Illinois

Illinois

Illinois has a history of oil and gas development similar to New York’s. As in New York,

Illinois

conventional vertical wells in Illinois have been stimulated with low-volume hydraulic
fracturing for many decades. The New Albany shale formation is an unconventional
shale that would require directional drilling and HVHF stimulation for commercial oil and
gas development. Illinois convened representatives from statewide environmental
organizations and from industry to negotiate legislative language for a program to
regulate HVHF activity in the state. The bill was passed into law in 2013 and the IDNR
is the agency responsible for implementing the regulatory program.

IDNR staff described several significant elements of the Illinois program that were
agreed to in the negotiations. Each well permit application under the Illinois program will
be subject to a public hearing process (“contested case” process). Operators in Illinois
will be required to conduct water monitoring before and after drilling a well. In Illinois,
operators will be subject to a rebuttable presumption of liability, meaning that if water
contamination near a HVHF well is discovered, the operator will be assumed to be liable
for the contamination unless they can show they did not cause it. A similar law applies
to drillers in Pennsylvania, but not in New York. Operators in Illinois will be required to
provide complete information on the formula of chemical additives used in each HVHF
well to the IDNR. The information will be made available publicly, except for information
protected as trade secrets under state law. However, IDNR will be able to share the
trade secret information with other state agencies, local emergency responders and
physicians when necessary. Operators in Illinois will be required to store HVHF
wastewater (including flowback and produced water) in above-ground storage tanks.
The draft SGEIS contains the same requirement.
The IDPH does not currently have a health surveillance program specifically targeted at
HVHF development. However, the state does maintain similar health surveillance
programs to those in New York, including cancer and birth-defect registries and daily
chief complaint reporting from emergency departments (i.e., syndromic surveillance). As
IDNR works to draft administrative rules to implement the new HVHF law, an interagency
workgroup in Illinois has been formed that includes relevant state agencies
including IDPH. One issue being considered by the workgroup is the roles and
responsibilities of each agency in the implementation of the program. Enhanced public
health surveillance activities to be conducted by the IDPH is one area being considered
by this workgroup. IDPH staff on the call also suggested that health surveillance
activities focused on unconventional oil and gas development (which includes HVHF

and other technology such as directional drilling) might ideally be coordinated at a
national level by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, such
a national surveillance program does not currently exist.
As is the case in New York, IDPH works as a consulting agency to address public
health issues that are raised by the environmental and natural-resources agencies in
the course of monitoring studies or complaint investigations. IDPH is also considering
providing relevant training for HVHF-related emergency events to local physicians and
emergency responders. IDPH has been made aware of some significant public health
concerns in an area of the New Albany shale located in southwestern Ohio where
HVHF development is already active. Quality-of-life impacts were mentioned as
particularly notable in that region. Examples included rapid increases in housing costs
resulting in some renters being priced out of their homes and significant infrastructure
damage in some localities due to increased truck traffic.

Public Health Expert Consultation

As part of this Public Health Review, DOH sought additional input on public health
aspects of the draft SGEIS by consulting with three external public health experts. The
consultants were provided with DEC and DOH documents to review. Meetings were
held with the consultants by conference call and the consultants presented their final
comments and recommendations in the form of letters to former Commissioner Shah.
The public health expert consultants were given three charge questions to help focus
their review. Those charge questions were:
 Are there additional potential public health impacts of HVHF gas development
that should be considered beyond those already discussed in the SGEIS?

 Are additional mitigation measures beyond those identified in the SGEIS needed
to address the potential health impacts of HVHF? If so, what additional
prevention or mitigation measures are recommended?
 Are existing and proposed environmental and health monitoring and surveillance
systems adequate to establish baseline health indicators and to measure
potential health impacts? If not, what additional monitoring is recommended?
The following letters from the public health expert consultants report their findings and
recommendations to former Commissioner Shah.