Two Rivers, No Justice! It’s Time to Overturn the DRBC’s Frack Ban

Shale drilling in Wayne and Pike counties in the northeastern tip of Pennsylvania has been blocked since 2010 (16 looooong years), denying landowners in those counties the right to benefit from leasing and drilling on and under their land. Those counties (parts of them) are within the Delaware River Basin, and the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) implemented a moratorium in 2010 to block shale drilling. The moratorium became a full-blown, permanent ban on fracking in 2021. The DRBC added a prohibition on the disposal of oil and gas wastewater to the permanent ban in 2022. It’s time to overturn the ban. We have a petition for you to sign to show your support for overturning the ban.

Below is a guest post from our good friend Tom Shepstone of the Energy Security and Freedom website. Tom is leading the effort to overturn the ban. In his post, he points out what we have said many times here on MDN: The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), responsible for overseeing water resources in the Susquehanna River Basin, has safely allowed fracking (and the use of water from the river and its tributaries) within its jurisdiction for roughly two decades. Yet the adjoining DRBC claims fracking is too dangerous in its jurisdiction. That’s nonsense.

Two rivers, no justice!

Here’s a timeline of the DRBC’s ban on fracking:

May 2010: The Moratorium Begins. The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC)—an interstate agency representing Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and the federal government—voted to postpone the consideration of well pad dockets until formal regulations were adopted. This created a “de facto” moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

2011: Failed Regulations. The DRBC proposed draft regulations that would have allowed some drilling, but a scheduled vote was canceled at the last minute due to a lack of consensus among the governors and intense public pressure.

September 2017: Shifting to a Permanent Ban. The Commission announced it would begin drafting regulations to permanently prohibit fracking, citing concerns that the practice could not be done safely within the watershed.

February 25, 2021: The Permanent Ban. The DRBC voted 4–0 (with the federal representative abstaining) to officially and permanently ban high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the 13,539-square-mile basin.

December 2022: Wastewater Restrictions. The DRBC finalized additional rules prohibiting the discharge of fracking wastewater into the basin, closing a loop that activists argued could still lead to contamination.

Sign the petition. Let’s tell Congress and President Trump it’s time for the federal government to end this injustice.

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), in 2021, banned hydraulic fracturing within its borders. It was an act of pure tyranny, as the property rights of thousands of landowners were stolen by edict.

What many do not know is that the same governing majority members of the Commission — Pennsylvania, New York, and the Federal government — also run the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) where this prohibited process is permitted. There is, of course, no accounting for the different treatment of landowner rights in the two basins.

Likewise, there is no accounting for the DRBC banning an industry rather than simply setting water quality standards for all industries to meet, and what we see, from both landowner and industry perspectives, is an obnoxious denial of equal justice that must be reversed.

“Two Rivers, No Justice” is an ad hoc campaign launched for that purpose and has posted a public petition demanding the outrageous denial of rights be reversed.

Go HERE to read the entire petition and sign! It’s nothing less than a matter of equal justice for the farmers, landowners, and citizenry of the Delaware River Basin.*

We agree 100%! Sign the petition!!

*Energy Security and Freedom (Mar 18, 2026) – Two Rivers, No Justice! It’s Time This Disgraceful Affront to Constitutional Rights Is Ended!