 Let me give you a sense of how this panel conversation is going to go. So we've all decided that a more conversational format would be more interesting for all of you and maybe We'll be able to get at some of the heart of the the issues that are on top of mind So each of our panelists is going to provide roughly five minutes of introductory remarks And they're going to focus on what is top of mind around environmental legacies And then after that we're going to ask each other questions on all of the issues that come up for environmental legacies So the technical technological Responses for addressing and preventing environmental legacy issues The necessity for monitoring so we understand where the environmental legacy issues might be happening As well as the overall governance overlay to help us address these issues Moving forward so an understanding of them from the past and into the future So with that now that everybody is settled I'm going to give just a single name and title Down the line and then if y'all are interested I think more detailed biographies are provided And each of the panelists you may you may provide a little bit more information so that the audience knows where you're coming from so Next to dr. Brantley is Scott Perry. He's with the department the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection They're working our way down we have Jennifer Baca who is a professor at Pennsylvania State Dave Kenny who is with trout unlimited and Dale Arnold who's with the Ohio Farm Bureau So with that we'll go in this order sort of from Sue towards this end we'll end with Dale who promises me that he gives a rousing Rousing five minutes, so Just Perry sure. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here I've been with the department since 2000 I'm a career environmental protection professional I started out as a lawyer with their Bureau of Regulatory Council focusing on energy matters including radiation protection oil and gas and alternative energy and in 2010 I was asked to hang up my counselor hat and and Manage the oil and gas program and it's been That's been a very exciting career change for me The reason why I wanted to be here today is because I don't think enough smart people are talking about this legacy issue the legacy that we have the legacy and The legacy we could have but the challenges that we face with the legacies we have and Potential futures I think there's there's two potential futures for the legacy of shale gas development in Pennsylvania One replicates the legacy we have today and another one I think is actually much more positive and I want to spend some time talking about that briefly but first It's I'm always surprised at how little Pennsylvanians really understand their own oil and gas history and The estimates of the number of wells that have been drilled in Pennsylvania since 1859 are are kind of all over the map but we've settled on It will current legacy of approximately 200,000 unplugged abandoned wells in Pennsylvania that we and we do not know where they are at so just the enormity of the challenge there and try and put some some Metrics around this with every gas will permit we get we receive $250 that goes to plug abandoned wells and This year we estimate that we'll receive approximately $400,000 so if I receive $400,000 a plug abandoned wells and I'll do low ball the estimate at $35,000 to plug a well That's $7 billion that will be needed to to address this 200,000 well issue so again assuming $400,000 a year $35,000 so well I estimated and at that rate It'll take us 17,500 years to plug those wells So even if we were to radically increase the number to 40 40 million dollars per year towards plugging that's still 175 years to address this problem now not every single one of these wells is posing a risk or Nor may it ever pose a risk But I just wanted to give folks an understanding of of Pennsylvania's history Which which is to not seriously address this issue some of our challenges some of our impediments to To addressing the issue decide from the money. It is frankly the structure of our laws The the bonding requirements in Pennsylvania are very low wells that were drilled before 1984 require no bond Wells that were drilled conventional wells drilled after 1984 have a maximum blanket bond of $25,000 So for example, we have a conventional operator in Pennsylvania that has 23,500 well wells on a $25,000 bond We did increase that bonding amount for unconventional wells. There is now a maximum blanket bond of $600,000 which would Might plug three or four Shale wells should we need to access that bond? There's also a problem with the definition of what it means to be an abandoned well As long as a well produces any oil or gas it is not an abandoned well So therefore wells can be kept in production long beyond their economic economically valuable life and Then you compound that with the fact that we have very very weak laws to prevent transfers of wells to very low Capitalized companies or even individuals There are many wells in Pennsylvania that are owned by By people and they heat their house with this with this well and they do not have the resources They do not have thirty five fifty thousand dollars to plug a gas well once it goes dry So those are our challenges If we continue down the road that we're on we're going to continue to see much of the same I believe but I'm very optimistic about the future for a couple of reasons first is that We are dealing with a different industry We are dealing with an industry that has much greater financial resources than the conventional folks of old and I've already seen some some very interesting site construction and restoration practices that have been promoted by our sister agency DCNR Where and this this might be tough to take But I believe that the legacy of the unconventional industry may actually be to leave Pennsylvania's ecosystem better Than than it was before they got here Superior restoration practices Including deep ripping of well pads after the rest or they studies by Penn State are already showing that the soil conditions are superior to the surrounding forest pipeline restoration practices that introduce a diverse variety of species that promote species Habitat and show again a superior ecological mix along pipeline restored right a ways than the surrounding forest I don't know folks that spend some time in Penn's woods, but our understory is not particularly ecologically diverse Consists a lot of things that fear don't like to eat like fern and mountain laurel and rhododendron things like that So I'm excited about this potential future that that doesn't replicate the mistakes we've made in the past And I can't wait to talk about it more with you guys here today I'm gonna start a timer to Good practice, and so I'm dr. Jen Baca. I'm an assistant professor of geography at Penn State I have the pleasure of Being a colleague of Sue's and so she has set the stage nicely for a lot of the research that we're doing at Penn State So I'm an energy geographer And I came to that field because I'm a native Pennsylvania and from the Scranton area So I grew up in the legacy of the anthracite coal mining era You know, we still have the column banks that Scar our landscape out there and and I didn't know that You know areas without column banks existed until I went south to Washington DC for college And so environmental legacy has been part and parcel of me ever since I was born because you know What brought my family to that area was the coal mining industry and both grandfathers worked in the coal mines And so I grew up understanding energy politics. I guess it's only natural that I studied energy for my entire adult career as well And so before going to grad school, I worked for quite a long time as an economic consulting as an economic consultant understanding the electricity deregulation experiment in the US I spent a good five years Studying the debacle that was the California energy crisis And then I started to study biofuels in the biofuel boom, which also had some legacy impacts here in Pennsylvania and then in studying biofuels the fracking boom Occurred and then that was a really nice opportunity for me to start doing research back here in Pennsylvania Because there's a lot of connections across these three just different policy fields that you know Made me think that there are some interesting opportunities to you know Be able to come back to Penn State and study the regulatory landscape in more depth. So what I do is Pull together methods from political and industrial ecology and what that means is I study the flow of materials and energy through a production system and then look at how those Material energy flows are shaped and shaped by the regulatory landscape So what I've been doing in the context of fracking is trying to understand The new regulatory the new regulatory challenges that have been brought on by fracking And then also how different stakeholders have responded and what the space for innovation is on the regulatory side Sue and her slides Briefly introduced frack focus. I would point to that as a as a hybrid regulatory Innovation in which you have the public the public sector and the private sector coming together to try to Provide more information to the public about the chemicals that are being used in the fracking process And what I'm doing here in Pennsylvania right now And if we had better weather and time for a field trip We only have to go a good 15 20 miles Up towards Potter Township to study the new ethane cracker plant that is under construction as a result of the cheap natural gas prices and the ethane byproducts That are being produced in this part of the Marcellus and Utica shales So we're trying to develop a petrochemicals industry in the northern part of Appalachia We have a plant sighted here and just outside of Pittsburgh But there's also two others under construction in Ohio and West Virginia. So what I've been doing is trying to map out the supply chain and associated with the Pittsburgh cracker plant and then map on the regulatory landscape. So I have some maps that are Showing the different federal and state environmental regulations that would apply to each of the different nodes of the supply chain And then I'm trying to understand what's happening at the municipal level So at the municipal level here in Pennsylvania Municipalities have zoning ordinances and they and that's their form of power and their ability to regulate Where oil and gas production can take place And so I'm trying to understand that supply chain and then I guess just as one of the prompts that we received for the panel And the environmental legacy issue that's on my the forefront of my mind right now Perhaps some of you have seen in the news Concerns that the fracking industry is the next financial crisis Because unfortunately the industry hasn't been profitable or so say our Wall Street sages And there's a new book out recently by the journalist and Bethany McLean called Saudi America Where she's trying to dig into this whether or not the industry might be the next financial crisis and I'm wondering if That argument comes to fruition now this is the this act just for a little bit of background This is the journalist who sort of blew the lid off the Enron case and she wrote the book the smartest men in the room and so she has this experience of Doing some critical investigative journalism on the finance side But if this Actually does occur and you know hydraulic fracturing is no longer profitable Well, what do we do with this infrastructure build out? That's currently I'm going to support things like the cracker plant and but also a lot of the Data that Scott provided us. So what do we do in that case? Because it doesn't seem that and in my review of the governance proceedings that we're really thinking about How to guard against the bus cycle that all too frequently a half accompanies these boom cycles And so I think that fracking and unconventional drilling provides us a new opportunity to be innovative and think about You know how we can incorporate such thinking into our regulatory structures And that would be my prompt for the group and I look forward to further discussions about that in the Q&A. Thank you So, yeah, thanks for having me. I'm Dave Kenny. I am Eastern policy director for trout unlimited I'm probably the least qualified person up here I spent ten years as a newspaper reporter and ten years as an author and a couple of years doing this So, you know, if you're wondering if you flip to the bio and you're wondering how I ended up here You're not alone You know, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a perspective of how trout unlimited looks at these issues So in Pennsylvania, we are our first real Our longest-serving staffer is a woman named Amy Wolf and she's made her mark in doing Abandoned mine drainage work up in the Kettle Creek. So it's West Branch of the Susquehanna basin and you know doing tons of work over 20 years to try to Treat the effects of of historic Coal mining damage. And so I think that that is instructive. I mean, it's been been time-consuming. It's been really expensive You know, she's she's worked on a few miles of stream over this this period of time And and so I think when that sort of affects our viewpoint of how we look at this new energy development That's happened over the last 10 years. And so I think the focus has largely been on You know trying to avoid or minimize the impacts at the outset Trout unlimited about ten about two years ago Kind of reviewed our our approaches to energy development And our policy, you know, the national policy was was built around this kind of this idea of responsible energy development So the the classic avoid minimize mitigate and monitor kind of Approach and so we've worked pretty hard and in trying to be collaborative working with industry working with agencies Getting our grassroots involved and educated And in trying to put in place practices and policies that and encourage practices and policies that that will Limit impacts going forward. I think we've been maybe more successful on the on the avoid side of the the equation we've done some work and in Outwest and trying to work with you know our partners at the Forest Service for instance and trying to Limit areas where this stuff is happening trying to identify special places special trout habitat that that you know, we want to focus either Minimization efforts or at least Or you know on the other end of the equation trying to prevent that sort of development happening in those areas and You know, we've had some some success there my predecessor here Spent six or seven years working on Working with Scott and others and trying to sort of improve the regulatory regime here in Pennsylvania And I think we've seen some strides there. We've also put together a monitoring network. So, you know, we've got 14,000 monitors in Pennsylvania thousands more in West Virginia and Virginia and One of the ways and probably the most successful way ways we've engaged them in this issue is to have them go out to their local waters and Do some baseline monitoring in advance of of Shale gas development or in advance pipeline development and Continue to do that going out there monthly If actual development is happening going out more frequently and collecting information about their their local waters both Stream chemistry and also sort of visual visual stuff and so that monitoring network continues my focus has largely been on pipelines of the past couple of years and Again in this idea of trying to be forward-thinking and preventative one of the projects that that I'll highlight is is a GIS analysis that we did of Areas of ecological significance in the Delaware River basin and sort of the surrounding states where we looked at Datasets across four themes. We looked at high quality fisheries areas of high water quality Intact lands and biodiversity. We essentially tried to stack them and come up with a heat map that would identify areas of Ecological significance that need to be taken into account when major pipeline infrastructure is going through and and you know I know that pipeline companies do this and we had them involved We had a focus group where we brought government folks involved government agencies that are involved in this issue pipeline industry both Ones that are working on gathering lines and work ones that are working on major transmission Lines and had them involved in the conversation about how this would be useful and you know We understand that the the industry is already sort of doing this this stuff but we wanted to highlight this for For conservation groups highlight this for government agencies and hope hopefully this can be sort of a Basis for you know sound conversations about pipeline sighting when a proposal comes through That we can identify and show why an area is is an area that should be either avoided or there should be enhanced Minimization or mitigation there. So that's what that's what I'm working on Hi, I'm Dale Arnold and I'm with the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation And I really appreciate listening to Susan and Scott and Jennifer and David you've become basically my best friends because What I can also say is this is almost like welcome to my world It's interesting the I'm glad we didn't meet last night basically here in the restaurant or in the bar because I tell you this we could Just start to talking about seven o'clock last evening and we'd still be sitting out there talking today and forgetting about all of you But no When you talk about energy development, it's interesting as this when you talk about show oil and gas drilling development Which has been going on here for the last ten years It's interesting that those current developments those current developments are making us very much aware of a number of Particular issues that have to have been addressed in this region of the United States For a number of decades a number of decades I've been with the Ohio Farm Bureau for 30 some years and I'll tell you this Many of the things that Susan and Scott and Jennifer and Dave were talking about I was helping farmers and rural residents and community leaders address well before Marcellus and Utica shale Development was happening here a number of things have been happening here. I want you to think about this this part of the United States Saudi Arabia of the world In the late 1800s through World War one you talk about oil and gas development It was here and worked its way out the different things before that I'll tell you this I want you to think about this in this area because this is the way I say in Ohio You see successive waves of energy development In the mid to late 1800s first it was timber and I can show you pictures basically in Pennsylvania, Ohio where literally you were planting corn in areas where you're seeing forestation going on now forestation and reforestation that needed to be done coal mining When you talk about shaft mines when you talk about old strip when you talk about new strip when you talk about repair Remediation when you talk about water control many of the things I'm working with farmers basically trying to address a number of issues on coal mines Both subsurface and surface that were closed in the 1950s and 60s and the problems are still in going on today People are seeing with regard to that oil and gas This current stage is probably about the fourth or fifth wage wave of oil and gas development You're correct when you take a look at that map basically in Pennsylvania for the number of wells that were drilled During the first two or three stages of development, Ohio very much is the same over a quarter of a million wells were drilled in Ohio since the early 1900s about a hundred and ten thousand of them are still operational The other ones basically are orphaned or abandoned and many of the problems issues and concerns you have in Pennsylvania You do have here in Ohio and we do have an orphan well program there coal fired electric generation the number of Electric generation facilities that a lot of that coal that was mined here basically has gone to feed in different things It's frightening to see basically how those are being decommissioned taking offline Retired and other types of technology basically are coming in especially natural gas fire turbine generation With that mine you're seeing transmission systems both pipelines as well as electric lines being totally redone and refitted in Ohio That's 39,000 miles worth of pipeline systems alone new old Everything from local distribution to large-scale transmission lines and different things Land-forming repair remediation of ground basically that was disturbed literally decades of goes going on Rare earth mining what you're hearing about You know when we talk about slag piles the waste coal and different things that were used in many of those mining operations Since the early part of the last century The number of companies who know where they're at have them mapped and you're talking about rare earths That are needed for magnets technology electric generation many of our computers here today Large concentrations of those will you see mining again? Basically in this part of Ohio with regard to that the answer basically is yes Which means you'll have to revisit these environmental concerns very much again water quality issues brines acids Ammonious a number of things I can still show you places here in Ohio as well as in Pennsylvania, West Virginia where you still Don't drink the water and consequently the energy production facilities were retired decommissioned buried hidden right after World War two Past reclamation. It's almost I would also say is this is that Multiflora rose autumn olive paper lacquer uses fertilizer a number of different things are going on with regard to that invasive species These are all things we're trying basically to deal with on successive waves of energy development You now have this one and I do have to say and I agree basically with my colleagues here at the table when you take a look at The technology when you take a look at the science when you take a look at what they're doing in different things Do we have a handle on it this time? I think we have a better handle on it this time than we've had in Consequent waves of energy development, but the question is also is this and you are correct here in Pennsylvania as well as in Ohio, you're talking about billions of dollars of economic activity Billions the question is yes, you're going to be using some of that investing in repair remediation of current Types of things you're seeing basically with shale drilling development the question also becomes how much of that should be used this time to take a look at the legacy types of things How much of those resources going forward can be used for repair remediation doing a number of things With earlier types of energy development in this particular region Yes, the companies basically are here to they're saying, you know, we're going to clean up our mess when we leave What about the messes from everybody else who? There were challenges at that time basically with regard to that What is going to be invested in being able to address some of those particular legacy issues? Also, I want you to think about this with those billions and this is always a discussion here in Ohio As well as I'm thinking Pennsylvania in other places Quality of life for the people who are in the area. Yes agriculture is big Animal husbandry and different things, but also too if this is the last wave Of course, we're now down into the source levels with regard to oil and gas development What are we going to do in this region of the United States? When's that leaves? What investments are we making today with regard to education? industry Manufacturing technical work that when oil and gas does leave What are we going to go into next to keep people here quality of life issues regarding that education? Facilities basically for homes villages farms those particular types of things Again That's all part of process. I'm very glad basically to be here. I'm very glad basically to continue the conversation I think this particular point. It's time to start talking. Let's talk. So I've asked all the panelists to Come up with questions that they might want to ask each other I neglected to mention in the overall schedule that we would love to have a conversation with you all also So that we will reserve time for you to come up to the mic and Talk to you talk to us about what's top of your mind Just a couple of things why y'all are thinking about questions. You might ask each other, you know I'm struck by a couple of Themes that have run through your comments The first is this question of what do we do with these historical legacy issues that we know are already there? so this repair and remediate the historical issues that are maybe just finding all of the historical issues a Big challenge when we think about environmental legacy But associated with it is this this preventing them in the first place So I hear some glimmers of hope around improvement of the technology and our ability to actually Prevent the the risk from happening in the first place and I think that leads into what are we going to do in the future? So what do we do with known financial gaps? What do we do with evolving and changing technology? What do we do with with scope and scale? and then I want to I think Dale's the only one who brought up reclamation directly and I want to Tie back to something we've heard a lot in the national conversation and I I Love this will you see mining again? Yes, you will and what are you going to do with this with this next wave of mining after you rec? Reclaimed and it contrasts really strongly for me From a talk that Dave Blatt who serves on the round table has given around North Dakota his his framing of it is What do when the landscape is quiet again? What does reclamation look like? But I love that the direct contrast with the landscape has never been quiet and it may never be quiet In the Marcellus in Utica, which might be quite different than other areas of the country So with that if I hopefully I've given y'all enough time to jot something down or think does anybody have something that they're ready to engage with? Right off the top I'd say I'd be building basically what you've said here because this is my main major question I think we've all hit the nail on the head just a little bit differently is that Legacy issues with regard to things and I know scott's talked about it and Susan's talked about and Jennifer is that you know in years past? We've had bonding we've had programs basically they've tried to attempt to have financial resources to do a number of these things and those basically have either failed or they found out that the technology was much larger than the money that they have collected basically remediated if We're talking about a new strategy Here in the region or nationally with regard to being able to do the repair Immediation and the work that needs to be done What should that look like if these traditional things with that? well, you give me a fee when you do a license or do a bond and different things and Those resources are not Adequate to do those things. What do we do going forward? How do we pay for it? How do we provide it? How big should the scope basically be these see it? So I want to answer that question because I obviously I think about it a lot And before I do do you mind if I just tell you guys a real quickie story? So I want to brace people for some of my ideas And I apologize for some of the folks have heard this little story before but it's about you know being challenged to think about solving problems in new ways and so to know 9th March 2nd 1962 Wilt Chamberlain played like the greatest game of basketball ever in Hershey, Pennsylvania scored a hundred points Yeah, never scored no one scored even close to that sense and That game he he made 28 free throws out of 32 from the line That's the no one's ever made that many free throws and until recently no one's even attempted that many free throws So 87.5 percent from from the line that game to reach a hundred points and Up until that point his career. Well, it was about a 40 percent free throw shooter and but obviously that game He was magnificent in that year. He'd actually raised his His average up to over 60 percent from the line. He was shooting the ball underhand He had a contemporary that played with the man guy named Rick Berry who only shot the ball underhand Hall of Fame or 90 percent free for the shooter career Why am I bringing this up? Why and all I should also mention that well after that year went back to shooting the ball overhand went back To a 40 percent free throw average He if he would kept shooting the ball underhand he might they might have never lost the game But in his autobiography he explained why he did easy. I felt like a sissy I didn't like, you know, people were making fun of me. But why did Rick Berry? Shoot the ball underhand despite the same because Rick Berry it turns out does not care what people think So so I say that because the in order to address this problem We're gonna need to do everything. I mean the problem is money, right? This is one of those things that you can fix it when you have money, but where does that money come from and One of the plate that so one of the solutions to this problem and is a healthy oil and gas industry Since 1989 DPs used its plugging funds to plug 3700 wells now our records indicate over a longer period of time The industry's plug 64,000 wells. They put many many, you know more wells per year than we do so part of this is to ensure that that we don't have a A financial system that just simply puts like smaller operators out of business It's fine for me to say yeah, we need we need full-cost bonding tomorrow Well, what does that mean to a company that might have a thousand wells and now has to come up with what? Tens of millions of dollars, you know the next day. They're more likely It's more likely to induce mass well abandonment than it is to solve the problem So so we have to be we have to be smart about that The other thing we have to do is we have to throw every tool We have at it like one of the tools that we're using is our good Samaritan law coupled with what we call an area of review Well before unconventional folks frack wells I have to look around and find abandoned wells in the area and identify those wells that that might pose a Risk and I've been pretty pleased to see that a lot of these companies are looking at wells that are you know on the fringes Dr. Bradley showed the upper propagation fracture propagation and and and rather than use that as kind of a Barrier folks are being more conservative, but they're also concerned with with excessive plug-in costs So we are we are allowing operators to utilize our good Samaritan Act to try to plug a well And if they're unsuccessful then then they can walk away without without environmental liability Obviously that they create a problem if the well now starts to leak or or if they do frack into it They're going to have to address it But we want to encourage we want to encourage folks when or move every barrier to plugging wells That we can and even that's only going to be like scratching at it So I think we have to start thinking about entirely new ways of dealing with financial assurance like Some of the concepts we've kicked around is having basically a trust administered night by perhaps even a third party like the way we do with mining where every kind of coal money Money goes into a trust administered by I think that's like called a clean water Trust and and as well as mines need to be reclaimed that that money is there So you're now removing the disincentive to keep a well in production that should be plugged because there's no the Financial cost to plug the well is not borne by the operator. It's borne by the trust So those are some of the some of the ideas that that that we have but It's going to take it's going to take every tool in the tool in the toolbox if we're going to even make a meaningful dent on this on this problem It's got I'm curious about the the good Sam piece of it. It seems like this is Just technologically so much more complicated than the AMD issue where like T You've been able to do some some work around that issue But if we were to try to sort of engage in Especially, you know, if we had an oil well that was leaking and in an area that was of concern to us That's not something that we can tackle on our own So the good Sam piece of it has to be you could apply for a CFA grant So please do that but you bring a very valid point Let me ask you this because I'm just thinking of this is that we've been talking here about the producers and don't get me wrong I think there's a tremendous amount of responsibility if you're an oil and gas production company If you're a coal mining company those folks basically taking responsibility To clean up some of the things they've done with regard to that, but I also take a look at to who's the ultimate consumer I Still use gasoline sure I still use electricity Some of it comes from wind solar biomass fuel salt and for coal with regard to that We are all basically dependent on energy and will be for quite some time into the future With regard to that What is our responsibility as consumers with regard to this particular issue and should there be some sort of assessment? Some sort of fee. I hate to say the word tax or whatever with regard to that that takes care of Investing in besides working with the oil and gas production companies and the coal mining companies to producers Additional funds and resources to go for repair remediation those things Do we feel so our local state and national governments basically have a Feeling for that day. I think you're thinking unfortunately just the right way I mean shooting the ball underhand and winning it's not it's not I Know for a fact that people will balk at I didn't drill that well I didn't get to pay to royalty out of that. Well, why do I have any responsibility for it? Well It's polluting the groundwater. It's threatening the safety of neighbors that may have been the same in the same boat If we if we if people think that this is a problem that should get solved Then we have to we have to be prepared to do things that might be a little bit unpalatable if it actually solves the problem So I want to invite Jen to join in the conversation and particularly around the supply chain Well, I have another Just to follow up from what Dale and David and Scott Mention, but I like your analogy for thinking outside the box here Scott And I wonder if you can just reflect a little bit on the debate that's going on in Pennsylvania about Trying to impose a severance tax and if that couldn't I know can of worms there But you know something that the governor has repeatedly tried to get on the agenda And I wonder if that might be a way to help you know fund a trust fund Well, absolutely. I mean other states Are in a significantly different financial situation with just respect to funding the oil and their own oil and gas programs and having other Resources available to them because of having a sensible severance tax This is I'm gonna step back on the environmental protection guy and I'm not the tax policy guy But it's certainly it is certainly a potential Significant source of revenue that could be could could be devoted to this This subject So so we focused, you know this first part of the conversation on I guess first thing That's on top of everybody's mind money. How do we get more money into the system? How is there enough money? How does that work part of what? I think drove a lot of the national conversation were Questions around technological improvements and so I'm wondering whether you all have observed and seen Technology improvements making big enough games to reduce your Here assessment of the risk for future environmental legacy issues And what are those and and how much does that play into how much money might we need in the future? So I'd be happy to start with that because I think I think in this industry deserves some credit I think we deserve some credit for for some of our enforcement actions drove technological change, but None of our enforcement actions got well bore lateral lengths to go from 3,200 feet to 15,000 feet Having fewer well pads having fewer wells getting more gas out of the ground that's solely you know on the industry It's good. It is going to be a Significant factor and the footprint that's gonna need to be addressed But some of the other legacy issues dr. Brantley brought up some you know states like I know, Oklahoma Has a trust fund to deal with cleaning up well sites. They can't plug wells with that money they just clean up the the mess that was left behind and I feel that at shale gas sites because of some of the changes like pitless drilling pitless drilling and fracking Lining the sites completely for spill spill prevention. Those are things that are not going to leave a legacy that needs to be addressed And even like top soil conservation, for example, if you go to a lot of these sites you see this You know mounds it broke with grass growing all over it next to the site That's that's the top soil that's been preserved so that when it comes time to restore sites It's it's available to to get you know, healthy vegetative growth going again. So those are just three three subjects that I think are going to minimize problems that Right, that's that's it's avoidance. We talked, you know, wait minimize. So you're avoiding problems altogether Those are some of the technological changes that we've seen And I would add to that the the recycling of water. I mean, obviously, that's that's a huge I was a huge concern of ours 10 years ago and and the fact that so much of the the Produced water is recycled is an enormous enormous improvement And I would just like to add that and adding another dimension here I would call the financing and the technological sides as necessary, but not sufficient conditions to you know Help us think through these issues. We also have to put on the table Issues of how to overcome the polarization in the debates You know because we have a very divided discussion about Our oil and gas like disease not just in Pennsylvania within the US writ large So, you know, how can we reform our regulatory structure? So that there's more of a what I'll call procedural justice focus where, you know All the different sides feel heard because if I can just reflect like the academic literature shows that, you know one of the key strategies for overcoming polarization in debates such as Unconvention oil and gas drilling is to make sure that every stakeholder feels that they've had an opportunity to Equally participate in the debate. So even if you don't achieve an outcome That's fully what you wanted if you felt that you got a seat at the table then that that goes a long way and unfortunately in my studies of oil and gas governance You know, we're not really doing a good job on that side of the equation Just to just to weigh in on that a little bit. They gave me another From the shield network. I wanted to plug that to No, I wasn't even gonna say that but you can plug it later if you want to but Maybe I guess what interests me is the time scales of response I mean one of the things that I tried to convey was the speed at which The rollout happened in this particular play as the as the companies figured out how how to get the gas out and that happened Way faster than communities could organize. I think it happened faster than the DEP could really respond and I think the DEP Responded as fast and as well as they could but it's you know, it's that time scale Factor and there's a big difference You know getting a community to weigh in on regulations or to wrap their head around what's actually happening in terms of technology Or to understand what the health impacts might be that that time scales long compared to how fast that the industry can Can make something happen and how fast the government can respond and I don't know what to do about that I mean I I earlier this week I was talking to An audience of industry folks and they were decrying some of the research that that happened early on and Wishing that the research that was being published was better and I said well, you know it's very hard to get research funding in this area even though there's a lot of fundamental questions and applied questions and Why doesn't oil and gas find ways to get money on the table to fund academic research without conflict of interest? some kind of mechanism and You know if that was happening it might create You know in roads and conversation, but but that isn't happening and then certainly when you know when new technology is developed There's not the conversation already going in general. So we need to find ways to do that Yeah, and some other countries are doing or are innovating in that space So for example, you know Canada UK South Africa China France Germany and before deciding to go ahead with hydraulic French fracturing and unconventional drilling They can be national level government sponsored scientific panel so that those scientific discussions Happened ahead of the policy debate and ahead of the decisions whether or not to go ahead so that they had a had some start on developing a toolkit That's something that I don't necessarily see happening Across different industrial sectors in the US. So if you move towards more of that model that could help, you know overcome some of this polarization So let me let me bring Dale into the conversation It's interesting you talk about this because you know public public policy going forward and planning I can tell you this with the energy developers and companies. I've worked with the at-now time period When something needs to be done is a 30 year time block They are thinking that far out I'll tell you this one the last times I was in Pittsburgh was at a conference where they brought out the brown rock and black bar rock Marcellus and you to go shale that was in 1995 and they knew then and scheduled out where they were going to be in 30 years and they're only about 18 months off They've known where they've wanted to go Working with communities working with local government officials working basic with regions and different things that where you're doing future Casting where you're doing planning where you're taking a look at particular types of things How do you get them involved in the process? You know when I started talking about that in 1995 96 They all said I was crazy until I got a call from a farmer Near in Columbia and a county said you need to come and talk to me about this guy who wants to do an oil and gas lease Who is he don't know but I think his name is mr. Marcellus and he's from Utica, New York I'm going oh my god. They're here They know step-by-step and they're doing that type of future casting what type of incentive what type of program How do you get people basically involved to take a look at things 35 40 50 years down the line because they're saying I really don't need to worry about that today But in many cases you do and if you take a look at with our legacy issues We're still needing to worry about that. I can still show you places in Ohio, Pennsylvania boy. This looks great This is where coal mine a strip mine was back in 1973. That's all nice rolling hills Let's go over the ridge because I can still basically take you over there and you won't be able to walk 100 yards because It was not done. How do you get folks? How do you get public policy rolling? How do you get communities starting to talk about this that far down the line? So one thing we've been trying that Jen alluded to and Rada saw that it's been involved in is a Conversation which we call the shale network workshop, which we've been holding every year at Penn State since 2012 where we get Watershed groups government folks industry folks academics all-in-the-room consultants and we really try to drive Conversation around data and we push sharing of data And it's been very successful in terms of conversations I get all sorts of feedback every year about that, you know the way the conversations keep going but we've only gone from about 50 people to about 140 people and so Maybe you can generate conversations like that, but I don't know how you scale up and actually make impact that I just don't understand how you do that So This is an area that's near and dear to my heart since all of my work is really around governance and the completely incompatible timelines between technological development regulatory innovation and Communities ability to community and local populations ability to influence and impact the process So I could spend a significant amount of time Sort of wrapped up in this space But I'm struck by what Dale said and sort of the challenge he put to the group Around planning and at what level and what body is the right place to have long-term planning because we're We are locked in From the regulatory side of really doing more of a site-by-site assessment We're locked in from the industry side based on on the Business confidential information that goes into acquiring leases and developing a drilling unit that keeps a lot of that information More confidential and not available for the public I'm wondering whether there is any avenue for doing this broader Planning basis that might start to get out of voiding and minimizing other than for infrastructure, which there's there's a different process I think about that. I also think about short-term Because this question has always come up in many places in Ohio and I think also in Pennsylvania I work with folks there is that picture this and here's my story Scott. All right picture this On top of a ridge in the morning About 730 there's a school bus at the bottom of the ridge is an oil truck You have a lane and a half township road who has right-of-way It doesn't say Well, we all know the safety and the factors basically involved in the school buses being on the road at that particular time with our kids There's nothing basically in state and federal law with regard to that. What did you do? And I tell you we see this happening all the time in a lot places at a county level where you bring stakeholders in At a table about this size and on a very regular monthly basis You talk about the issues at hand You have the folks there basically from law enforcement County commissioners township trustees local government officials Community stakeholders such as Farm Bureau the company's doing the drilling in the air and we're going what are some of the problems or issues or concerns? Well, you really need to address that came up Didn't say what I was going to say in Ohio law and I tell you this technology moves at the speed of light regulations move at the speed of smell Which means this they said okay This is what we're going to do and we're going to spread the word is that between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock That school bus always has right-of-way period and between 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the afternoon the same thing the rest of the time Oil truck they said that's workable not worked in one county. Does it work next door? might not But still and you're seeing us in many places basically in Ohio you're seeing groups around the area if it works there We're good. This is the way we're going to do it Climbing in a county. This is where we're going to do it Guernsey County. This is where we're going to do it Instead of being having black and white rules and propagating black and white rules and regulations Sometimes you have to work in the gray and find solutions local to do a number of things and continue to adapt I tell you for some folks That was a rather frightening I've never had to do that before we've always had rules and regulations And I've always been able to take a look at the book and sometimes basically you don't have the book Do you see that kind of flexibility or is there's that opportunity for that kind of flexibility basically here in the region? I've been talking to a number of I've got an eye on the time so Before you answer what I would like those of you who would like to participate in the conversation to please come to the Mic those of you who are online Please submit your questions, and then I will let the panelists Engage in this conversation for a little bit and then we'll turn it over and get y'all's questions and participation. Sorry Scott. Sure Go Scott. Oh, so so for example with respect to Noise impacts, you know, we've got to start operating in my opinion in more in the realm of like a best practices Universe because we can we can do that quickly and and if we can implement these best practices I'm picking on noise because it's a very much more difficult subject than many people realize To evaluate evaluated noise impact. I mean, it's one thing if you're in the middle of the woods But if you're in like apex township here, there's a lot of different sources of noise And it's much more difficult to people realize but if we can successfully operate in this best practices universe We don't need to step into that that regulatory space I mean one of my little catchphrases is that incidents invite regulation and And frankly if there weren't so many incidents early on then maybe would have stuck with our old law and our old regs And we all would have patted ourselves on the back that and we had it all figured out from the get-go But that did not happen. So change had change had had to had to come The Scott you're talking about being a lot more flexible a lot more innovative and working in that particular realm The handle some things correct well it would if we're going to get it done It is as you say it moves at the speed of smell took us five years to update our our conventional surface activity regulations And then we and then we got sued and we're still being sued over them So it we've got to start to try to start doing things a little bit differently to win The David you're like that you have a Relationship with industry at this point where you can look out. Well, I'm working on that Yes, I think that we've definitely got a much more cooperative working relationship now than we did in even October of 2016 and And you know to your community engagement, you know, I had a really successful meeting with Huntley and Huntley and plum township folks no plum township This isn't a community without resources and in fact the neighborhood. I was in You might have heard of Dick Thornburg. He was living there So I'm pretty sure that guy can make some phone calls and get things to happen if he was upset And we just had a meeting where Huntley and Huntley Told the people where where they're gonna be and what they're gonna do and that that just eased a tremendous amount of concerns It wasn't wasn't vague is very specific the pads going here the water withdrawal points going there We're using a pipeline to move it in our trucks and that degree of specificity Really seem to put people at ease. I think it's a model. We should engage in DEP industry Engaging communities, you know with with some of the specifics of their of their immediate plans Their communication of what we know. We don't know goes a long way Go to the mic Great. Hi, I'm Adam Pelt from the environmental defense fund. First of all, I love this panel talk about all these issues for Days and weeks and months and years and I'm sure we will But Amy's prompt was what's at the top of our minds on environmental legacy issues and I want to go back to an issue that Scott brought up earlier about a company that has bought 25,000 wells and has a Very small blanket bond. So So this is This issue of financial assurance bonding idle well rules and plugging schedules For legacy assets is probably one of EDF's biggest concerns in in in this space. And so this company Which came into existence private equity company came into existence around 18 months ago has bought 60,000 wells in Appalachia. So I think the largest Collections in Pennsylvania, but they also have maybe 17,000 in West Virginia and a huge number in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia as well They may be the single largest operator by wells in the United States now And so they're a publicly traded company And their financial statements show that the amount of revenue than that that they expect to get from these wells even in their You know a rosy picture does not even come close to the plugging liabilities and And because of the rules and laws and some of these Appalachian states as Scott said no bonding for wells before 1984 You know private equity companies like these are able to take advantage of Regulatory loopholes squeeze money out of these wells and then you know probably at some point go bankrupt and leave the states holding the bag which will You know could come to the many billions of dollars West and it's an active live issue right now because the this company is still Purchasing more wells and they're they're trying to purchase 6,000 in West Virginia There's probably going to be a hearing in that state on this if it is it'll be the first transfer hearing. I think in in West Virginia DPs history but figuring out how to reform the bonding rules how to Not have blanket bonds for transfers which Arkansas and California have adopted, you know, how to have idle well rules that Don't allow, you know a single MCF a year to keep the wells out of At a plugging responsibilities I think that a way forward would be for the Appalachian states, especially Ohio Pennsylvania, West Virginia Who I know the regulators have met before and as a tripartite regular conversation I think this issue of you know this company in particular But also preventing future companies of this sort from taking advantage of the states to get together and figure out Options and plans of actions other states have policies in place that that stop this sort of activity Or at least curtail it and so looking at whether those sorts of rules could be imported Into this region. I think would be useful and and I'll also say on the technology Front that plugging costs, you know if plugging costs plunge Then this would be a much less of an issue now. That's somewhat Pollyanna ish But there are new plugging technologies that are coming online to use Resins rather than cement that I've seen some figures that you get a better plugging job for much less money much faster So I could imagine DOE FE the fossil energy branch putting some money into this I mean, there's there's, you know, real high value in getting it at the At being able to cheaply plug all these legacy walls Sorry for it so boxing But it's important So regular the necessity of regulatory innovation as well as technological innovation for addressing Another consistent theme as well as the challenges around well and the problems that that can lead to Does anybody on the panel want to respond? I've got a completely different subject that I wanted to bring up and that you brought up like planning and one of the challenges that That we have is frankly its private property ownership We can do all the planning we want and the guy says I don't want that pipe I'm I signed the lease and it says I get to say where the pad goes and where the pipeline goes And that's kind of the end of that We're not going to we're not going to Have imminent domain for well siding and for gathering line siding in the state It's just not going to be a political reality So now we need to look at other tools that we have. How can we incentivize the kind of? Eco to address the ecological issues. I think we're fundamentally talking about here So we've got some people at the microphone, but I also think we have we have any online questions that Can you say how many of the 200,000 unplugged wells in Pennsylvania have no location All of them Why yeah, we just don't of those wells. We do not know where they are at. We know we're about 11,000 of them are so lots of known unknowns Hi, John Stoltz Duquesne University. It's great to very glad that you're putting this together and to hear this esteemed panel Looking forward to this afternoon as well. I did want to make a comment about the complaints and in Pennsylvania between 2004 and 2016 there were 9442 complaints large with the DEP regarding oil and gas operations over 4100 of those had to deal with water issues So that's number one secondly although the data that sue showed that it was a downward trend by 2012 that also correlated to a decrease in drilling and by 2014 that trend reversed itself So it's clear that we still have issues because if you look at the number of complaints Compend to the number of wells being drilled unconventionally and I can actually say that the data also says the conventional guys are not to blame That that there's a Parallel to that so we still have some issues the other thing with regards to the legacy issues I've analyzed now over 1200 water samples across the state Focusing mostly on southwestern, Pennsylvania But most of the impact that I see in private water wells is from legacy boiling gas and coal and yet It was stimulated by the new activities because It's rather rigorous. So again, we have this issue where if we focus only on the fracking We're ignoring the fact that this operations these operations can Exacerbase these legacy issues and the loss of potable water for many of the citizens of Pennsylvania I think you bring a very valid point because you're seeing the same thing in Ohio and again Like I said the beginning of my point this new technology These new issues bring to light a number of problems that we've seen case in point I'll tell you in Ohio You know the regulations say if you're going to do a new horizontal drilling array Within so many feet of where that well pad is going to be you have to sample every Well in that particular area prior before you bring the first truck in to do the first spot Now I would also say this One of the things that we've been working on too is this is that in many places in Ohio You see housing stock. It's over 75 years old and You see basically when you talk about on-site wastewater management with septic sewer systems in septic tanks and those many of them in Ohio until very recently You had no inspection once they were created We've had a number of issues where you've done that testing and other like the University of Cincinnati Studying others have done testing with regard to that and found these issues before drilling has started and You have people here basically that really need to work on and in many rural communities on Mass redoing their on-site water systems for many of those folks That's six to seven thousand dollars a shot to redo a septic tank and do redo a water well The question also becomes basically is this once you open that up and people discover that and you have several hundred people under that issue How do you pay for it as the county government? Which means this when you're doing these kind of tests is in different things and many folks have found this out too Is that this is also a law of unintended consequences because when you're looking at one type of technology and one type of issue Other issues are going to surface that you were going to need to address And how do you do that? And then to add to this too the pre-drill testings is only for gas wells It doesn't include pipelines or injection wells and in the case in Grand County that I was involved But we had to go and provide free water testing for about 30 families because they couldn't afford it And yet they live within a two-mile radius of the injection well And yet they weren't going to get their water tested prior to in Ohio We have a lot of small towns that grew up in the coal industry in southeastern Ohio who all have water towers because it got to be so prevalent in the 80s and 90s that you literally those small towns that had all those You know the company store in different things and all those small houses had their own septic tank and their own water well They saw the problem USDA Rural Utility Service we worked with them I remember helping with regard to write a lot of grants at that particular time where you did those municipal water systems to address Not For just one second because I want to keep I want to check in on the time We have one more question standing. So I'm looking to people who actually can give me some some guidance So are we good to go for a couple more minutes? so at that I Scott spoke first Sue spoke more More assertively So you two are muscle for who I just wanted to say that I appreciated that last speaker For our online audience. It's it's a John Stoltz at Duquesne University. I appreciated your comments I didn't want the audience to think that I had intentionally stopped it 2013 and and was trying to be duplicitous It's it's actually difficult to pull all these data together and look at them And that's as far as I had done in that region in that respect So, you know, I honor your comments, but I didn't want it to be out there that I was like being duplicitous about Complaints Morning, this is a Great program. My name is John Balacas. I'm with Woodard and current and this question actually is for mr. Arnold. I'm a farmer I'm a professional geologist. I'm intrigued that Ohio has been able to convince its farmers Because I think at the end of the day farmers probably own more water supply wells than anybody else does it have a That's a pretty good voting block certainly in in our state of Pennsylvania But how did you end up getting regulations in place for water well constructions? I don't think we Construction that you have there. Yeah, it's interesting at this and I tell ya I will preface that by saying we've done a lot of education work with folks And we've done a lot of oil and gas development since the beginning of the last century and The collective experience that we've had with horizontal drilling the 30s 40s 50s and 60s solve that we Needed to do a number of particular things And consequently one of those had to do with current technology in the 1960s Especially around Mount Gilead with the Tupelo gas strike where that was the last Unspaced Wildcat strike basically in Ohio where you saw water problems around Chesterville And all had to do basically with the casing construction at that time You saw successive things with regard to the cement and the layers also to Going back to 1913 In many counties in the state in 1930s you did well records Which means this when you drill the well you had samples and you knew every geologic layer Where you were going through when you were drilling and the water table and from border to border iron our entire Water table is mapped which means when you went to drill a well You knew exactly where it was at and you knew exactly in your permit What your diagram would be with regard to cementing with regard that to protect the particular well in Ohio That was precision if I understand correctly and I can stand to be corrected working with some of my friends in Pennsylvania They had some idea with regard to that there were targeted areas But there was not the precision that you saw off the data in Ohio That's what I believe saved us and why we have those regulations have had for some time No, thank you because I think at the end of the day when we talk about these issues in Pennsylvania Ohio, Texas other states have come up with a mechanism to address Some of the questions that I've heard here today, and I think it's one that is a legacy issue of regulation or lack of regulation in Pennsylvania that I think eventually will have to be addressed As well, and I guess it's also directed at we actually attempted to promote Waterwell construction legislation and it was basically labeled a communist conspiracy, right? That's why I bring it up And again, sir, I'll tell you this the incidents were in central Ohio Morrill County where you saw this happening consequently that was in 1963 That was in reaction in a direct result basically of the issue that we had basically at that particular time Again, I can understand where Scott's talking about with regard to Pennsylvania what we encountered in 1963 You started encountering now with Marcellus and you take a shale and you're again If you take a look at the history and I was very young at the time You saw a tremendous amount of debate To get those rules and regulations basically in place. It was not a slam done deal And so that type of public discourse that type of education and outreach and things those types of challenges Were addressed at that time and I'm sure our folks in Pennsylvania are trying to address them here Okay, thank you If I could just ask one brief question, which would really go to the rest of the panel Which is about the Merriam paper with landscape context matters I know it involves try to limit it in USGS and I just I didn't hear brought Didn't hear brought up as one of the more recent publications about how essentially USGS has looked at landscape and well and guest development in Pennsylvania and has Come up with what I think is a bit of a nuanced context for the interaction of landscape and Development and if anyone wants to speak to that great It's a I guess it's at early 2018 paper from USGS and and I think try to limit it. So Thank you. Yeah, if it's try to unlimited it wasn't it wasn't in my on my radar screen So I'm sorry. I can't speak to that. So We are at time and it is lunchtime I want to thank the panel for just what I had hoped a free willing and engaged conversation And thank all of you for participating Do I is there anything logistically that I need to say about lunch? It's out front. Go eat it It's out it's out the doors and look forward looking forward to continuing this conversation Thank you very much