"Fracking Express" Racing Down Fast-Track in NYS
Posted September 28, 2011 in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, U.S. Law and Policy
Despite repeated requests from residents, environmental groups and local officials to slow down the environmental review and rule-making processes related to the state’s proposal for high-volume hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in upstate New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”) today rejected that path.
The DEC issued proposed rules for regulating industrial gas drilling throughout the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale even before it has completed the legally required environmental review process on which future regulations are supposed to be based.
Under today’s proposal, comments on the highly technical rulemaking draft are due on December 12th - the same day as the deadline for public comments on the 1500 page draft environmental impact study.
But combining the environmental review process and the rule-making process for fracking undercuts the spirit and intent of the state’s landmark environmental review statute. Cuomo Administration officials understand the practical impact of this expedited schedule. But they have chosen to proceed nevertheless.
The premature release of the rule-making proposal also runs counter to the DEC’s own previously expressed plans. In July of this year, DEC released a preliminary draft of the revised environmental review in which it stated that the Department would revise regulations only after the environmental review process was complete, correctly concluding that “(f)ollowing the completion of the SGEIS, the Department would be in a position to rationally determine what additional measures or procedures should become fixed principles that would supplement and improve the Department’s existing regulatory framework."
Turning to the merits, the DEC’s new rulemaking proposal contains the same fundamental gaps and flaws as the draft environmental impact statement itself. For example, it contains only partial safeguards for public drinking water supplies, inadequate protections for the disposal of fracking-related hazardous wastes, and no effective mechanisms to shield communities from the impacts of industrialized landscapes.
New York City Council Environmental Protection Chairman, Jim Gennaro, a long-time champion of drinking water protection, released a statement today in which he warned that today’s draft regulations “bring us one step closer, in my opinion as both an environmental public policymaker and a geologist, to the possible unprecedented contamination of New York City drinking water and other drinking water supplies around the state ….”
The issue of fracking is the most significant environmental challenge facing New York State in recent memory. The environmental impact study reports that as many as 62,000 wells could be drilled in New York State in the first 30 years of fracking operations. Such a massive industrialization of the state’s rural communities would be unprecedented, and would likely be accompanied by significant adverse impacts to state water resources, declines in air quality and the transformation of rural landscapes.
In their efforts to fast-track the rule-making process for fracking, New York State officials have picked exactly the wrong issue on which to cut corners.
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Comments
Steve — Sep 28 2011 04:35 PM
I would hope that the title of this editorial by Mr. Goldstein is made in jest. What is the nature of the "fast track"? Over 3 years have been expended in a rigorous examination of the question of hydraulic fracturing, and those who are opposed to a practice which as occurred some 1.2 million times in the last 60 + years have not come up with any substantive reasons for it not to be conducted in New York State in conjunction with the development of the state's Marcellus and Utica shales. Enough delays already. It's time to drill, cautiously and safely, and utilize the natural gas which New York is so richly endowed with. Especially since natural gas as a backup fuel makes such a good fit with using renewable solar and wind resources.
Mary Sweeney — Sep 29 2011 01:53 PM
I live in Broome County, NY, an area that is likely to see some of the most intense shale gas development in NY if/when drilling is allowed. The three years that have been spent studying this issue are nothing at all in comparison to the many decades that damage from shale gas extraction is likely to last.
To date, there has been no comprehensive study of the health effects of shale gas extraction, despite numerous health complaints from people in other parts of the country where drilling and fracking are already underway.
The socioeconomic study included as part of the draft SGEIS predicts various levels of development. In an average (i.e. not low and not high) development scenario, the prediction is that over the next 30 years, in my region of the state (Broome, Tioga, & Chemung Counties), more than 21,000 shale gas wells will be drilled. That is about one well for every 16 inhabitants of the region. This is a level of development likely to have profound and lasting negative consequences. For NY to fast-track this process is not only unwise, it's immoral. I am a life-long Democrat and I vote in every election. If Gov. Cuomo goes ahead with shale gas extraction, I will not vote for him, ever, no matter what office he is running for. I place no trust in someone who would put short-term profit and political gain over the health of NY's residents.
Mary Sweeney — Sep 29 2011 02:10 PM
One further point: Mr. Goldstein refers above to a massive industrialization of rural communities. If drilling occurs at the predicted levels, it won't just be rural communities that are affected. Indeed, it would be impossible to drill at the predicted levels for Broome, Tioga, and Chemung Counties without siting numerous gas wells in every square mile of those counties. I believe that the "average" development scenario examined in the dSGEIS works out to around 12 gas wells per square mile. If drilling were to occur only in rural areas, the well density would have to be far higher than 12 wells per square mile. This is massive industrialization on a huge scale, and it includes residential areas, not just farmland and forests.