The West Virginia Sierra Club is urging citizens to contact their Delegates and call for stronger Marcellus shale legislation after the Governor’s anemic version of the bill was passed from the Senate to the House chamber of the WV legislature on Tuesday. Chuck Wyrostok, WV Sierra Club Outreach Director, issued an email stating,
“It is citizen pressure that caused the calling of this Special Session and it will be citizen pressure that will stop passage of a meaningless Marcellus bill.”
The email further identified some major areas of deficiency of the bill:
- Does not allow public notice and comment period for drilling applications.
- Does not require DEP to regulate air emissions at well sites.
- Allows gas wells to be too close to homes, water wells, and streams.
- Allows onsite burial of pit waste.
- Allows DEP to issue waivers for many requirements.
- Does not protect areas of Karst geology from drilling operations.
- Fails to require companies to negotiate with surface owners.
- Removes protections for drilling in special and sensitive areas.
For info on how to contact your Delegates today, click here.
Ry Rivard of the Charleston Daily Mail has a good story with comments from a handful of members of the Select Committee who express distaste for the Governor’s bill and great disappointment in the lack of respect for the work done in developing a committee draft bill. “Delegate Woody Ireland, R-Ritchie, a member of the select committee, said Tomblin had moved in favor of the industry despite “hours and hours and miles and miles” of work by the committee.”
The House Judiciary Committee added amendments to the bill on Monday in an effort to restore some of the provisions that were excised by the Governor from the Select Committee’s version of the bill. Again, quoting the Daily Mail story:
“Environmentalists and some lawmakers said Tomblin’s proposal is too friendly to the gas industry. They say Tomblin removed some of the regulatory teeth from a draft bill approved last month by a 10-member joint House and Senate committee.”
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“…stop passage of a meaningless Marcellus bill.”
Isn’t that a little extreme? Just because the Sierra Club didn’t get everything it wanted, the bill is meaningless?
Here’s something with real meaning for the Sierra Club to consider: If this bill doesn’t pass, drilling will continue under present rules indefinitely. There’s no assurance whatever that the legislsature will ever pass a bill favored by the sierra club, nor should it, in my opinion.