into shafts.

The need for safe wastewater disposal has grown along with the booming natural-gas industry. Drillers use a technique that pumps millions of gallons of water, mixed with toxic chemicals, more than a mile underground to break apart shale formations and release the gas.

The water, mixed with metals such as barium and strontium, returns to the surface where it is treated at plants. Then it's discharged into rivers and streams.

The Rendell administration last August imposed tougher standards for total dissolved solids in treated wastewater. Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said "every drop of water in the state" meets safe drinking-water standards.

But studies are still being done to learn whether discharges from treatment plants are harmful to humans or wildlife. And there are examples of what can go wrong when monitoring is lax.

In spite of regulations to keep drilling wastewater out of the Delaware River basin, in 2009 and 2010, Cabot Oil & Gas trucked more than 44,000 barrels of wastewater to a treatment plant in Colmar, Montgomery County. The treated liquids were then discharged into Neshaminy Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River.

State regulators halted the practice, but the public wasn't fully informed of the episode. Hanger said drinking water was not affected.

The largest drillers say they have either eliminated or greatly reduced river discharges in the past year. Hanger noted that the DEP has more than doubled the number of inspectors who monitor gas drilling since 2008.

But the rapid expansion of natural-gas drilling in Pennsylvania, and the poor safety records of some drillers, require the new administration not to retreat from tough monitoring of the industry. Protecting the environment and public health demands it.