PLYMOUTH – The calm and orderly tenor at the town board meeting in Plymouth last month, when nearly 30 individuals were given five minutes each to expound on the subject of natural gas drilling, gave way to a citizen being evicted from this month’s meeting of the board.
It was the first time Supervisor Jerry Kreiner, R-Plymouth, was forced to remove a member of the public from a government meeting. On April 9, Kreiner called upon the Chenango County Sheriff’s Office to escort a resident out of the town hall because his angry shouts were disrupting another’s public comment.
“You don’t want to have to call a police agency to have members of the public removed. That’s not a good feeling for anybody,” Kreiner said.
The outburst began when a resident read aloud oil and gas leases that had been signed by the evicted person, who happens to also be a prominent anti-drilling activist, Peter Hudiburg. In person and through many letters to The Evening Sun, Hudiburg has repeatedly called on town and Chenango County government officials to ban high impact industrial drilling for natural gas. Last summer, he delivered a petition with 600 signatures calling for a moratorium in Plymouth.
Hudiburg left on his own accord and was not cited. He said he considered the attack personal and called Kreiner’s refusal to allow individuals to exchange comments during the public session “unfortunate.” As for leasing his land for drilling, Hudiburg said he “was sucked into” leasing because the 61-acre parcel he purchased adjacent to his farm back in 2004 already had a lease on it, and that he had no choice in the matter when the lease was renewed in 2007 and again in 2008.
The gas issue has meant much longer government meetings over the past couple of years. Large groups of individuals in Chenango County are concerned that the potential economic benefits from developing the Marcellus Shale aren’t worth risking adverse health impacts of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The technology involves injecting millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand to unlock trapped gas in tight shale formations. Concerns about potential contamination of New York City’s water supply led to a ban in the state in 2008.
In the past, security has been summoned to keep order at a town board meeting in Afton and also to a Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee meeting at the County Office Building in Norwich.
Kreiner said his town board had not taken action on the proposed petition, nor did he anticipate any action soon.
“I do know there are names on there that are not Plymouth residents,” he said.
Town boards in Chenango County are being cautioned from enacting moratoriums due to lawsuits that are likely to follow. County Attorney Alan Gordon said towns that have zoning and land use regulations in place can use them to ban drilling, but he warned that the cost of litigation could be overwhelming.
“There’s the cost of the initial appeal. You’ll have more and more legal fees. You’re going to get sued by landowners, and possibly litigated, (at least) once or twice,” he said.
Supervisor Dennis Brown, D-Pharsalia, said it is “a bold move” for small towns to litigate drilling before the state’s environmental conservation agency finishes writing new permitting rules for fracking. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has been writing drafts and sifting through tens of thousands of comments on a Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement for the past four years to regulate the industry.
“It just doesn’t make sense that a town can pass a law that zones out business. If anybody wants to ban, it can’t just ban fracking. You can’t pick and choose industries or industrial activities,” Brown told members of the Board of Supervisors last week.
Dozens of New York communities have banned natural gas drilling. Lawsuits brought in both the Town of Dryden, by an energy firm, and in Middlefield, by landowners, are currently underway. The legal question comes down to whether the state or local governments have the power to regulate mining under existing New York State Oil, Gas, and Solution Mining Law. David Slottje, an attorney supporting Hudiburg’s petition, told the Plymouth board that statute does not take away local authority.
However, according to former DEC Mineral Resources Division Director Gregory H. Sovas, who is the primary author of amendments that were made to the state law, attempts by government officials to zone the natural gas industry, beyond creating road use ordinances and determining real property taxes, is superseded by the state.
Meanwhile, should the DEC and Governor Cuomo decide to permit drilling, Attorney Gordon has completed a draft road use agreement that local municipalities may request as a template for creating their own. The agreement, rather than a road use law, is a negotiated contract with drilling companies that asked them to reimburse towns for any road repair work following heavy truck use. The contract would specify the routes and all insurance and financial details.
Chenango County Natural Gas Consultant Steven Palmatier said towns should also have driveway permits, noise and light pollution controls and ideas for where pipeyards and storage facilities should be.