WEST TRENTON, NJ — After draft regulations were put on hold in 2010 in the Delaware River Basin, high-volume slickwater hydraulic fracturing (fracking) was effectively temporarily banned. Now, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has announced, that it may consider new regulations regarding fracking in the basin.

A press release issued on September 11 said the proposed draft rules “would include prohibitions related to the production of natural gas utilizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing within the Delaware River Basin.” So fracking may be banned in parts or all of the basin.

But the release also says that the new regulations “would also include provisions for ensuring the safe and protective storage, treatment, disposal or discharge of hydraulic fracturing-related wastewater where permitted and provide for the regulation of inter-basin transfers of water and wastewater for purposes of natural gas development where permitted.”

On September 7, the Associated Press reported that DRBC was considering a ban on fracking, and that brought praise from environmental groups. But after the DRBC issued its press release, a coalition of six environmental groups issued a statement criticizing the development.

Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, said, “With this resolution, the DRBC is poised to roll back the high level of protection from drilling and fracking for shale our watershed now enjoys. While posturing the possibility of a ban on fracking in some parts of our watershed, the resolution opens the door wide to many of the most devastating impacts that drilling and fracking for shale brings to waterways and communities. As a result, we must oppose it.”

Wes Gillingham, associate director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, said, “Today’s action by the commissioners opening up the process to permanently ban fracking in the basin could be a positive step forward. Their press release references the possibly of water withdrawals and waste disposal ‘where permitted.’ Catskill Mountainkeeper believes a ban on fracking should include all of the impacts of fracking, period.”

Not surprisingly, industry groups also found fault with DRBC’s move. The president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, David Spigelmyer, said in a statement, “DRBC’s latest action—another example of the out-of-the-mainstream activist agenda that has taken hold in Pennsylvania—flies in the face of common sense as well as settled science. Regulatory overreach and a fundamentally broken permitting process costs local jobs and investment without helping our environment in any way, and puts our economic prosperity at risk.”

The DRBC was sued by the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance in May 2016, arguing that the DRBC did not have the authority to regulate fracking in the basin. That case is now being considered by the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.

The commissioners of the DRBC, which is responsible, among other things, for maintaining water quality in the river basin, is made up of the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and a representative from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who reports to the president of the United States. 

The governors of New York and Pennsylvania are thought to be sympathetic to the adoption of a ban; New Jersey’s Gov. Christie is opposed; President Trump has expressed the view that most impediments to drilling should be removed and his administration would almost certainly oppose a ban; a spokesman for John Carney, the governor of Delaware, told The River Reporter in the past that he would carefully review any regulations regarding fracking before taking a position on them.