October 5, 2026 · ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURAL RESOURCE PROTECTION · 12,099 words · 10 speakers · 69 segments
Okay.
Okay, this meeting of the House Environmental Committee will now come to order. Evan, would you take the roll?
Vitale. Present. Brown. Designation. Fleming. Designation. Hohenstein. Designation. Isaacson. Designation. Kazim designation, Mazaco designation, Freelatan designation, P.L.E. designation, Salisbury designation, Steele designation, Taborcio designation, TACAC designation, Webster designation, Radar. Here. Bashlein. Designation. Day. Designation. Flick. Designation. James. Designation. Kephart. Here. Mahaffey. Designation. Pugh. Designation. Stender. Designation. Twardzik. Here. Wendling. Designation. Zimmerman. Designation.
Okay. So when we said we have designations for those members, we meant we had leaves for those members since it's not a voting meeting. Okay. Let's stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Okay, so today we have a public hearing entitled Road Spreading of Oil and Gas Wastewater slash Department of Environmental Protection's Mineral Brine Permit. Brine is a colloquialism for oil and gas wastewater that comes out of, in this case we're talking about conventional wells, but they also come out of unconventional wells, in the course of the drilling process. The wastewater is a concern, as we will hear from testimony, for a number of reasons. It has a high salt content, a couple of times that of seawater, but more importantly contains certain toxic elements, most notably radium, a radioactive element. It's estimated that about 185 million gallons of this wastewater is produced per year. We heard testimony in a prior hearing on this and we hear it I believe again today that it is no more effective than rainwater in suppressing dust I mentioned dust suppression because right now even though it prohibited by administrative action this so-called brine is routinely dumped on gravel roads as a dust suppressant. Again, we will hear testimony that this is no more effective than rainwater. There is legislation, which I've introduced this session and in previous sections, which would by law prohibit this practice. What makes this subject topical is that on May 12th, the Department of Environmental Protection issued a so-called mineral brine permit in a settlement with BCD Industries, which allowed BCD, and DP can kind of correct me if I'm not getting this right, allowed, this permit would allow them to take out this wastewater from at least one of their wells. It's unclear what sort of testing might be done on this or what uses might be done on this. It's feared this may be a loophole of some sorts with regard to ultimately legitimizing this practice. It's also been suggested by at least one knowledgeable commentator that the issuance of a permit to extract this may serve as a pretext for not plugging wells because it would still in a certain sense be active. With that, we have a number of excellent speakers today. Starting off on our first panel, and I apologize if I botch names, Seth Polepko of the Office of Oil and Gas Management, Ali Tarquinio-Morris, Deputy Secretary, Office of Waste, Air Radiation and Remediation, will be our first panel. Our second panel will be Dr. William Burgos and Eric Chase, both of Penn State. Third will be David Hess, who's former secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. Next presenter will be Holly Fischel, Director of Policy and Research for the Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors. And finally, Shannon Smith, Executive Director of FratTracker, which I mentioned has filed an appeal of this permit. The ground rules are the same. The segment of each individual speaker will be 15 minutes, but each speaker will be limited to eight minutes with the balance of that 15 minutes be for questions from the members, which would be me and you in this case. And, right. So with that I will ask Chair Rader if he has any comments on any comments Okay. With that, we can begin. Whoever wants to start would be fine.
On behalf of the department, I'm going to deliver the prepared remarks. Deputy Secretary Tarquino Morris and I are both here to answer questions. I estimate it will be about eight, ten minutes or so for me to deliver DEP's remarks. So we'll get started here, if that's okay.
You guys got a half hour, you can go ahead.
Sounds good. Good morning, Chair Vitale, Chair Rader, and members of the Pennsylvania House Environmental and Natural Resources Protection Committee. On behalf of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, we want to thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today and to discuss the topic of road spreading of brine and the brine permit that was recently issued by DEP. I think it's important to start with a little bit of background. Here at the top we talked about semantics and technical terms. To that point, brine is also referred to as produced water, produced fluid. We'll hear numerous names, oil and gas, wastewater. And it's found in reservoirs that also often serve as sources for oil and natural gas here in Pennsylvania. It's commonly referred to as brine, to your point, Chair Vitale, because of the high concentration of dissolved salts. But it is a complex mixture of other constituents. These could include oil and gas constituents, heavy metals, other potential pollutants. The composition can vary pretty significantly. That's typically a function of the formation from which the brine is extracted. There has been a fair amount of research on this topic. I think contemporary research, from what I can tell, has really picked up. A lot of it's focused on brines that are produced here in the Appalachian Basin. and some of that work has looked at chemistries and also compared to other products that are used as road palliatives, either for de-icing, dust suppression, those kind of roadway maintenance applications. And this research has confirmed that there are potential impacts to natural waters when brine is used for these kinds of applications. Some of the researchers have found that the natural composition of some brines may actually be ineffective, no more effective than rainwater or not treating. In some cases, there has been some research that has shown that certain brines could actually have deleterious impacts when applied to dirt and gravel roads. They could actually serve to destabilize the road depending on the composition of the brine. And DEP had commissioned a study with Penn State and Dr. Burgos that issued some of those findings historically. I'd like to talk a little bit next here about differentiating between waste brine and product brine. I'm mainly going to look at this through the lens of regulatory pathways. So under the current regulations and laws in Pennsylvania, when brine is co-mingled with any oil and gas that's produced as a primary product, it is considered residual waste. And in order for an operator to be compliant, they must manage that brine as a residual waste Historically DEP had a guidance document that authorized the use of waste brines extracted in association with the production of natural gas and oil for dust suppression purposes. However, in 2017, the agency discontinued those practices. Any party currently interested in using waste brine for roadway maintenance or other applications must now successfully demonstrate a beneficial reuse. And beneficial reuse demonstrations fall under the waste program regulations at the department. I think it's also important to emphasize that there are no current valid demonstrations of beneficial reuse right now in Pennsylvania. We look at, we receive reporting data every year. Oil and gas operators are required to report their production. They're required to report their waste streams. required to indicate how they ultimately manage those waste streams. And so when we come across a situation where an oil and gas operator is reporting that brine is being used for road spreading, we interrogate those kinds of claims in our reporting system due to the fact that there is no current valid demonstration for waste brine to be used. There is no current co-product determination. on DEP banned the use of unconventional brines associated with shale gas development for any kind of use in roadway maintenance applications. That ban has been codified in Chapter 78A at this point. Switching gears to what is known as product brine and one of the matters we're here to discuss today in the BCD properties well application, there are currently two operators in the Commonwealth, Seneca Mineral and BCD Properties. They produce brine as a product from a total of four wells. All these wells are located in Erie County. If you look at this region of the United States more broadly, it's known as the Appalachian Basin, drilling deep wells to produce brine as a product is not uncommon in this region. A recent query of public records shows that over 1,000 brine wells have been drilled in the adjoining states of Ohio, West Virginia, and New York. 166 of these were listed as active when I last queried those records. From the records that are available that I looked at, many appear to be operated by chemical companies, major salt manufacturers. My sense is that those Those are likely injection wells that have an underground injection control permit. And again, this is my sense. I haven't verified this yet, but we have a lot of salt deposits in the Appalachian Basin at certain depths, and you can get a UIC permit to solution mine those where you would inject fluid into the subsurface, dissolve the salts, and you would bring it back to the surface as a concentrated brine, and that could be used for various commercial products. If you look at the adjoining states of Ohio, West Virginia, and New York, all of them administer some kind of program. It looks like these programs are specifically focused on beneficial reuse of waste brines for de-icing and dust suppression applications. So there is a reference for this kind of activity in the adjoining states. In Pennsylvania, as I mentioned, the Seneca Mineral Company operates three brine wells. These have been in production approximately 60 to 70 years. The company is required to report production to DEP annually, and during the 2025 reporting year from those three wells, they reported 2.4 million gallons of product brine were extracted from those wells. The agency is also aware of the customers of these companies. There are several dozen municipalities in DEP's northwestern region that purchase brine from Seneca Mineral. And as we mentioned here at the top, in April 2026, BCD Properties submitted a permit application, presumably looking to enter into this market of selling brine to customers in northwestern Pennsylvania, and that was an application to produce brine as a primary product. That permit was issued on May 12th of 2026. I'd like to next spend a little bit of time talking about the permit issuance. The permit issuance is, when it comes to B-City properties, is specific to the drilling, construction, operation, and ultimately the decommissioning of the well that has been permitted. It's known as the NILCO No. 6 well, and I believe we submitted the permit along with our testimony today for reference. DEP's permitting authority for a well such as this is established in the Oil and Gas Act, and regulating brine wells under the Oil and Gas Act and the associated statutes and regulations really affords DEP with many compliance and enforcement tools. It allows us to introduce operational safeguards, obviously specific to the operation of this well, in order to ensure that wells like this will not impact the environment or public health and safety. and this is focused on the drilling, construction, operation of the well. Many provisions are pulled into the regulation of a well like this, anything from addressing earth disturbance activities, site preparation, management and disposal of waste streams that may be created when this well is operated, site restoration, setbacks, protection and restoration of water supplies that could be impacted by the operation of this well, well bonding, and ultimately decommissioning. In addition, if you refer to the permit application, which was provided as an exhibit, DEP imposed a series of other special conditions for the operation of this well. Some of the matters addressed include reporting requirements, enhanced well construction requirements, well logging, the proper management of brine that's produced and handling that on the site. So holistically, these provisions that are focused on the drilling, construction, and operation of the well allow the agency important regulatory oversight when an operator is drilling a well that's several thousand feet deep. But I'd like to talk about this supply chain, if you will, more holistically. The brine is produced at the well, and then, of course, it will be sold ultimately to different customers. So I think it's really critical at this point for the agency to be focusing on end use of any brine that's produced. So the Department's decision to issue the brine well permit really does not authorize the end use of the brine. Just like any other commercial product that might be produced and that contains potential pollutants any party purchasing commercial brine cannot use it in a manner that causes pollution or threatens pollution of waters to the Commonwealth The agency believes, as I mentioned, that it's really critically important now to focus on the end use and uphold protection of the natural waters in this Commonwealth and to prevent pollution. And we're focusing right now on reducing the potential for pollution from the use of brine as a dust suppressant or for roadway stabilization applications. Not long after the permit was issued, the agency convened a cross-functional work group of experts across many different business units, if you will, within our organization, and that group is charged with evaluating the current state of the research, some of which you'll hear about later today. Other brine usage regulatory oversight programs, we talked about some oversight programs in adjoining states and really consider all options for developing a robust regulatory framework surrounding the end use of brine. The work group is also advancing conversations with road palliative experts and working to develop outreach and education programs for our important local government partners, many of whom are the primary market for brine that's produced at these wells in the Commonwealth. There's another component to this. We're currently meeting with our Northwestern regional staff and oil and gas staff to consider cross-program inspection activities and the regulatory oversight surrounding this operation. So I do want to stress that if the Department identifies any impacts associated with the use of brine, we have the authority to take action, to take enforcement action. That's all I have in terms of prepared remarks. I just want to thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony today, and we're here to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you.
Since they're just the two of us, I'll get all my questions out of the way. I'll take a while, and then you can take a while. First of all, thank you. I mean, I'm a big supporter of the DEP. it's not your fault you're understaffed it's our fault you do the best you can with the staff you're given nothing I might say today should be interpreted as a criticism of you I think you're doing great okay Okay. I mean, having said that, you know, it's – one problem I'm having is you issued this brine permit to Danlico. BCD Properties to Danilco, number six well. Yeah. Yet there's a well like 500 feet away that can't do this, and the mineral composition is virtually identical. I mean wouldn't you agree with that the the brine permit you issued the composition of the brine that's coming out is virtually identical to a well 500 feet away which is considered a waste product and what I trying to understand is that since you know your own commission study indicates you know it's not effective as a dust suppressant has toxic elements like radium. High salt content can affect streams. I mean, I'm trying to understand like why you would issue a mineral brine permit to give to a company to use this product, if it's identical in composition to what is prohibited by you guys from dumping on roadways?
I think this gets back, well, there's a few things, and thank you for the question. It gets back to the two regulatory pathways we talked about, and it's specifically defined in our regulations that when you have brine that's associated with the primary production of oil and gas, it's a residual waste, and it would be managed under the residual waste regulations. The product brine, and you're correct that the well is 500, 600 feet away, which is not uncommon for well spacing. I think the primary reason DEP chose to exercise its permitting authority is that there's a concern that a well like that could be drilled with no regulatory oversight. And in my experience, not having any regulatory oversight for the drilling of a 3,000-foot well, and not having the authorities afforded to us under the Oil and Gas Act to manage that well from cradle to grave, introduces some potentially concerning situations. To your point about the composition of the brine, we've looked at a number of studies. There is some variability. My sense is that compositions will be similar in similar formations. I know for the Denelco 6, the company had targeted several formations, the Ariskany, Sandstone, the Salina formation, and then there was a Dolomite formation that I believe is provided in my testimony. So I think we would look at it not only from a map distance, but also vertical formation. But I think the real issue is when it comes to composition, I think that has to be a primary consideration in the work we're doing now to regulate the end use. If the well is not producing brine that is effective or has constituents in it that could impact waters of the commonwealth, those are the considerations that we're looking at in our current regulatory framework with the work group I had mentioned. I think it's important that we establish some kind of framework around the end use for any brine produced at that well If I hearing your testimony correct I mean you really don have control over
how this is going to be used. And it's my understanding, the statistics I read are that 85% of drillers don't report what they do with their drilling waste. And you have, and even though you have 185 million gallons produced a year, only about 93 million gallons are accounted for. So it just seems like there's this inability, not your fault, I know you're under-resourced, but there's this inability of the DEP to understand what's the brine that's being produced, how much, and control where it's being dumped. It just seems like statistically you just can't do it. You just can't do it. And so, I mean, my concern is, you know, doesn't this mineral brine permit just make it worse? You're sort of opening up this legitimate pathway for the legitimate production of a substance which is identical in composition to something you're prohibiting. And you don't have the ability to really stop its illegal use now. I mean, does that concern you?
I think it's a priority for us. It does concern us, and that's why we're currently focusing on establishing a regulatory framework that looks at the end use. We do have a number of authorities under various statutes and regulations. One that might be important to mention here is under 9134, any party who's using a product that contains potential pollutants, we can solicit plans from those parties to see how they are taking steps to prevent impacts to waters of the Commonwealth. There was a very tangible risk that the well, without us permitting it and establishing that regulatory framework on the drilling and construction and production, that the well may have been drilled anyway outside of any regulatory framework. And then there would be two parts of that supply chain that would need further work, regulating the well itself and then regulating the end use. I know from looking at historical records, you're correct that there are some gaps in our records for reporting. That's an issue that we address, that's a priority for us, that's something we are actively working to address from a compliance and enforcement standpoint on a routine basis. But when we do look at those historical records, we see that about over the last 10 years or so, and I think this was submitted as an exhibit as well, the most waste brine that was used for road spreading was 8% of the total volume. The last several years, operators have reported about a million barrels of waste brine to our system. So I guess one point there is there's not a large market necessarily for products like this. And it's really important for us as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible, to stand up a regulatory framework that addresses the end-use concerns that you have.
Chair Vitale. I'll just, if I could also add, I'm sorry, is that better? To your point about well A is drilled 500 foot from well B and aren't these materials the same? I think that's a question mark that exists in the information that the department currently has. You know that the department operates under a high burden of proof when making regulatory decisions and permitting decisions. And so part of our aim is to close that gap in information and make sure that decisions that are made regarding ed use are based on a statistically significant representative of samples to get to your point as are they different or are they the same. Because your point is well noted. Why is one regulated under the waste program and the other There is not, and shouldn't we be concerned about both? I think fleshing out that concern is part of the work that Seth is referring to that's currently underway at DEP. Well, why would, I mean, same formation, a couple hundred yards apart, why would the composition vary to any great extent? I think drilling techniques, and I'm not even sure. Seth is the geologist, not me, so I'm not sure that they are in the same formation. But based on what we have so far is we might have sample data from one well that tests for 20 different parameters. And then at the second location, we have sample data that tests for 20 different parameters, or maybe five of them overlap. And so those are kind of the gaps that we're looking to close. Okay. Okay. I want to leave Chair Rader a little time. Thank you so much, Chairman. So I'll take a little time. I also support DEP heavily, and it sounds like from your testimony that you can enforce what you need to enforce. So I appreciate your testimony. I have no further questions. I mean, the only other thing I would note, I mean, on the enforcement issue, last time I checked the oil and gas program, was it around 170 or 180? and I think we had John Quigley come in a while back saying you could use, I'll use his words, north of 300 people. I mean, how are we going to get you more people to make the conventional industry be accountable?
We currently at just to update numbers we currently at a complement You know we have some vacancies that are transient like any large organization We're authorized to hire up to 190 in the program that supports the policy development and central office of rulemaking development as well as the district operations. That's where the vast majority of our staff are located. And we have the federal programs as well, EJA, about 41 staff there and five that oversee the Department of Energy's methane emission reduction program. For issues like this, and it's the reason Allie and I are here today, it's important to have cross-program coordination. And I think our, you know, as you see, it spans the oil and gas program, the waste program, talked a little bit about Chapter 91 and the ability to solicit plans that we have under 9134. it's important to pull the expertise that the agency has to really come up with a plan here to regulate the end use. And any situation that could result in impacts of the waters of the Commonwealth, I think that's a priority for us. And I think we have the experts at the table that we would need in a circumstance like this, and we're working to develop solutions that we can implement here to regulate the end use.
Okay, well, thank you. Oh, yeah, Rep Geppert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Well, I would have to say that some of our conventional friends, I would say, are heavily regulated. I know of DEP visiting one well for one company three times in one week. I would say if you can't inspect something three times in one week I would say you have plenty of staff there maybe they could transfer it around I mean the idea that DEP is just so underfunded and so lack of resources I can name lots of DEP officials that could probably be moved around if they need them in some other areas some of them I think just go out for joy rides during the day and I'm not sure what they do, but we don't need, trust me, as someone that worked in the energy industry, I can assure you we don't probably need as many in certain areas. Maybe we can move them around, but I just wanted to, maybe there is some people in the conventional industry that need supervised, but I would say there's a lot of good actors in the conventional industry that have done a lot of good work for the environment and replugging and everything else that has saved the taxpayer a lot of money and benefited the environment as well. Like I said, I know of one instance where there's three times in one week on one well, and it wasn't like it was a troublesome well. It was just something to do, I guess. I don't know. But anyhow, just like real-life experience in this of Nicole, I know how that works. But anyhow, I just wanted to comment about that.
Thank you. Okay. I think we've come to the half hour point. Well, thank you so much for coming. Keep up the great work. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Our next panel will be Dr. William Burgos from Penn State. And we have Eric Chase, but we don't have a title. I want to title you correctly. What's your title? Is there a doctor there or Okay then I not bad Okay assistant teaching professor Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies Penn State Okay, very good. Okay, I think we are right on schedule. So, I would say that please either one of you go first and yeah, you know,
the ground rules. All right. Thank you. My name is Bill Burgos. I'm a professor of environmental engineering at Penn State. I've been there since 1995 and have been conducting research on environmental impacts of conventional and unconventional oil and gas development in Pennsylvania for the last 10 plus years or so. I have seven main points that are in the written testimony so I'm just going to go through them one by one. One, produced waters from conventional oil and gas wells are commonly no more effective than rainwater in suppressing dust from dirt and gravel roads. We've already heard the Chairman mention that. We developed laboratory testing procedures to determine dust generation from road aggregates, validated it with field experiments and basically proved that finding. We also found that in some instances you could even generate more dust from roads that are treated with produced waters from conventional oil and gas wells as compared to rainwater. Number two, produced waters from conventional oil and gas wells contain elevated concentrations of radium. a known carcinogen, and other contaminants of concern. The combined radium activity in conventional oil and gas produced water in Pennsylvania typically ranges from 1,000 to 8,000 picocuries per liter.
Is your microphone on? Is there a... It shows green. It shows green. Okay. Okay. Yeah, maybe just move it a little closer to your... Okay. Yep. Okay.
So the combined radium activity in conventional oil and gas produced water in Pennsylvania typically ranges from 1,000 to 8,000 picocuries per liter from multiple different geologic formations as far as this is an aggregate spatially as well as vertically through the different petroleum bearing formations. and in comparison, the U.S. EPA drinking water standard for combined radium is 5 picocuries per liter. There's other contaminants of concern, including petroleum hydrocarbons, lead, chloride, and bromide. Number three, brines sourced from conventional oil and gas wells and sold commercially for dust suppression and ice control also contain elevated concentrations of radium. LS25 is a brine product sold by Seneca Mineral Company. We purchased this product and tested it and included it in a publication, and the combined radium activity in LS25 was 1,900 picocuries per liter. Aqua Selena is a brine product sold by Duck Energy in Ohio within that same sort of Appalachian oil and gas production area. Aqua Selena is advertised as a liquid brine product but it had combined radium activity of 1 picocuries per liter So the important part here is that radium is inherently present in the source brine regardless of the production status of the oil and gas well. If it's making hydrocarbons or if it's an exhausted well or if it was a well that never produced hydrocarbons, it still has that same source brine coming out of it. And so while these products might be advertised as natural liquid brines, they're all naturally radioactive as well. Number four, produced waters from conventional and unconventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania are not substantially different. So we've done a lot of testing on conventional oil and gas formations, unconventional Marcellus shale gas, unconventional Utica shale gas, relatively large sample sizes to statistically compare these, and it's extremely challenging to chemically distinguish between conventional and unconventional oil and gas-produced waters in Pennsylvania because so many of the major constituents and the pollutants of concern have overlapping concentrations and ranges. Yet, the PADEP has already permanently banned road spreading of unconventional oil and gas produced waters, while there is only a temporary moratorium on road spreading of conventional oil and gas produced waters. Five, produced waters sourced from conventional oil and gas wells will not be effective dust suppressants because of their high sodium concentrations. High concentrations of sodium relative to calcium and magnesium in all oil and gas-produced waters in Pennsylvania is the problem. And not to get too into the chemistry, but calcium and magnesium are so-called divalent cations. They have a charge of plus two, which allows them to bind clay minerals together and sort of knit them together and stabilize the road surface, suppressing the dust. Sodium, in contrast, is a plus-one cation, which tends to disperse clay particles and destabilizes the road. We've tested many oil and gas brines, and we also made up a bunch of synthetic ones where we purposely controlled the sodium and calcium and magnesium contents because there is a parameter called the sodium adsorption ratio, or SAR. It's more commonly used in looking at agricultural fertility purposes, but this SAR ratio is a ratio of the sodium divided by the calcium and magnesium, and so you want a low SAR value for the brine to be effective as a dust suppressant. And so we found that a SAR value less than 3 was quite effective as a dust suppressant, while a SAR value greater than 15 would be predicted to be ineffective. And the typical SAR values for Pennsylvania conventional oil and gas brines is 60 to 70, clearly chemically in the not going to work as a dust suppressant. They could work for ice control. You know, they can work to melt ice. But because of that high sodium content, they're not going to be very effective as dust suppressants. Number six, produced waters fail to meet EPA's criteria for beneficial reuse or DEP's criteria for co-product designation. These criteria are that for the beneficial use or reuse of an industrial waste in one industry going into another potential use is that they perform as well or better than the material that they're going to replace, and that using the waste product does not increase risk of harm to either the environment or human health. And on both of these criteria, we've demonstrated through different tests that they failed.
Doctor, you're at the eight-minute point, so you can just kind of quickly.
And then so the last one is that land application of produced water from conventional oil and gas wells into unlined pits has already been shown to be an unacceptable disposal practice. There was a report prepared for State Senator John Peterson's Joint Technical Committee for Oil and Gas Development, and they concluded that land application of produced water from conventional oil and gas wells was unacceptable because it increased concentrations of chlorides that they were looking for down gradient of these disposal pits. And so I'll end by saying that there is regulatory precedent for banning road spreading of produced water from conventional oil and gas in Pennsylvania. It was adopted as soon as that 1997 report was completed as far as land application into pits, and also that road spreading is banned for unconventional oil and gas-produced water, which geochemically is difficult to distinguish from conventional. Thank you.
Very good. Eric?
Thank you. Good morning. I appreciate being here today. My name is Eric Chase. I'm an assistant teaching professor and the assistant director of the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies. In my position at the center, I coordinate research for Pennsylvania's $35 million dirt, gravel, and low-volume roads program. Most of my research focuses on aggregate selection, maintenance practices, and dust and sediment production from unpaved roads. I have collaborated with the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, DCNR, Susquehanna River Basin Commission, and many others in recent years on road research, including working with Dr. Burgos here at Penn State on oil and gas produced water disposal. I was a co-author on a number of the papers Dr. Burgos discussed today. One of my duties as the assistant director is the program's product approval process, which reviews dust suppressants and soil stabilizers for funding eligibility for that $35 million dollar program. It was established more than 20 years ago before my time and it rigorously tests products to support the conclusion that there's reasonably certain to cause no environmental harm. This process is consistent with section 9106 of the vehicle code which requires counties to adopt standards quote that prohibit the use of materials or practices which are environmentally harmful unquote So I want to discuss kind of three foundations of the program with respect to oil and gas formation produced waters or brines related to dust suppression and that effectiveness environmental impact and road maintenance. It is a taxpayer funded program so it's imperative to make sure that number one these brines work and that they do no harm and they don't cause additional road deterioration because we are a road program. As Dr. Burgos testified here, we have found that they do not perform as well as commercially available dust suppressants, mainly due to the high sodium content. So they don't work any better than water. You might as well be getting a water truck and watering your roads. You get about the same effectiveness. In addition, we have found that they tend to destabilize the road surface as Dr. Burgos just spoke to the monovalent cation the sodium the plus one tends to disperse the fines and the silts that actually hold that road bed together and the surface matrix together and so once they dry you get some effectiveness when they're wet just like you do water when it rains once those dry they actually tend to disperse the clay particles that hold together the matrix of the road so we tend to see more rutting more raveling of the road driving up maintenance costs, which is the complete opposite of what we're trying to do. We're trying to reduce maintenance costs for the townships and municipalities that this program serves. So there's lots of those fines. It has also been shown to destabilize not only the road surface, but as it gets into the roadbed, the strength actually decreases in the roadbed. It's been shown not only here in Pennsylvania, but in other places such as Minnesota. The other thing that happens when salts are repeatedly applied to dirt and gravel roads is those chlorides leach into the roadbed and it actually depresses the freezing point of the water that's held in there.
And so it causes the road to thaw earlier and go through more freeze-thaw cycles. If you've ever driven on a gravel road in the spring, you notice how they're a little bit soft. Well, that's those freeze-thaw cycles that are happening. And so by extending those, we get more rutting, more road damage, and more maintenance. The other thing is the calcium chloride and the magnesium chloride that is a constituent in these brines tends to hold water into the roadbed in the spring, making them softer and more vulnerable to rutting and plowing damage potentially. And then as far as environmental concerns, we are an environmental program. The dirt gravel low-volume roads program is an environmental roads program to reduce sediment and erosion and sediment getting into our waterways. There is concern also for the chemical composition, as we've talked about already here today. High chlorides are mobile. They can get into the environment. They can get into people's wells. There's issues with radium. We found that the mean chloride concentration in LS25 and Aqua Selena, the commercially sold brines out of our brine formations, are around 182,000 milligrams per liter. the the product and process program that we have for our standard is 250 milligrams per liter so more than 700 times greater than our drinking water standard for our product approval process therefore that no chloride based products have ever been used in our program we don't feel that they're good for the environment or good for our roads radium we do have a standard for radium for dirt and gravel roads program of 15 picocaries per liter and we've seen ranges from 84 up to 2500 picocaries per liter in these oil and gas produced waters here in Pennsylvania. So again much greater than our standard and they would not be allowed to be used within our program So taken together these findings show that the oil and gas produced waters would fail multiple environmental testing protocols as part of our program posing a risk to the environment. They're ineffective in suppressing dust and can also destabilize our roads driving up our long-term maintenance costs. For these reasons the oil and gas produced waters would not qualify for use within our program and ultimately their use is is counter to the program's goals and the fundamental law that created our program. Thank you.
Maybe I'll make sure the members get their questions in before I do. Any questions? Okay. Do you have any thoughts specifically on this new mineral brine permit? and the reasons for it, as you may have heard described by the DEP testifiers. Any thoughts on whether that should exist or, you know?
Well, like I said before, they're mentioned, you know, commercially available products, LS25. that has 1,900 picocuries per liter of radium in it, right? Drinking standards 5, another standard within the Rhodes program is 15, so it's exceptionally high. It's radioactive. Aqua Selena, a product source in Ohio, and I believe maybe no longer available for sale in Ohio, had over 1,000 picocuries per liter. And so, again, the brine reservoir is much larger than the pockets of petroleum hydrocarbons that are there. The brine reservoir is, you know, these are very large, you know, natural liquid chloride brine, but they don't advertise that it's naturally radioactive. And they're all radioactive because of the age of these waters and the long time they've had to interact with the rocks that are down there.
So you're saying that there are alternatives to using brine for the various de-icing uses that are significantly less radioactive? Is that what you're saying?
Well, with respect to ice control, more people use rock salt, or now we do a lot of anti-icing where you see the race stripes put down before the storm because it's basically less salt, less chloride that you're putting out into the environment. It's an improved practice with respect to winter maintenance. So again, back to the chemistry side. Sodium's 1+, calcium's a 2+, radium's a 2+. So radium tends to go where the divalent cations do. So the rock salts and the sodium chloride brines that we use for ice control don't have much calcium, don't have much radium or radioactivity. But, you know, and we looked at this and reported on it. But there are some calcium chloride commercially available products that had hundreds of picocuries per liter of radium You know it like Aquasalina or LS25 They not reporting these things because nobody asking them to. But for ice control you wouldn't have high natural radioactivity in rock salt or sodium chloride brides.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I don't – anybody else have any questions? Well, very good. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for coming here today. We really appreciate your testimony. Next, we will have David Hess, who is the former Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. David, it's always great to see you.
Good morning.
Full disclosure, David and I go way back, and he's a source of advice to me. I'm a very valued resource to help this politician figure stuff out. So thank you for that publicly.
Well, good morning. I was trying to remember when the last time I was in this room. I think it was when right after I got done inspecting garbage trucks down in York. so I do smell a little better today. I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today on this critical issue that involves environmental concerns, health, and worker safety issues of managing contaminated water from conventional oil and gas wells. My name is David Hess. I served as the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection under Governors Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker. We're here today discussing contaminated water from conventional oil and gas wells because we have failed to provide solutions to managing these fluids in a way that is compatible with industry operations and meets environmental health and safety requirements. The solution to this problem cannot be the continued dumping of more contaminated water, mineral brine, production wastewater on our public roads or anywhere else. As you heard this morning from DEP, importantly, and from Dr. Burgos and Eric Chase about the composition of this material, whether you call it mineral brine, whether you call it production wastewater, it's all the same stuff. It has at least 25 chemicals in it that violate environmental standards. And let's be clear, it is contaminated water that we're talking about. And it's also clear to the conventional oil and gas industry. They have been discussing what to do with their produced water for years at the DCED Crude Development Advisory Council meetings. And at the last two meetings, they've been very clear about what this mineral brine permit does for them. It opens up a pathway to legalize all their production wastewater as a product. You only have to review minutes of those meetings to understand that point from the conventional industry and a particular operator, Dave Hill, that he was confused by this mineral brine permit because it's the same stuff that he's been dealing with on the production waste side. So why doesn't DEP allow it for everything? Not me talking, this is the conventional oil and gas industry. I believe the solution to this problem is to treat contaminated water as a resource and to take advantage of the capabilities Pennsylvania's oil and gas industry already has to deal with this issue. We already have a sophisticated network for reclaiming and reusing contaminated water from conventional and shale gas wells in Pennsylvania. In fact, Pennsylvania's shale gas industry pioneered world-class methods of reclaiming and reusing contaminated water in its operations. That is an envy of the industry. Thousands of trucks, miles of pipeline, storage and reclamation facilities are already here, dedicated to this purpose in the same areas conventional oil and gas wells are located. The result has been up to 93% of all shale gas wastewater is recycled or reused in its operations. I propose we develop a good-neighbor conventional oil and gas contaminated water recycling program that requires the recycling and reuse of all contaminated water produced by conventional wells by the shale gas industry at no cost to conventional well owners. The up to 100 million gallons of contaminated water produced by conventional well owners, and the numbers vary because DEP doesn't have any waste information on 81,000 conventional wells in its files. Whatever that number is, it's a drop in the bucket, maybe around 3% of the over 3 billion gallons produced annually by the shale gas industry from other contaminated water and freshwater sources. The details, I believe, can be worked out with an industry, public, and stakeholders working together in a special task force convened by DEP. Pennsylvania's shale gas industry has the opportunity here to be a good neighbor using its expertise to solve the contaminated water problems of an entire sister industry. In 1999, the General Assembly passed and Governor Ridge signed the Environmental Good Samaritan Act to encourage third-party reclamation of abandoned coal mines and plugging abandoned oil and gas wells. Today, I believe the shale gas industry has an unprecedented chance to show real leadership and to be a good Samaritan in a way that will benefit the environment, public health and worker safety. Again, I thank you for the opportunity to be here to present this and to answer any questions. Thank you.
Rep. Gephardt.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Hess, for being here today. I guess I have two questions on this One is you say that these or you just said that these wells or pipelines are basically in the same area But a lot of the conventional industry is in northwestern PA the western part of my district I have a lot of gas wells. Coincidentally, I just had a coffee club with a couple of these guys randomly, and they were concerned about this. But anyhow, how do you propose that they're going to transport it when they're not in the same area per se? I mean, one of the things that we complain about in my area is we don't have pipelines because we're not fracking as much then, and we lost a lot of revenue over it. Or you said about the trucking. I mean, that's a diesel 650 a gallon. That's a lot to haul over the road. That would be the one question I have is how do you propose doing it? I mean, we're going to build more pipelines then, which I know a lot of people are probably going to be opposed to. and then the second one is this task force you mentioned um you put in your your written testimony i don't know if you said it but you said oh we can work it out later with industry i've been around the energy industry very heavily at home and i don't think there's anybody that's going to trust the government and whoever other stakeholders are to work it out later. I mean, we have been hammered. So additionally, without general law, how does the task force have any authority to do so? I guess that would be also my question on that. So thank you.
Sure. Just briefly, you have a couple questions there, obviously. The first one about trucking, they're trucking it now. So they're trucking it somewhere now because they have to collect it, they have to take it to some point or as we have evidence from a number of different people, they're dumping it on the roads illegally. So they're trucking it now. So I don't see a lot of difference there. That's an expense that if they're doing things according to the law, they are trucking it now. Logistics in this is difficult. There's no question about it. But, you know, the shale gas industry, you know, has done a lot of amazing things with all the logistics that they put together for using water. The pipelines I'm talking about are typically above ground pipelines that go from storage or treatment or reclamation facilities to their shale gas well pads. Okay, it's not like a natural gas gathering line, things of that sort. And those issues do have to be worked out, but I firmly believe they can be. I mean, you look at, I mean, one of the advantages of being in the environmental business that I'm in, was in for 50 years, is you've seen these sort of issues tackled and solved. And you've seen them tackled and solved by a number of different industries. The coal industry was totally revamped in the late 70s and early 80s by the passage of laws. Passage of law in this instance, I think, would be welcome and would solidify a solution to this problem that no one has come up in the last 10 years, 20 years, with a solution to this particular problem. This is a potential solution that takes care of the entire problem of that particular industry, which would be unprecedented Another example is the service station industry and their underground storage tanks That industry really upgraded all their requirements They had thousands of people owning these storage tanks Landfills. Town dumps disappeared, and we moved to safe landfill facilities all across the state. So this is not unprecedented that you tackle an issue like this that may seem difficult, and it is, but we've done it in the past. I don't see why we can't do it now.
I guess my point with the trucking was they're going to have to take it a heck of a lot further. So if you're worried about emissions and so forth, now you're going to put more emissions out there. but additionally, it's $6.50 a gallon to haul. Not exactly cheap right now, but if you have to go an extra 100 miles round trip to say, just add 50 miles one way, that's 100 miles. I mean, these trucks are getting a few miles to the gallon. You're burning a heck of a lot more diesel fuel. That's my point on that was, is it really that much more beneficial?
Well, first, we don't know what the entire logistics picture looks like, But second, again, they're doing it right now because you have conventional operators that are taking, some conventional operators, that are taking it to treatment facilities, injection wells. You have the shale gas industry that's taking wastewater to Ohio by truck. It is a complicated infrastructure. There's no doubt. But again, these folks are doing this stuff right now. What I propose is that you make the conventional brine, mineral brine, wastewater, a choice, a mandatory choice that they incorporate into their system. So they're doing a bunch of stuff now. what I'm suggesting is that we provide a more attractive option for conventional well owners to take their material someplace where it's going to be properly managed.
Okay. Rep. Tickack?
Excuse me. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Hess. Two questions. One is simply in your Good Neighbor conventional oil and gas program, you mentioned that it should be at no cost to the conventional well producers. And I'm just curious about that. But also, and I'm not a chemist, but understanding that the processing that happens with the unconventional industry is pretty sophisticated and robust, as you mentioned. Is there a world in which you can treat the conventional brines, the produced water, to remove those unwanted contaminants in a sense, right? The radiums, the sodium, and actually optimize what is left over for what we want, which is the road stabilization and those sort of things. Is that, has that ever been considered or is that something that is just not commercially viable? I'm just kind of curious about the chemistry of how to treat those. Well, I'm not a chemist.
But what I do follow is what has happened to the treatment industry in Pennsylvania And that is a true horror story because there are very few places that are commercially viable that treat this material. You just had the example of Eureka Resources that had three facilities, one in Bradford, two in Lycoming County. They went bankrupt. One of the things you hear over and over and over again from the conventional industry, frankly at these meetings where they talk about these issues is they don't want to spend a dime to take it to a facility, have some sort of disposal fee that the treatment facility typically would need as part of its business structure to provide treatment to this. So I'm looking at the track record here of these treatment facilities. In West Virginia, you have different notorious examples of where companies went bankrupt and just left the facility for, and in Ohio, left the facilities for the state and taxpayers to clean up. So the track record there isn't that good. So what I'm suggesting here is another path that would have more success and takes advantage of the kinds of facilities we have.
If I might just real quick, but wouldn't they then be producing a commercially viable product if they were able to decontaminate and optimize what was left over? Again, I'm not a chemist. Presumably, they were providing some sort of product to somebody.
But again, the track record is the industry doesn't want to pay, and these facilities have a hard time staying in operation. I don't think the shale gas industry is going to have a hard time staying in operation. So I think that's a more viable path at this point.
Now, you said about cost, and I will volunteer this. There is going to be a cost to the shale gas industry. That's obvious. But again, you're looking at 2% or 3% of the water that they handle right now, potentially,
depending on what the real number is that the conventional operators produce. My old job working for Senator Fisher and Senator Brightbill, at a certain point in negotiations on legislation, probably toward the end, you would talk about, is there a financial incentive? At that point, I would reach down in my desk drawer and pull out from the bottom drawer a proposal that would maybe have a tax credit for that purpose or some other mechanism. But the key thing I wanted to bring out in this proposal is we need to solve the problem. This is contaminated water however you artificially try to redefine it. And it is now harming the environment. You'll hear testimony today. You'll see testimony from people like Siri Lawson and others in your packet. It is harming the environment today. So we need to talk about solutions, not artificial ways of redefining something that DEP, the science, and apparently most everybody else understands is contaminated water.
Okay, well, thank you.
We are beyond the 15-minute point. I apologize.
Always. No, not your fault.
It's always great to have you here. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
We'll continue to talk, and thank you for coming today. Okay, next we have Holly Fischel, who's the Director of Policy and Research for the PA Association of Township Supervisors. Holly, welcome.
Thank you.
Great to see you, and please begin when you're ready. Sure.
Good morning, Chair Vitale, Chairman Rader, members of the committee, and thank you for the opportunity to present remarks on behalf of the 1,453 townships of the second class, represented by our association. Again, I'm Holly Fishel and our Policy and Research Director for PSATs. In rural townships across the state, it is common to have unpaved low-volume roads made of dirt and gravel. In fact, 17,500 miles of dirt and gravel, low-volume roads, are the responsibility of municipalities, many of which are owned by townships. These unpaved roads provide access to our agricultural, residential, commercial, industrial, and recreational assets of our Commonwealth. One of the major challenges of dirt and gravel roads over the summer months, particularly in dry years, are dust complaints, which in addition to coating everything in a layer of dust can create a visibility hazard and create poor air quality conditions that can be particularly challenging for those with sensitive health conditions. As you've heard earlier, until 2018, municipalities could receive permits from the state DEP to use salt brine from conventional oil and gas wells for certain road maintenance activities. Township officials found this product to be affordable and particularly useful for dust control and road stabilization on dirt roads, particularly in the north-central and northwest regions where brine was available. At the time, townships could apply brine products under the rules and regulations created by DEP, which included avoiding areas near streams, not applying before predicted rainfall, and applying with established application rates. This was an economical and easily accessible way for rural townships to mitigate these issues. Available dust control and soil stabilization options now include expensive petroleum emulsions, synthetic fluids, acrylic solutions, and recycled steel slag. There are currently eight products approved through the dirt and gravel program that are also eligible for purchase with liquid fuels funds, and those funds have declined due to more fuel-efficient vehicles in recent years. The cost of the currently approved products far exceeds that of brine from conventional wells, and our member townships report mixed reviews on the effectiveness of some of these products as well as accessibility issues with them. Rural townships simply don't have the resources to afford such products, and costs can approach those of tar and shipping the roads. For those townships participating in the North Central Region All-Terrain Vehicle Trail, DCNR does provide reimbursement for dust suppression and road maintenance for the 200 roads that are part of that trail. And the average cost per mile of that dust suppression is $2,475. They've allocated about half a million dollars for that expense for that program. A 2023 report on the trail pilot program identified dust from dirt and gravel roads as a safety concern from limited visibility increased sedimentation in adjacent streams, degrading air quality from suspended particulates, and creating a nuisance to residents along those roads. Townships have found this program to be very helpful. However, costs for using available products continue to be out of reach for other roads that are not part of that program. Some products have been the most beneficial, can be hard to obtain, or require a significant delivery cost due to the distance from the vendors to the roads that need these applications. The loss of the use of conventional salt brine for dust suppression and road stabilization had a significant impact on our members, particularly those very rural townships that have a low population and tax base, often due to large amounts of agriculture and publicly owned roads. Our members passed a resolution at the time asking for the DEP permit program to be reinstated, which was renewed by our membership in 2024. As such, the association does support the development of a new program through DEP to permit the use of conventional salt brine for road maintenance activities with appropriate oversight. PSAT supposes a permanent prohibition on the use of brine from conventional wells for road maintenance purposes. And again, to be clear, our concerns are with the use of brine from conventional wells. We're not aware of anyone ever using them from and are not advocating for the use from the unconventional wells. Thank you very much for your time.
Paul.
Thank you, Chairman. Nice to see you, Ms. Rischel. Thank you for being here. Quick question. I mean, we just heard testimony that said that the brines actually destabilized the road and are no more effective than water. It sounds like you disagree. The townships disagree. It seems like a pretty basic fundamental thing to disagree on. So just curious.
Yes. I mean, I'm providing what our members years of experience that that is what their experience was, is that it was effective for road stabilization and for dust control. And realize there could be many different chemical components in the different types of brine that they may have been receiving as well.
That would seem to be pretty foundational to this debate. Otherwise, we're talking about two different things. And, you know, the degradation of roads, particularly in rural communities, is real, right? The rutting that happens, the constant kind of upkeep and all those kind of things. If we're actually working against the longevity of roads, you'd think we would want to know whether we were doing that. So I think that's probably a good question for us to ask. And certainly, again, why raise the issue of the other options? They need other options. They need other, if this is not going to be one that is ever going to be allowed again, we need other available options that are affordable and effective and can get them to the areas that need them. I imagine there are townships in your jurisdiction that are not in the conventional gas region who have gravel roads. I guess my question is do you know what they do and do any just use water Because I think we heard study results that indicate that this brine is no more effective than water as a dust suppressant So do you know if any of your townships just use water?
I've heard of that being used as well, just using water when they had nothing else to use. I'm not sure how widespread it is. Usually when we reach out with those questions, they are trying to use different products, see what products are available and how they work. Some of the concerns we've heard are some products that may work are expensive and they're not currently inauthorized, again, for liquid fuels purposes. So that would be one of the funding streams they would be looking at. So certainly, again, trying to find other options.
Yeah. I mean, you would think water's kind of cheap. It is. I don't think it works very long term. At least that's my understanding is that it is used on a temporary basis if there really is nothing else available. Okay.
Any other? Well, thank you so much for coming today. We really appreciate your testimony.
Thank you very much.
You have a good rest of your day. Okay. Our last testifier will be Shannon Smith, who's the executive director of FracTracker. And I've mentioned FracTracker has filed an appeal with regard to this so-called mineral brine permit. Shannon, thank you for coming today.
Thank you, and good morning, Chairman Vitale and Chairman Rader and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As you said, my name is Shannon Smith. I'm the Executive Director of Frack Tracker Alliance, which is a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that has worked since 2010 to make information about oil and gas development accessible transparent, and understandable to the public. Our work includes tracking oil and gas wastewater and how it's managed and disposed of, and that includes the road spreading of brine. I've personally been with Frack Tracker since 2019, and I have more than 15 years of experience as a public health advocate. In June 2025, I captured a video of a truck spreading brine on a road in Erie County, PA, which I believe we're going to play here and if not I have a screenshot for you. The truck was clearly labeled brine and I knew that Penn State researchers including Dr. Burgos and Mr. Chase had studied the practice at DEP's request. Their research found as as they testified today that conventional oil and gas wastewater is essentially no better than rainwater at controlling dust and has documented contaminants including radium moving off of treated roads and runoff. And DEP itself has acknowledged concerns about salts, heavy metal, and other contaminants reaching surface water and drinking water supplies. So after I captured that video, I called the township supervisor who told me that the brine came from a quote-unquote DEP approved well owned by BCD Properties. I looked into it and found that DEP had sent BCD Properties Inc a letter on April 16 2025 stating that its co determination for a nearby well in Erie County the Danelco 4 well, did not meet Pennsylvania's regulatory requirements. So for those who are unfamiliar, a co-product determination is basically a self-certification process that allows a waste generator to classify a material that would otherwise be regulated as waste as a commercial product instead if certain regulatory requirements are met. BCD then appealed DEP's determination to the Environmental Hearing Board, but that appeal did not constitute an approval to continue spreading the material on roads. Yet only weeks later, that material was being applied to a public road by a township that apparently believed the practice was authorized. I filed a formal complaint with DEP's Waste Management Program, and DEP determined that the Danilco 4 brine could not be used for road spreading as a co-product, and the remaining material was ultimately sent to an injection well in Ohio. I don't fault local officials for not being experts in Pennsylvania residual waste law. they should be informed clearly and in advance whether a material being marketed to them may legally and safely be applied to a public road. While the Danilco 4 dispute was still pending, Frack Tracker learned that DEP had issued another permit for a nearby well, Danilco 6, on May 12, 2026. As we discussed earlier and as Chairman Vitale mentioned, Danilco 6 is approximately 500 feet from Danilco 4 and on the permit application the well type was listed as other and described as mineral brine. Frack Tracker had never seen a permit for a mineral brine well in Pennsylvania. The Danilco permit apparently anticipates the production and sale the commercial distribution of of brine by requiring BCD to report how much brine it produces and distributes and the customers receiving it. It prohibits that material from being mixed with what the permit itself calls waste brine or with brine from wells permitted as oil and gas production wells. At the same time, the DEP issued permit says that any oil and gas produced by the Danilco 6 well must be managed and sold as waste. in the permit itself. So in the Danilco 4-well permit, oil and gas is the product and the brine is considered the waste. At Danilco 6, approximately 500 feet away, the same general
the brine is apparently the product while the oil and gas becomes the waste. Yet the same general categories of material, gas and brine, are coming out of the ground at both wells. And DEP did not require chemical or radiological testing of the brine as part of the well permit before authorizing its production, even though the permit expressly contemplates distribution to customers. Fractracker has appealed the issuance of the Danilco 6 well permit to the EHB on several grounds, and the board will ultimately decide whether the permit was issued legally. I'm not here to address that question, but only to highlight that the existence of the permit, legal or otherwise, is difficult to reconcile with what we already know about the potential hazards of brine from conventional oil and gas formations. And it raises serious questions about whether and how DEP intends to regulate the use of brine produced from this well. The public is not currently being protected from these risks and there is a lack of transparency around when and where this oil and gas wastewater is being introduced into the environment. DEP's own experience shows how difficult it is to monitor road spreading of brine when the system depends so heavily on operators reporting it themselves. Fractracker recently analyzed Pennsylvania's 2025 oil and gas production and waste data. DEP confirmed that it received no information about waste generation or disposal for approximately 81,000 conventional oil and gas wells that year. More than 56,000 of those wells reported oil or gas production, but no waste information. DEP has acknowledged this reporting gap and is considering changes to its reporting system including requiring operators to explain when no waste is reported These gaps make it difficult to know how much oil and gas waste water is being generated where it going and whether it being managed appropriately DEP should investigate the reporting gaps, require operators to correct incomplete reports, and take enforcement action, including civil penalties, when violations of waste reporting requirements are established. the situation with bcd properties illustrates this broader problem frac tracker analyzed dep's public well and waste data and found that bcd properties operated 101 active wells as of june 10th of this year yet we could not find public oil and gas waste generation or disposal reported by bcd after 2017 db's own efforts to investigate road spreading have revealed similar problems. In 2022, DEP contacted 26 operators that had reported road spreading of brine during the previous year. Two said the reports were errors. 13 said that they would stop road spreading. Two submitted information that DEP said did not constitute valid co determinations Nine did not respond And DEP later testified and again stated today that it had not identified a single co determination that met the department regulatory requirements for the road spreading of brine and yet the practice has clearly continued. DEP itself recognized the larger problem in testimony before this committee in 2024. The department said that road spreading of brine was not authorized in practice, describes concerns about contaminants reaching surface water and drinking water supplies, described and noted that conventional brine had not been authorized by its oil and gas program for dust suppression since 2017. Most importantly, DEP testified that the administration is supportive of this clear ban on the practice. So Frack Tracker urges this committee to advance a clear statewide ban on the road spreading of oil and gas wastewater and formation brine, including material characterized as mineral brine, a co-product or a commercial product because those classifications do not by themselves change the chemical composition or potential environmental risks of the material being applied Thank you Well thank you Do we have any questions Well that wonderful
Thank you so much for coming today. We really appreciate your time and effort and your advocacy, so thank you very much.
Thank you, Chairman.
Okay. This concludes our hearing. Chair Rader, do you have any closing thoughts before we adjourn? Since this might be our last meeting, I just want to thank you for your service. Oh, no, you've got a couple of months. Okay. Almost two months. Just in case. I appreciate your service to our state. Thank you. Okay. If there's nothing else, then meeting's adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.