Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Gets an F from U.S. EPA

Pennsylvanians who’ve seen their state ravaged by fracking have long been concerned that their Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is not doing its job to protect Pennsylvania’s environment – and those fears were just confirmed. A new report by the federal EPA reviewing data from 2009 gave Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection a failing grade of 0%.

According to the EPA, Pennsylvania state regulators were not accurately entering information about environmental problems into a national database, including decisions and actions that led to violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

The 0% score came from data collected from 2009-2010, during the Rendell administration, in the beginning of the fracking boom. Now many of the same officials from the Rendell administration – including Gov. Tom Wolf, DEP Secretary John Quigley and John Hanger – are in charge of the state’s environmental policy. Now that fracking has run rampant throughout the state of Pennsylvania, it is terrifying to think of the problems that go unreported and the thousands of people who have already been harmed by this negligence – and those who will continue to suffer if nothing changes.

This is not the only Pennsylvania agency that has failed residents of the Keystone State. Earlier this year, documents from the Pennsylvania Department of Health revealed that fracking-related health complaints were essentially ignored and pushed aside. It is clear that fracking cannot be effectively regulated and must be banned.