A report issued today by Pennsylvania's auditor general revealed the troubling (if not necessarily surprising) degree to which that state's Department of Environmental Protection has been outmatched by the pace of gas drilling in the state. The report, covering the period 2009-12, portrays a department that is both underresourced and slow or even unwilling to take enforcement action in response to pollution. In the words of the auditor general, “It is almost like firefighters trying to put out a five-alarm fire with a 20-foot garden hose. There is no question that DEP needs help and soon to protect clean water.”
Read the auditor general's press release and find a link to the report here (scroll to the bottom for a link to the report).