Scroggins, who was one of the first to demand specific
information from inspectors' reports that could connect fracking operations
with water pollution, says to get some of the information she has to drive more
than two and a half hours from her home in Susquehanna County to the DEP
Williamsport office--and, even then, finds much of the critical information
buried in paper files.
Scroggins and Bloom say it was easier to get
information from the DEP prior to Tom Corbett becoming governor in 2011 and
proclaiming he wanted to see Pennsylvania become the Texas of the natural gas
industry. Bloom, executive director of Protecting Our Waters, Philadelphia,
calls DEP actions, "incredibly inappropriate and incredibly frustrating."
The DEP also routinely includes the data of only
certain possible contaminants, not all
contaminants, in reports it provides to homeowners who question water pollution
on their property. Bloom has worked with numerous people who "told me they
often waited a year or more just to get results, or just partial results; in
many cases, there wasn't even a response." Environmentalists have questioned
DEP's research methods and attacked the agency for this lack of transparency.
The DEP has also refused to meet with any group it
doesn't agree with or like. The DEP refused to send representatives to a
hearing scheduled in February by State Reps. Jesse White (D-Cecil) and Mike
Sturla (D-Lancaster ) to discuss DEP's water testing policies. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in an editorial
published two days after the hearing, observed:
" By refusing to attend, DEP merely confirms its
own arrogance in the minds of some, divides Pennsylvanians further and
encourages the suspicion that the agency may be not only a poor enforcer of
regulations but also too cowardly to face its critics."
The DEP had scheduled and then cancelled a meeting with 11 organizations that
focus upon water issues. Bloom says the DEP cancelled the meeting because it
wouldn't discuss anything if representatives from Clean Water Action, one of
the nation's largest and most effective environmental groups, were present. No
meetings have been scheduled since the November request.
Like Scroggins, Bloom, and many others, the media have
also found recent DEP information policies to be difficult and frustrating. CNN
reporter Erica Fink says
DEP refused several requests for interviews. To get any information "required a
visit to the regional DEP office [in Williamsport, Pa.], which had to be
scheduled weeks in advance" and the information was "largely in legal and
technical language."
The Times-Tribune
of Scranton, Pa., had requested the DEP to provide records that could disclose
water contamination from fracking operations of natural gas companies. The DEP,
reported
Laura Legere, "repeatedly argued in court filings . . . that it does not count
how many determination letters it issues, track where they are kept in its
files or maintain its records in a way that would allow a comprehensive search
for the letters, so there is no way to assess the completeness of the released
documents." The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in July 2012, almost 11 months
after Legere and her newspaper first requested DEP records, ruled the DEP must
provide that information; the DEP, after the Court rejected its argument for reconsideration,
eventually complied. Judge Anne E. Covery, in writing the court's majority
opinion, dismissed DEP's argument that getting the requested data was
burdensome. "[T]he burden on DEP comes not from some vast array of documents
requested by Legere," wrote
Judge Covery, "but from DEP's method of tracking its records." The court
determined that "an agency's failure to maintain the files in a way necessary
to meet its obligations under the RTKL [Right to Know Law] should not be held
against the requestor. To so hold would permit an agency to avoid its
obligations under the RTKL simply by failing to orderly maintain its records."
The failure to maintain records in an easily
searchable method continues to allow the DEP to withhold public information
from the public by burying the requested data within piles of irrelevant
documents, most of which need interpretation from scientists.
Eric
Shirk, Gov. Corbett's director of communications, and Kevin Sunday, DEP deputy
press secretary, did not return several phone calls inquiring about DEP public
disclosure policies.
[Dr. Brasch is an award-winning journalist,
a syndicated columnist, radio network commentator, author of 17 books. His
latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania, available
at amazon.com, greeleyandstone.com, or your local bookstore.]
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
