NORWICH – The decision to provide special environmental protections from natural gas drilling in the watersheds that supply drinking water to New York City and Syracuse has received mixed reactions from both opponents and proponents to drilling.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis announced Friday that due to the unique issues related to the areas’ water supplies, they will be excluded from the pending generic environmental review process for natural gas drilling using high-volume horizontal drilling into shale formations, such as the Marcellus and Utica.
The DEC’S SGEIS review process has already been delayed from June to possibly the end of the year. Energy companies and New York’s landowers wanting to lease to them have been waiting for permission to drill since November 2008, while Pennsylvania and other states within the promising Marcellus Shale region have moved forward.
Bryant La Tourette of the Oxford Land Group, an association of 350 members who represent 26,000 acres of land, said he expected the move could open the doors sooner for permitting horizontal shale drilling in Chenango County. However, he blamed “misleading hysteria” from opposition groups for causing the concern in the first place.
“Folks should have more concern with NYC’s Environmental Protection Agency exemption of the unfiltered, free drinking water,” he said.
New York Senator Tom Libous said he was pleased that the DEC has taken the additional steps to protect the watersheds. “This is also great news for the people of the Southern Tier. With more focus on drilling permits outside those areas, we may see safe drilling begin sooner than we thought,” he said.
At issue is the controversial process for stimulating the production of gas, known as hydraulic fracturing. The technique, in which drilling companies inject millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth, has raised concerns about impacts to drinking water, rural communities, and natural resources.
An attorney for the group Earthjustice said Commissioner Grannis has not taken the New York City and Syracuse watersheds completely off the table.
“We’re calling on the Governor and DEC to make sure that all New Yorkers are kept safe. The DEC needs to adopt transparent, consistently applied, state-of-the-art, enforceable regulations – instead of proposing to meet with industry behind-the-scenes to negotiate permit conditions, which is what the state has proposed. Until those regulations are in place, there should be no drilling in the Marcellus Shale anywhere in the state,” said Managing Attorney Deborah Goldberg.
Walter Hang, president of the Ithaca-based group, Toxic Targeting, said the proposal is “a tacit admission that its draft SGEIS cannot safeguard public health.”
“If the proposed regs are insufficient for the New York City/Syracuse watersheds, they are equally insufficient for all New Yorkers living in the Marcellus Shale formation,” he stated.
A spokesman for Norse Energy, Inc., the Norwegian company that has been drilling for natural gas in Chenango and Madison counties since 2007, said the state’s decision will become a question of property rights in the river basins.
“You can’t ignore New York City (political power). That’s why the DEC has been very thoughtful and forthright. But there’s no scientific basis for depriving the landowners from having the opportunity to have that area developed,” said Dennis Holbrook, a legal advisor for Norse.