Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom has been under way since 2008, last year required drillers to submit detailed accountings of the material within 30 days of completing a well. The public information is retained at the Department of Environmental Protection's regional offices.
Though Pennsylvania does not require online disclosure, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, on Jan. 1 began requiring its members to post their data with FracFocus. The coalition's membership covers most major gas producers in the state, but 27 smaller Pennsylvania operators are not registered with FracFocus.
A statewide environmental group says that Pennsylvania's rules do not go far enough and that the federal government should require a uniform disclosure nationwide.
"In this day and age, it is ridiculous for someone to have to make an appointment at one of DEP's district offices to access this information that some companies freely post to an industry-run website," said Jan Jarrett, president of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future.
The chemical-disclosure issue has become a proxy for public apprehension with all aspects of hydraulic fracturing, a pivotal technology that has opened up vast new oil and gas reserves in recent years, radically altering the nation's energy outlook.
America's Natural Gas Alliance and other industry trade groups have rallied to support voluntary public disclosure as a way to recover from the self-inflicted public relations disaster the industry caused when it initially declined to reveal some ingredients at the behest of contractors who said their frack fluids were proprietary.
