NGIShaleDaily reports that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) plans to stop using FracFocus, the national database for tracking chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, in favor of its own database:
But while operators in the state will be required to use the new, and currently unnamed, system being built by the DEP, they may elect to do dual entry and continue using FracFocus as well. Meanwhile, after enjoying years of expanding support, including from federal regulators, Pennsylvania's decision appears to have caught the Groundwater Protection Council (GWPC), one of the two organizations that run FracFocus, off guard.
"We want to be able to present more information than FracFocus currently collects," DEP spokesman Neil Shader told NGI's Shale Daily on Thursday. "In fact, we actually collect more information than FracFocus does already for our well completion reports. We just want to be able to make all of that available for the public in an easily digestible way.
"I do want to stress that this is not anything against FracFocus. They are a phenomenal web site, they just didn't have all of the things that we wanted to be able to present."
Read the full article here (subscription may be required).