New rules for water withdrawals from the SRBC

Beginning on Oct. 15, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission will require that every natural gas operator that seeks to draw water from the basin to develop wells in the Marcellus Shale will need to get prior approval from the commission.

In the past, only operators that consumed an average of 20,000 gallons per day or more during any consecutive 30-day period or withdrew 100,000 gallons per day or more during any consecutive 30-day period, were required to get prior approval.

The rule change marks the first time in the commission's history that such prior approval has been imposed on a class of projects, according to commission executive director Paul Swartz. "After careful consultation with the commissioners and my technical and legal staff, I decided it would be prudent to impose the more stringent provision on the natural gas industry to give us the ability to review and regulate the industry's individual and cumulative impacts on water resources," he said in a news release on Aug. 15.

According to Paula Ballaron, the commission's regulatory program director, gas companies were taking up a lot of the commission's time asking questions about how to "just skim under the radar" of the commission's regulations. "A lot of the effort, at least initially, was being spent on avoiding the whole thing," she said. Now, the commissions' exchanges with gas companies can be directed toward ensuring proper compliance with the regulations that apply to everyone.

Because the additional applications will probably strain the commission and slow down the gas companies, the commission is proposing new rules that would provide a "more streamlined administrative procedure for reviewing consumptive water uses by the natural gas industry." Specifically, the proposed rule change calls for expanding the "approval by rule" procedure, so that it is available regardless of the water source a gas company wants to draw from. Approval by rule currently only allows companies to buy water from public water supplies while waiting for approval to draw surface water from the basin's rivers and streams.

The proposed rules will be released for public comment at the commission's quarterly public meeting on Sept. 11 at Bucknell University.