NORWICH – With the new July 1 deadline set for environmental regulators to present permitting regulations for high water volume hydraulic fracturing, New York’s legislators have been busy.
There are now about 50 bills on the docket dealing with everything from water and road use ordinances to stopping all drilling activity in the state completely.
“It seems to be a popular project for the legislators,” wrote Chenango County Planner Rena Doing in an e-mail that attached a list of bills her office was aware of.
Yesterday, the New York Assembly’s Democratic leadership passed legislation for a one-year ban on hydraulic fracturing of oil and natural gas reserves to further study the environmental impact of the deep drilling, especially on drinking water.
The bill (A.7400 Sweeney/S.5592 Carlucci) would effectively shut down an existing industry that the state Department of Environmental Conservation has regulated for decades.
Former Governor David Paterson vetoed the same bill late last year because it went beyond targeting high water volume hydraulic fracturing to encompass a moratorium on all oil and gas well drilling – and perhaps thousands of jobs – in New York.
“The cessation of such activity, even for a limited period, would have substantial negative financial consequences for the state, local governments, landowners and small businesses involved in conventional oil and gas production,” Paterson declared.
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York – an organization representing nearly 400 industry employers with 4,500 workers in New York – opposes the Sweeney bill because it targets a technology that has been used safely by oil and gas companies across New York since the middle of the 20th century.
“Some legislators misunderstand the process to extract oil and natural gas and the regulations that serve to protect the public and the environment,” said Brad Gill, IOGA of NY executive director.
Ninety percent of the state’s 14,000 active oil and gas wells required hydraulic fracture stimulation to free the natural resource.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, says his chamber will vote to postpone issuing state permits for new hydraulic fracturing until June 1, 2012. Drillers release trapped gas by pumping huge volumes of water, laced with much smaller amounts of chemicals and sand, underground.
Silver says people’s health and welfare must take precedence over industry profits.
A similar bill is pending in the Senate.
The hotly-contested draft regulations, called the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, were supposed to be completed by June 1. But after the DEC said it would take them at least until the end of the summer, a May 27 memo from the Governor’s office directed them to have the revised draft completed by July 1 and include a review of a blowout of fracking chemicals at a natural gas well in Bradford County, Pa.
Formation water and fracturing fluid from the particular well ended up in a nearby creek, causing seven households to be evacuated.
Visiting other states’ natural gas drilling operations and assessing what may have gone wrong when spills and other accidents have occurred isn’t something new for the DEC, however. A spokesman said they’ve been reviewing and assessing processes – including spill accidents – at other well sites right along over the past three years as they’ve revised the draft of permitting regulations.
“We have been consulting with environmental officials in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states right along and seeing first hand their experiences with high water volume hydraulic fracturing technique,” said Michael Bopp, DEC media director.
A Chenango County resident who has often cautioned that the new technology requires further study said it would be “an impossible task” to review the Pennsylvania blow out and have the regs completed by July 1.
“Certainly it is important to absorb enough information as we can so that we can make informed decisions. We all want information. It’s clear from the letter writing to your paper that there are really extreme polar views of this issue. The answer is somewhere in between,” said Ken Fogarty of Guilford.
High-volume hydrofracking is the injection of millions of gallons of a mix of water, sand and chemicals to break up shale formations, such as the Marcellus Shale. Proponents say it could bring a much-needed economic boost to the upstate region, while some say the environmental risks outweigh the potential rewards. Meanwhile, high-volume fracking remains on hold in New York until a final, non-draft version of the DEC review is put in place.
Before yesterday’s legislative activity, Bopp said the DEC would comply with the Governor’s directive, but plans for public review and comment are pending and will be announced when the revised draft is completed.
An executive with Norse Energy Inc., the company actively involved in drilling the Herkimer Sandstone in Chenango and Madison counties, welcomed the July 1 deadline, saying “three years is long enough when it comes to this type of review.”
“Obviously we would prefer sooner rather than later,” said Dennis Holbrook. “They are going to control the pace, based on number of staffing. But there are answers to all of the questions posed.”
Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee Chairman Peter C. Flanagan said there were “innumerable bills” to control drilling.
“We don’t control much of this. They throw every road block in front of it, to ban it. It seems to be more politics and emotion than scientific analysis,” he said.