CHARLESTON —  Environmental forces express a sense of urgency when it comes to getting Marcellus regulations penned into law, but so far, the Legislature doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush to get the job done.

And with so many heavy issues surrounding the fledgling industry, including air and water concerns, as well as surface owners’ rights, environmentalists say lawmakers need to get moving.

A select committee has been at work in interims sessions and plans two more meetings in the Sept. 12-14 gathering.

“I think it’s urgent,” said Carol Warren, project manager for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

“If we had a moratorium, OK. But while they’re piddling around in the Legislature, this is all moving ahead. We need protection for our citizens from these things. We need our water to be safe. We need our air to be safe. We need our homes protected. There’s a whole laundry list of things.”

For starters, Warren said any law must provide additional inspectors so the Department of Environmental Protection can keep a close watch on the drilling and extraction operations.

“We really need more inspectors,” she said.

“They’ve shown that when the drill casings are being cemented, and things like that, those are points in the drilling activity when things can go wrong. Yet, we don’t have enough inspectors to go and see that that’s being done right, and see that there are not going to be leaks and the casing is OK before they proceed.”

One suggestion called for a permitting fee of $10,000 as a revenue stream to pay for extra inspectors. Some considered this steep, given the comparatively smaller charges in surrounding states.

Yet, when drilling outfits stand to reap millions in profits, said Warren, “I think $10,000 is just kind of a drop in the bucket.

“Many other states already have more inspectors, already have more people in the field, so maybe they have other dedicated sources in their state budgets to help pay for their DEPs,” she said.

“Just to say that they (fees) shouldn’t be higher than other states’ is ridiculous, because other states may not need to do what we need to do here in West Virginia in order to protect the citizens.”

For now, the ranks of inspectors, numbering from about a dozen to 15, are stretched thin, but Warren isn’t sure just how many are needed once Marcellus shale drilling goes full throttle.

But the existing crew is “totally inadequate for the 59,000 active wells we already have,” she said.

“You hear that no wells get inspected every year, so they already don’t have enough,” the environmental leader said.

Warren said the DEP needs to come up with a figure it feels is sufficient, since that agency can number the wells.

A second major source of contention lies with the rights of surface owners, who own the land but not the minerals that lie underneath the topsoil.

Mineral rights likely were sold a century ago by unsuspecting land-owners, unable to see into the future and how the coal and gas underneath their property would become so valuable.

“The people that sold them never foresaw this,” Warren said.

“They didn’t see a 70-foot drill rig, 200 feet from your house, with lights flashing and running 24/7, and a football field-sized pit with lights in it. Nobody could have envisioned that.”

Julie Archer, representing both West Virginia Citizen Action Group and the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization, echoed Warren’s concerns.

“There are no pre-permit incentives to encourage the driller to work with the surface owner in planning where and how access roads will be built, maintained and reclaimed,” Archer said.

“For horizontal wells, the proposed legislation would give surface owners ‘at least 72 hours’ notice prior to entry to survey and give them an additional 15 days to comment on a permit. While this is more than surface owners get now, it is not enough. We don’t think it’s asking too much to require drillers to negotiate a written agreement with surface owners, to require them to post an additional bond that guarantees the surface owners compensation for damages.”

Archer said such provisions should be applicable to all wells, not just the horizontal variety. In fact, she said, multiple problems exist with the conventional gas well drilling.

“Regulations should be based on the amount of land disturbed and water used, rather than whether a well is ‘vertical’ versus ‘horizontal’ or ‘deep,’” she said.

The majority of Marcellus wells are horizontal, but some vertical ones also are being drilled, Archer noted, and normally disturb from 3 to 5 acres and require as much as one million gallons of water not addressed in the pending legislation.

A select committee with an equal number of five delegates and senators began with the “weakest” legislation, so there is much room for improvement, she said.

Water withdrawals that siphon up to one million gallons per well, right out of the public’s supply, require particular attention in any bill sent out, Warren said.

“It’s a huge issue,” she said.

“The waters of our state belong to the citizens of West Virginia. It would be nice if they, like, asked. Just be polite.”

A picture sent to Warren depicted an operation literally sucking rocks out of a stream that had run dry.

“In little communities, people rely on that,” she said of the tiny streams. “That’s their water supply. If you sucked that up, their groundwater is gone.”

As things stand now, there is no way to tell if another company is taking water from a stream.

“There could be three companies, all oblivious of each other, withdrawing from certain parts of the same stream,” Warren said.

“Although it might have been OK if one of them did it, none of them know the other two are doing it. We need some kind of process. People’s need for their water supply should come first.”

Millions of gallons are involved per frack, with an average of five million gallons, which is a tremendous amount for a small stream to yield, the OVEC official said.

Air emissions pose another genuine threat, and the Legislature needs to find a way to address this as well, Warren said.

In a single county, 15 wells could be running in fairly close proximity, all of them coughing up soiled air that poses a health hazard, she said.

“They have a variety of toxic chemicals, volatile, organic compounds, coming out of those,” Warren said.

“We need some kind of monitoring event, especially where there are several wells in different areas.”

A fact sheet at her disposal depicted 24 known dangerous air pollutants associated with 595 products used by gas companies. Along with some fracking standards, OVEC wants the Legislature to pursue some epidemiological studies in drilling areas.

“We’re finding out here in West Virginia that our life expectancy is among the poorest in the country, and it’s not because we’re poor and fat,” Warren said.

“A lot of that is, I’m convinced, because of these chemicals we have to live with.”

Studies recently have linked public health maladies to poisons common among coal operations, which find their way into the air and water supplies, she said.

“There are some really serious health impacts,” Warren said.

“I hate to see that just written off by industry people, or advocates for industry, saying, ‘Oh, those people are just nuts. They’re crazy. They’re just trying to get money.’ Nobody gets sick and walks away from their house because they want money. We say we want people to come to West Virginia. We want educated people to come here that are highly skilled. I’ve got news for them. They’re not going to come under a situation in which they have to have a drill rig 200 feet from their house and can’t buy any property where they own the mineral rights and their air and water stand to be poisoned. Why would anybody move here?”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com