NORWICH – Two landowners who said they represented a coalition of 40,000 acres criticized Chenango County’s highway department last week for allowing natural gas companies to conduct seismic testing along right-of-ways abutting their land.
Central New York Landowner Coalition members Todd Barnes and Charles Rowe, both of Norwich, also lamented the lack of environmental regulations that would monitor the potential water, soil and air pollution that some experts say could be the result of testing and drilling natural gas wells.
Exploration companies have aggressively targeted Chenango County and other parts of the Southern Tier where geologists have confirmed very large deposits of natural gas can be found beneath the ground. Nearly 2,000 residents attended two informational seminars this month hoping to learn more about leasing their land and/or protecting it.
Sufficient water sources, soap and bacteria-fighting chemicals are needed for the pressurized fracturing activity that releases the natural gas deposits within the well. And because the companies’ activities are exempt from federal Clean Water, Clean Air, Environmental Protection Agency and the Hazardous Waste Acts, states are beginning to take matters into their own hands. Earlier in June, Pennsylvania authorities placed a moratorium on drilling when a natural gas company was found to have used a nearby water source without prior notification.
“One of our issues is permitting testing on county roads in towns where testing isn’t permitted on town roads without first notifying property owners,” Barnes said. “Why is the county giving them permission to mine under my land? Towns are stopping it.”
The Town of Norwich passed a regulation just last month that prohibits companies from receiving permits to test without first acquiring adjacent landowners’ signatures. Only one other town in New York, Cortlandville, invokes the same stipulation on gas companies. The supervisors from Preston and Smyrna said the matter was up for discussion by their town boards, respectively.
Barnes said he and the members of his coalition have refused to sign leases with a number of natural gas companies that have approached them over the past several months. However, many of those same companies are receiving permits to do seismic testing along the roadways in front of their land.
“Taxpayers haven’t signed any leases. I don’t think that that permission should belong to the county. It should be from the taxpayers,” he said.
County Highway Superintendent Randy Gibbon said he must follow the county attorney’s procedures when permitting testing on right-of-ways. He said Attorney Richard L. Breslin revised the permitting procedures in 2003. “I have to go by what the attorney says,” he told the committee.
The standard industry practice for seismic testing has been to work with county and town highway supervisors only. At the Public Works Committee’s urging earlier this year, Gibbon agree to forward copies of approved permits to town supervisors to alert them in advance of testing. Permits have already been granted on most of the county’s roadways.
Public Works member Peter C. Flanagan, D-Preston, shared with the committee two legal opinions on town law relative to road beds and oil and gas drilling. He suggested that the committee request another opinion from the county’s attorney based on them. “I’m not an attorney, but perhaps these could be extended to county law,” said Flanagan.
The Preston supervisor also suggested referring the two Chenango County landowners questions about protecting the county’s water supplies to the county’s Public Health Department.
As per government procedure, Barnes and Rowe were permitted five minutes on the Public Works Committee agenda June 19. Following the meeting, they said they were “frustrated” with the imposed time limit.
“We represent a lot of landowners. We had other issues to discuss,” Rowe said.
Supervisor David C. Law said he supported the landowners’ request, saying, “We all have a lot more to learn about this issue.” Law took the opportunity to distribute copies of the minutes from a Cortland County government meeting during which time officials debated permitting seismic testing at the county’s landfill. “We might be up against something like this ourselves,” he said.
James B. Bays, D-Smyrna, said, “We have a duty to find domestic sources of alternative energy, but we also have a duty to protect our children and our grandchildren. I don’t want us to stick our heads in the sand. This has long-term risks.”
After the guest speakers’ allotted time period expired, Committee Chairman Harry W. Conley attempted on several occasions to limit the committee’s discussion of their concerns. He said, “We don’t have that much time today to spend so much time on this. Randy is here to discuss his department.”
“These (issues) are not in our control over at the DPW. Only permitting is my only point in the discussion here, and I’ve already been told what to do by our county attorney,” Gibbon said.
Flanagan said he disapproved with the chairman’s attempts to limit the committee’s discussion of the landowner’s complaints. “Committee members can talk all day if they want to,” he said Tuesday. “We have issues to deal with here.”
Bays told Gibbon and Conley that he was “paid to be here (at the meeting)” and “have every right to speak for as long as I feel necessary.”
“This is evolving quickly. I, for one, don’t feel we’ve got the satisfactory answers and we shouldn’t be limited in our discussion,” Flanagan said. The Supervisor left the meeting shortly thereafter.
On several occasions last year, Conley asked Town of Otselic Supervisor David Messineo to limit his comments during meetings of the Public Works Committee. Messineo said yesterday that elected officials need to have free discussion. “I think we should talk about it until we are done,” he said
In an e-mail sent later to The Evening Sun, Supervisor Bays said he had discovered that a natural gas company - one that has been drilling wells and creating a transmission line in Madison and Chenango counties - had been burying liquid and sludge material brought up during the fracturing process near the well head.
“This material is way nasty. All of the federal exemptions allow them to do so. I am simply amazed. I had assumed that they were trucking this stuff away for treatment. And there are innumerable other practices, protocols, attitudes that need attention,” he wrote.