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New Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Map Still Incomplete

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What was once a laborious, mishandled process for public access to information about oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania still is... but in the past several years it’s improved ever since unconventional shale drilling (a.k.a. fracking) hit the Keystone State like a rototiller on steroids. And despite a sleek new mapping tool recently launched by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the real secret in the sauce — fracking sauce that is — is still as elusive as ever. frac_focus_depState and federal regulations continue to allow drillers to keep their fracking mixtures “trade secrets” while also permitting them to pump the poisons into the ground. Sure, some companies report some of the chemicals they use on “Frac Frocus” (Frac Focus) which DEP links to under the Resources tab of its data tool, but what's a recipe without all the ingredients? DEP doesn’t control the laws leaders write, it can only enforce them — or not. (For those details see “File Review” below.) So no fracking chemical listings for the well in your backyard, kids. But at least DEP’s Oil and Gas Mapping system does have the state’s Exceptional Value (EV) and High Quality (HQ) waterways as an optional data layer (Check the link for more about drilling waste burial near these sensitive water supplies).

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