A Times-Tribune review of records detailing gas drilling spills, leaks and contamination incidents revealed hundreds of problems at well sites since the beginning of 2005.

It also found outdated and inconsistent record keeping by the environmental agency charged with regulating Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

Unlike Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, West Virginia and other gas drilling states, Pennsylvania does not keep a public database detailing spills or contamination incidents at oil and gas wells.

The Department of Environmental Protection’s online “eFacts” database, which enables public searches of any permitted facilities in the state, lists coded descriptions of violations, but the information included there is often vague and provides no detail on what spilled, how much or where.

In some cases, eFacts masks the severity of an incident: DEP forced Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. to shut down a well that contributed to methane contamination in 14 residences in Dimock Twp., but the violation detail on eFacts notes only a “failure to report” a defective well casing and two “general” violations of the state law governing oil and gas drilling. The notation is to be used only when specific violation codes do not apply, even though a violation code exists for “failure to case and cement to prevent migrations into fresh groundwater.”

Of the 421 violations DEP inspectors found at Marcellus Shale well sites between January and June this year, 109 of them were categorized as such “general” violations of state laws.

Alan Eichler, the oil and gas program manager for the Southwest regional office in Pittsburgh, explained that inspectors have to choose from among the computer system’s list of codes when imputing a violation even when they are not “perfectly appropriate.”

“Sometimes those violations codes are not as specific as maybe we would like,” he said. “A code is chosen that might imply there was a discharge when there really wasn’t a discharge.”

In order to measure the frequency of well site spills, The Times-Tribune submitted a Right-to-Know request for the environmental agency’s well inspection reports and violation notices that detail spills, leaks and seeps. But inconsistent responses and record keeping from the four regional offices that oversee drilling made finding an exact count of spills impossible.

Some offices gathered only industrial waste violations; some included erosion and runoff violations. Few of the offices included waste pit violations, even those when plastic liners meant to protect the soil fell in or were breached, leaving the waste in contact with the ground.

The files contained reports of spills that were not included on lists of incidents provided by the DEP, and revealed inconsistent characterizations of violations by inspectors.

In one case, a fluid and oil mixture meant to be pumped into a lined pit ran behind the liner or missed the pit entirely, but the violation noted only that the pit was not “structurally sound.” In another case, wastewater overflowed a pit, ran down an access road and into the woods, but the company was cited for not keeping an open space between the top of the pit and the fluid.

At the Southwest regional office, more than a dozen files for wells where there have been spills of diesel, wastewater and other fluids were missing any documentation of those spills.

Some of those files noted ongoing violations or described the progress of clean-up from a spill, but records of the original spill were not there.

Mr. Eichler said the lack of precision in the violations coding process may explain the missing files.

However, he could not explain why the eFacts database contains records of spills when inspection reports for the same spills are not in the files.

“That shouldn’t be,” he said. “If there’s a record in eFacts there should be a hard copy report in the file.”

“If you’re telling me that there were inspections that were listed in eFacts that you couldn’t find in the file,” he said, “that would cause me some concern.”

The file review process was also work- and time-intensive for the regional offices.

Because the agency does not keep a list of spill incidents, it took four regional DEP offices up to three months to identify and gather the files containing the documents.

Ed Stokan, an assistant counsel at the Southwest regional office, explained that the delay was due in part to state budget cuts that reduced the staff as well as the fact that such a search would entail “our going through hard paper files.”

“The department staff has been so stripped that we don’t have the staff to go through the files,” he said.

Staffing limitations also hampered other regional offices. In the Northcentral office in Williamsport, which is responsible for inspecting the bulk of the state’s Marcellus Shale wells, one person has run the file room since December because of budget cuts.

Oil and gas field inspectors are now responsible for filing, and finding, their own reports there.

The DEP is currently in the process of hiring a second person to work in the file room, a spokesman said.

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com