NORWICH – Pressure is heating up on both sides of the natural gas drilling debate in New York as an Environmental Protection Agency hearing scheduled for Thursday in Binghamton was moved to Syracuse and later postponed due to security issues.
Organizers reported the anticipated crowd grew from 1,000 to 8,000 over the last few days, most likely the result of the state Senate’s recent vote for a nine-month moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. The EPA is taking comments from the public for a new study of the controversial drilling method which involves high volumes of pressurized, chemically-treated water.
The action is heating up on the local front as well. Yesterday, a group of residents asked Chenango County to stand with them in support of a ban on fracturing until the EPA’s study is completed. They pointed to resolutions blocking the drilling method in neighboring Cortland, Onondaga, Sullivan and Tompkins counties.
“I believe the safest, most responsible action Chenango County can currently take is to err to the side of caution, to give yourselves more time to continue to confront the tough questions you have been addressing and to be sure you are truly considering what is best on behalf of all county residents,” said Erin Heaton of Norwich.
Heaton and a group of three others appeared on the agenda at the Chenango County Planning and Planning and Economic Development committees Tuesday. They also were among a much larger group of about 20 anti-drillers who attended the Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee in late July, all asking the same thing: that Chenango County government take a stand.
Familiar activist Dr. George Wright of Norwich, a former chemist with Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, told the group he had personally traveled to Dimock, Pa. to see drilling operations underway. He said he feared that Chenango County’s two greatest assets, pure water and clean air, were in the early stages of being ruined by drilling “which can and will release toxic chemicals into the area.”
Supervisor David C. Law, chairman of Planning and Economic Development, asked for a motion to refer the group’s request to the county’s gas advisory committee to investigate why other counties have passed moratoriums.
Before making the motion to refer, Coventry Supervisor John Phelan said he thought the effort was akin to “a stop sign with no traffic.”
“A moratorium is a finite thing. The gas industry is stopped by the EPA, the DEC (the state’s environmental conservation agency is in the process of writing drilling regulations) and the New York Senate for now. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to wait?” he asked.
David Messineo of Otselic seconded Phelan’s motion. The referral passed.
New Berlin Supervisor Ross Iannello, a member of the gas committee and planning, said the county wants “responsible drilling” that enables the hundreds of landowners in Chenango County who have leases “to have their rights, too.”
The advisory committee has been educating itself and the towns about the consequences of the approaching natural gas industry. Issues discussed over the past two years include: municipal road and noise ordinances, water and soil sampling, pipeline and drill casing, taxation, mineral rights and compulsory integration.
“We want to protect our county and our gas committee is doing a great job,” Law said upon referring the proposed ban on drilling. “We don’t want bad water and we want to smell our county air. It just takes team work, which we are doing.”
To address concerns and strengthen clean energy future, the EPA announced in March that it will study the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on drinking water and would be seeking input from people across the country. EPA has held had three successful meetings in Fort Worth, Texas, Denver, Colorado and Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, where more than 1,200 participants attended, according to a report.