Flurry of Events in NY Demonstrates Enormous Public Concern over Marcellus Shale Drilling
Posted March 8, 2010 in Health and the Environment
My colleagues and I like to remind ourselves how, when we first starting hearing murmurs about possible major new gas drilling in upstate New York a little over two years ago, we questioned whether this was an issue in which NRDC should become involved. We worried that we didn’t have the resources to take on another big campaign, and wondered whether it was an issue better left to state and local groups. Boy, does that seem like a lifetime ago.
Since deciding we needed to get involved in the Marcellus game (based largely on our western colleagues’ admonitions that drilling in the Marcellus Shale would potentially inalterably change the face of New York’s environment), it has become arguably the highest profile environmental issue in the state/region, and certainly one of the most significant in NRDC’s New York region work.
Coverage of the issue has increased exponentially over the past two years, reflected not only by the award-winning work by ProPublica, but in papers of influence across the state, including the New York Times (and its editorial page), the Daily News (and its editorial page ), the Albany Times Union, and numerous other regional papers.
And with this expanded coverage has come greatly increased public awareness of – and interest in – the issue. Not a week goes by without several significant events on the issue.
Just this week, I am involved in three public (and one closed) speaking events on the Marcellus Shale:
Tonight, I am sitting on a panel with Chair of the NYC Council Environmental Protection Committee, Jim Gennaro, DEC Executive Deputy Commissioner, Stuart Gruskin, Chesapeake Energy VP of Government Relations, David Spigelmyer, and Catskill Mountainkeeper Program Director, Wes Gillingham. The panel discussion, being held at SUNY New Paltz, will be in a roundtable format to be followed by a public forum and a keynote address by US Congressman Maurice Hinchey (sponsor of the FRAC Act that would restore federal regulation over the controversial hydraulic fracturing technology). The event is scheduled to run from 5:45 to 8 pm in Lecture Center Room 100.
Tomorrow night, I am presenting at the monthly Green Drinks event in Manhattan. The event (which is a great networking opportunity) runs from 6 to 10 pm at the Hiro Ballroom, 88 Ninth Ave @ 16th St., with the speaking program on Marcellus gas drilling to begin at 7 pm.
And Wednesday evening, I am again a part of a panel discussing gas drilling sponsored by the New York City Bar Association Environmental Law Committee and the Environmental Law Institute. My co-panelists will be Hilary Meltzer of the NYC’s Corporation Counsel’s Office, and Tom West, counsel for Chesapeake. The panel is at the City Bar Association, 42 W. 44th St., and runs from 6 to 7:30 pm.
If you are in the neighborhood for any of these events, please stop by.
And in the meantime, please keep up the calls on Governor Paterson to require that DEC issue a new, properly-prepared, legally-sufficient draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement before allowing this massive new industrial activity to proceed in New York. There is still a chance for us to serve as the model for how to regulate it right!
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Comments
Jennifer Rivera — Mar 8 2010 05:12 PM
This is rather ludicrous. BRDC has been reminded time and again that there is more to ny than a limited watershed area. You need to stop supporting natural gas a a so-called transitional fuel and work for a STATE-WIDE BAN!
James Plaisted — Mar 8 2010 06:29 PM
What is ludicrous Jennifer is that NYC expects all landowners in NYS to give up on the lease and royality payments to appease NYC...sorry, I pay my land taxes..If I wish to lease my land and allow drilling that is my right. Not to mention the increase in Jobs, and the econimical impact the gas and oil industry will bring to our third world region...which has no jobs, no factories, and an ag industry that has been beaten to their knees..If you folks are so addament about banning drilling, then start buying our gas development rights, and pay us the royalties we would be getting from the gas companies..I find those who stand to gain nothing are those who are so willing to ban gas drilling in NYS...
Jim
Cynthia Ccoleman — Mar 8 2010 08:04 PM
Many of us landowners in upstate NY have not leased because we are aware of the tremendous damage to the environment and our property values that horizontal hydrofracking will create. Each well requires millions of gallons of water, thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals and in our area- large quantities of radioactive waste that has been buried safely underground but would be exposed by the drilling process. I know a number of landowners who signed leases before they understood what the gas companies wanted to do a Landowners can not nd would like nothing better than for the moratorium to continue. The gas companies and pro drilling property owners can not confine the pollution that gas drilling will create to their own property and they have no more right to pollute their neighbors land and water than if they decided on their own to set up a toxic waste dump. NYS does not allow communities to ban or regulate hydrofracking- many communities wish they could. Losing control of your property and the right to work with others to protect your community when the energy industry wants to exploit your resources makes us feel like we live in a third world nation. NRDC should realize that the only way to do horizontal hydrofracking right is to not do it at all!
LeTennier — Mar 9 2010 12:24 AM
With all due respect to all of you here, none of you have lived in a gas Drilling production area, well I have, and both in Texas and In Louisiana.. My relatives still live there, water and all..been this way for 15 years now.. NO one got sick, or died or is sick and dying.. check the hospital and medicare/medicaid roles...Birth Defects have not and are not any higher than anywhere else in the country, you can check that too..as a matter of fact Birth Defects are higher in NYC per capita, than IN TEXAS ,LA, or Wyoming. Now I moved back to my place up state (130 acres)to retire and find myself once again in GAS territory...
Will I tell you it's a perfect world and that it can't be done better cleaner, no. The gas companies don't have to burn off the extra (where most of the foul air comes from , they can cap and collect it. do they have transport large quantities of water , no they can clean it on site. Do they have to use Water at all, no , they can use Propane..
The drilling techniques used are not at fault or cause any kind of pollution, but human error is and has been at all known accidents, much like when the oil barge crashed in NY arbor a few years ago and dumped 100,000 gallons of fuel into the hudson. the reason Dilling cannot be at fault is very simple. Water is at 2-600 feet down and gas is at 6-9000 feet down. It is physically impossible for these chemicals and water to intermingle, ( over 1 mile apart)just because of the temp alone, not to mention the drilling pipes are several layers of Steel and cement thick, at least 7...
NO , the accidents that occur are by people not doing their job and thankfully, those are few an far between. NO one can make money, not people or companies if the results of your work kills people. BAD PR
All of this rhetoric around Drilling is quite simply stupid, as drilling has been going on in NYS for 150 years and has over 10,000 wells at present in production...
NO accidents ever... I am sorry for soo many of you who have been fed the BS info from Pro-Publica(90% of the bad stories I traced back to them) This publication is owned by George SOROS, who coincidentally invested 11 Billion Dollars in a LNG terminal in New Guinea to export gas to the USA, now with the discovery of vast reserves of GAS in NYS , and Marcellus is only the tip of the Icebeg, this makes his investmant worthless, so delaying or stopping drilling all together is the only agenda he has.. period.
I was at a rally in Albany a few weeks ago, 1800 + land owners and families showed up to fight for the right to drill, 50 students showed up to fight against. The Students got 30 minutes of air time, and the landowners , none..
This is a gift the Landowners in the Southern tier of NY who have been looked down upon, made fun of, and otherwise completely neglected by both NYC and Albany.
And you hypocrits want to take it away from them, based on information you know nothing about or can confirm? And whether you like it or not, NYC area is the largest consumer of Natural gas in the world...
So would you ratehr use your brains and research for yourself, ( that means picking up the phone and reaching out to people in Texas, LA, and Wyoming) or listen like dumb sheep BAHBAHAHA.... ask them...
Our biggest concern here will be Truck traffic, accidents, Crime, Drugs, housing, schools, roads bridges.. air pollution form Deisel fuel burning
not polution...from Drilling
And not for nothing, there are some 100,000 plus soldiers in harms way because we as a mericans are too lazy to move away from Oil to GAS.. and for all you Repulicans out there, talking about terrorism.. Weapons Cost Money and a lot of it, where do these terrorists get it? Well how about from the USA, we spend as a country 1.5 Trillion dollars a year on OIL.. and that is something allof you must share in the responsibility for.. Every time a soldier dies in IRAQ or Afganistan, it is to keep your car rnning or you heat going in winter becasue you use OIL, but youcould be using GAS, whichi is under you very feet, but you are too lazy...
Sleep well all of you
Lee Woodmansee — Mar 9 2010 08:50 AM
Kate, you said that Hinchey was a "(sponsor of the FRAC Act that would restore federal regulation over the controversial hydraulic fracturing technology)". I think that if you check, you'll find that fracking was NEVER covered by the Clean Water Act. That is one of the Urban Legends of the Marcellus debate.
Kate Sinding — Mar 9 2010 10:11 AM
Actually, whether the Safe Drinking Water Act covered hydraulic fracturing was in dispute (no one contended it was covered under the Clean Water Act) until the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 ruled that it was, ordering EPA to regulate fracking. The 2005 Energy Policy Act's so-called Halliburton Loophole that explicitly exempted fracking from the SDWA was a direct response to that decision. So while it wasn't being regulated prior to the 2005 Act, EPA could - and should - have been doing so. (See NRDC's report, Drilling Down: http://www.nrdc.org/land/use/down/down.pdf. That's what I mean by restoring federal oversight over fracking.
Thanks for your comment, and for all the lively debate.
un-naturalgas.org — Mar 9 2010 09:59 PM
My dear LeTennier:
Regarding the rally at which there were supposedly 1800 pro-drillers and 50 students against, well, you either weren't there and have a very bad source, or you were there but were having a particularly bad bout of hallucinations.
There were 500-600 people there demonstrating against drilling. There were 250 people nearby advocating for drilling.
The rally was conceived as a Statewide Ban rally; various contingents joined it with their own messages.
The pro-drillers only decided to come to Albany the same day with a counter-rally, very late in the game.
The rest of your rant is as factually challenged as your ideas about the rally.
As for the idea that those of us who know what has happened everywhere else this process has been employed and thus oppose it happening here too, are trying to take away from you something to which you have a RIGHT, how about this: From your signing bonus and royalties, you have a moral obligation to pay me and the rest of the non-signing citizens of New York the money to compensate us for the wealth you will accrue at our expense: that is our property values, our property taxes, our health, the quality of our communities.
After all, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. A taking is a taking, even when you impose it on us.
Now think about it - the only people with a reason to make stuff up about gas drilling are the people who make money from it - or think they're going to.
I could make money from it, but choose not to. I don't want to live like this - or make my neighbors suffer for my enrichment:
http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/535302.html?nav=511
AJM — Mar 10 2010 12:26 AM
With all due respect to LeTennier, 15 years ago no one was doing high volume horizontal hydrofracturing in shale, so any "experience" you might have with drilling, would be with a different type of drilling, with a different volume of materials used in that drilling, with different depths in NY and PA, and with different geology in these states--all of which discount any of your personal knowledge. The facts are that this new type and volume of drilling has only been done for the past few years in PA, and has not been studied intensively enough to form any type of conclusions as to what the health effects might be. Further, due to the exemptions given to the gas industry from EPA oversight and data collection, the entire process of this drilling is fraught with "unknowns" throughout the country-so there is no way you can be so certain that there have been NO "birth defects" and illness anywhere near gas drilling because frankly, no one is looking at it. You say that the gas companies don't have to burn off the extra (where most of the foul air comes from ) but actually THEY DO have to-because no LAW requires them to cap and collect it. They also DO transport large quantities of water because there is NO LAW that requires them to clean water on site. They will continue to use water, because they are NOT REQUIRED to use Propane, air, green fracing fluid or anything else.
The drilling techniques used COULD very well be at fault, because NO ONE KNOWS what is going on 6000 feet down, as the technology is not perfect. Human error is at fault in many of the accidents which give the gas industry a safety record of 20 in 1000 wells that have some kind of problem. If one of those 20 happens to be near a major source of drinking water, that is NOT A SMALL PROBLEM no matter how you slice it.
As to your contention that "water is 2-600 feet down and gas is at 6-9000 feet down and it is physically impossible for these chemicals and water to intermingle" I say to you to look at some of the maps of the Marcellus Shale and find that the distances from aquifers vary throughout the states involved, and again- NO ONE KNOWS exactly what happens 6000 feet down, although they are getting better at it--but still not GOOD ENOUGH to allow drilling near known sources of water, as steel rusts, concrete degrades, and drilling pits leak,runoff and get flooded.
Vertical drilling HAS been going on in NYS for 150 years, and there HAVE been some accidents, but you and your pro-gas PR team conveniently fail to point out that this is NOT the same type, scale or amount of drilling that has EVER been done in the history of both NY and PA and other states as well. The fallout from high volume horizontal hydrofracturing in the Marcellus Shale may only come to pass years down the road when casings fail or the earth moves and sends methane from a frac job straight into a lake or stream.
NO accidents ever? I say no accidents YET, or rather many accidents- wait for the proof that is coming. You can beat up on Soros and ProPublica all you want but common sense says that where there is gas there is literally fire, and as more people are watching the gas industry, more evidence of wrongdoing will be uncovered and proven to the naysayers.
LNG is a different commodity entirely, so I don't see where Soros benefits one way or another and it is more likely that this "gas rush" is about getting wells built and leases signed before the gas industry loses their 39 billion tax incentives that they got in 2005- which will run out in another 10 years.
Landowners "rights" extend only to the property they are living on, not to the streams and the air that surround them. If they make a bad deal that has ramifications for people living down the road, in the next county, or even in New Jersey, then they HAVE no rights to that deal.
If your biggest concern is truck traffic, accidents, crime, drugs, housing, schools, roads bridges.. air pollution from Diesel fumes, than know this--gas drilling will bring ALL OF THAT to you in spades. You will get more trucks ripping up your roads and bridges than you have ever imagined. You will get noise and diesel fumes from compressor stations running 24/7 not to mention all the diesel fumes from all those trucks delivering millions of gallons of water. You will get all these traveling Texans bringing crime and drugs and raising rents when they come here for the drilling jobs that NY residents can't get because they are not trained. You talk about brains, research--do a little homework yourself, and read about the folks in Bradford County PA with the torn up roads, and rising rents and crime or the folks in West Virginia complaining about the noise and the lights, or the people in Dish and Flower Mound Texas worried about the methane and benzene fumes they have to breathe every day. Even Ft Worth is complaining.
Another thing you might want to research is the fact that we get most of our oil from Canada these days, so you might sleep well tonight knowing that fact:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
James Plaisted — Mar 10 2010 02:16 PM
"The pro-drillers only decided to come to Albany the same day with a counter-rally"
Wrong...pro drillers were planning to attend this rally almost as soon as it was announced. The attendance figures I have read about closely mirrored what LeTennier stated.
"As for the idea that those of us who know what has happened everywhere else this process has been employed and thus oppose it happening here too"
I'll answer this comment with one from another poster above..
" The facts are that this new type and volume of drilling has only been done for the past few years in PA, and has not been studied intensively enough to form any type of conclusions as to what the health effects might be."
AJM posted that statement. You two might want to compare posts before actually posting anything..Truth is there is no factual evidance that there are ANY problems with hydro fracking. No known claims of problems have been proven. So until there is a proven, factual claim of envirnomental damage due to hydro fracking, your just talking in enduno and fear mongoring. Everybody wants clean renewalable energy sources, but not in YOUR backyard. Nuclear power is a no/no, wind power is a no/no, solar power is a no/no..someone always has some reason to whine about something...exactly where do you purpose our clean renewable fuel should come from? Texas, Canada, Alaska???? At some point you have to ask yourself if you don't want it in your backyard, then where do we put it?????
John Liffee — Mar 10 2010 02:57 PM
James,
Try this white paper and congressional memorandum. Both suggest that there's been at least a strong correlation in numerous instances between fracking operations and groundwater contamination.
Let's see if I have your argument straight: We should wait until AFTER drinking water supplies for millions of people are contaminated, before doing anything about it? So that you can reap your royalties? How neighborly of you.
Property rights were never meant to sanction a sociopathic disregard for the rights of others. And no man is an island, as the saying goes.
James Plaisted — Mar 10 2010 08:32 PM
"Both suggest that there's been at least a strong correlation in numerous instances between fracking operations and groundwater contamination."
Sugestions are not proof..If it is as you all say..so unsafe, then proof should be easy to obtain..prove your point please.
"We should wait until AFTER drinking water supplies for millions of people are contaminated, before doing anything about it? So that you can reap your royalties? How neighborly of you."
And your argument is that we shouldn't do it at all because it "could" be dangrous...Sorry, but your arguement just doesn't hold water, and in times when this state is 9 billion in the hole, all options need to be weighed...besides, it is just a matter of time til the drilling starts, not a whole lot any of you can do to stop it....
"Property rights were never meant to sanction a sociopathic disregard for the rights of others. And no man is an island, as the saying goes."
Property rights were intended to make sure that a landowner would be compensated for anything their land contained, including miniral and oil rights..IT is our right to develop our land, and nothing that NYC does will be able to change that. If you don't want to have our land drilled for gas, then pay us our lease payments and royalties that the gas companies are willing to pay..if you don't want to do that then get used to the gas drilling rigs in NYS, cause there're coming...
David J. Cyr — Mar 13 2010 05:15 PM
Well, now that the Not Really Drilling Concerned (NRDC) Kate Sinding and colleagues have so industry compliant collaborated to ensure provision of regulations making something safely done upon paper that practice has proven can't and won't be safely done in the ground, we should expect the NRDC to accept their rightly regulated drilling that they're so proud to be facilitating to safely proceed within the watershed that New York City calls its own... shouldn't we?
Sign the petition to ban unconventional gas drilling everywhere in New York State:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/NY-Statewide-Ban-On-Natural-Gas-Drilling
James Plaisted — Mar 14 2010 08:19 PM
As usual, NYC is trying to tell everyone else in the state what they ought to do..My land does not lie in the NYC watershed..considering the positive impact that a domestic natural gas supply will have on NYC it is amazing that NYC residents wouldn't be all for it..oh..wait..NYC doesn't stand to make any of the profits...so nobody should..nice petition by the way...at some point the rest of the state won't be able to continue to pay NYC's way, then what are you going to do?
Kate Sinding — Mar 15 2010 10:17 AM
Regrettably, some continue to find it more satsifying to attack NRDC than to target their real opponents - notwithstanding the subtantial resources, time and energy we continue to devote to ensuring that gas drilling in New York's Marcellus Shale not be permitted to adversely affect health or environment ANYWHERE in the state. NRDC has repeatedly, consistently and plainly stated that its objectives are in no way limited to protecting the NYC watershed. We will continue to fight to protect ALL New Yorkers from the threats of industrial gas drilling, and continue to hope that our detractors may someday find it more productive to join us in that effort.