NORWICH – Three large chemical spills at a natural gas drilling site in Pennsylvania over the past two weeks – juxtaposed with enthusiasm for what drillers might find in Otsego County this week, where the first official exploration into New York’s shale is underway – will no doubt color the tone of a meeting between Gov. David Paterson and The Business Council of New York State in Rochester on Wednesday.
The Governor is expected to address the opening dinner meeting of the Council, which, later in the week, will include an update on the Marcellus Shale’s potential for boosting the state’s economy. Natural gas companies, landowners and economic developers are all poised to receive the Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulations for hydrofraking into shale on Wednesday as well.
Local landowner groups are hoping that timing is everything, as the Governor’s meeting will occur just when a natural gas company reaches its target in the Town of Maryland. Gastem USA, a Canadian company, is drilling a vertical well to a depth of 5,000 feet to test the gas potential of the Utica Shale. This first well is one of three vertical wells that were permitted by the New York State authorities prior to the state’s ban on drilling into shale.
“Hopefully good news will come for New York State right on top of the release of the DEC regs that we have all been waiting for. I hope they have to flare the (Maryland) well for several weeks! They are moving pretty quickly,” wrote Charles Rowe, an executive committee member of the Central New York Landowners Coalition, in an e-mail.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) confirmed that Cabot Oil & Gas, which is engaging in extensive drilling operations in Dimock Township, spilled “hundreds of gallons” of fraking fluids last Tuesday. The same fluid spewed out of a pipe twice on Sept. 16 – amounting to more than 8,000 gallons of the potentially harmful fluid entering the environment.
The first two spills, which reportedly discharged from a pipe connecting a fluid holding tank and one natural gas well, impacted a wetland area and flowed into a tributary of the Susquehanna River.
This would be Cabot Oil & Gas Corp’s second large spill incident in Dimock since the company began extensive drilling operations in the township last year. A protective well casing failed at a different well around December 2008, causing methane to pollute the local aquifer.
Bob McNitt, chairman of the Chenango County Environmental Management Council, said his research has found that anytime hydrofraking occurs, there is a risk of an accident. Not only are spills caused from leaks in plastic lined temporary holding ponds used to contain fraking and formation fluids, but the seal casing separating the drilling from the aquifer can be breached.
“The NYSDEC wasn’t prepared in manpower or technology to handle the amount of drilling that was going on in Western, New York when this all first started, and Pennsylvania is now in the same boat. We just don’t have the manpower or the experience to oversee and safeguard the environment,” he said.
McNitt, who is a retired writer and editor for the New York Sportsman and New England Sportsman magazines, also contributes a weekly outdoors column for The Evening Sun.
“You know, when you dangle money in front of people during an economic recession, a lot of values go right out the window,” he said.
Chenango County Planning Department Director Donna A. Jones said the Pennsylvania spills weren’t good news.
“We just have to make sure it’s done right, and get the regulations in place,” she said.