Although the Mackinac Center summary focuses on the noise abatement issue, the far more pernicious part of this bill lies in this amendment to sec 6156b, which sets out certain circumstances in which the state supervisor of wells may not issue a drilling permit:
(b) The city, village, or township where the well is located has determined that the well poses a threat to public health or safety.
This effectively puts veto power in the hands of local officials, something that only complicates and adds cost to the permitting process. It also complicates the drilling deal-making process for exploration and development companies. All this is to the detriment of orderly development of resources. Anti-drilling factions for decades have pushed for this kind of local override.
Ordinarily, I am an advocate of local control. However, State level regulatory control over oil and gas drilling operations has served the people of Michigan well for 70 years or more. There is no need to change that, especially right now.
Section 61506D sets the drilling operation noise restrictions (55 DB day, 50 DB night). I don’t know how manageable these would be from an industry perspective. I do suspect they would effectively ban drilling in some locales.
Note, for comparison, that motorcycles in the state are allowed to be sold with mufflers that leaves them producing 83 DB. I’m not sure there is any real limit on the volume of noise that motorcycles actually may produce – there seems to be virtually no enforcement of any limit in Michigan.
In the past I spent considerable time in the Michigan oilfields, near drilling rigs. The vast majority of operations are less noisy at the edge of the cleared drilling “pad” than many or perhaps even most of the motorcycles that roar past me on the road.
This legislation should be rejected.