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Eliminate Fees To Access Public Oil and Gas Well Records

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Sponsor: The Rainforest Site

Info on potentially dangerous abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania is being held behind exorbitant fees. Take a stand!

Eliminate Fees To Access Public Oil and Gas Well Records

Since 1859, more than 325,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and only abut 125,000 of them are currently tracked1.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources contracts with a private corporation to put oil & gas well records on its cloud via a database called EDWIN2. The database and all of the work to populate it is funded with state tax dollars3.

The data in the EDWIN system are important to people who are tracking issues related to oil and gas development. However, anyone who wants this information is forced to travel to a DCNR office in Pittsburgh or Middletown or submit requests to receive individual records, else pay $5,500 dollars to access public information1.

Pennsylvanians should not have to pay $5,000 to subscribe to DCNR’s EDWIN database nor an additional $500 annual maintenance fee to access oil and gas records that have such a large environmental impact when their taxpayer dollars already went into creating and supporting the database4.

One Pennsylvanian, Laurie Barr, has tracked hundreds of thousands of orphaned and abandoned wells throughout the state5. These wells have never been plugged and are yet leaking dangerous methane. In fact, some of the wells are known as “super-emitters,” releasing 100 to 1,000 times more methane than a normal operational well6.

Like anyone else who wants to know the status of these wells, whether for their family’s health and safety or that of the public, Barr is forced to spend her own money on gas, tolls, and hotels to make the 5 hour trip to Pittsburgh in order to access the data she should be able to access for free online. This information should be free to any American taxpayer7.

It is both unjust and unAmerican to limit the public’s access to public information.

Sign the petition and Help us tell the Pennsylvania DCNR to eliminate the exorbitant fees on oil and gas records and restore access to critical public information!

More on this issue:

  1. Dimiter Kenarov Pulitzer Center and Calkins Media (15 January 2013), "Hunting for dead, dangerous abandoned oil and gas wells."
  2. Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2022), "Oil and Gas."
  3. PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (2022), "EDWIN Subscriptions."
  4. The Record-Online (July 2022), "Environmental watchdogs petition DCNR to remove access fee on oil & gas well database."
  5. Dimiter Kenarov, The Ecologist (28 February 2013), "Hunting for Pennsylvania’s abandoned gas wells."
  6. Stephanie Paige Ogburn, ClimateWire, Scientific American (15 April 2014), "Big Leaks Found in Pennsylvania Fracking Wells."
  7. Laurie Barr (19 April 2016), "Regulation #7-484: Environmental Protection Performance Standards at Oil and Gas Well Sites Comment."

The Petition

To Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,

More than 325,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled throughout the state of Pennsylvania since 1859.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection today lists more than 120,000 wells on record, far fewer than those abandoned and unregistered wells that languish throughout the state.

Because the DEP contracts with a private corporation to maintain oil and gas well records on its cloud via a database called EDWIN, Pennsylvanians are forced to pay $5,000 to subscribe to DCNR's EDWIN database and an additional $500 annual maintenance fee to access oil and gas records, despite the fact that their taxpayer dollars have paid to create the database.

Anyone who wants to know the status of these wells, whether for their family's health and safety or that of the public, must spend her own money on gas, tolls, and hotels to make the 5 hour trip to Pittsburgh just to access the data, which could easily be provided for free online.

It is both unjust and unAmerican to limit the public's access to public information, which should be free to taxpayers, especially Pennsylvania residents.

Please eliminate the fees on oil and gas records and restore Pennsylvanians' access to critical public information!

Sincerely,

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