DEC files notice on Hancock gas well permits

Drilling still months away

By FRITZ MAYER

HANCOCK, NY — The first Marcellus Shale gas wells to go online on the New York side of the Upper Delaware River will likely be five wells proposed for the Town of Hancock in Delaware County by Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC. The company applied to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for permits to drill the wells late last year, and on January 15, the DEC published a notice of the agency’s intent to issue permits to allow the drilling operation to go forward.

That does not mean, however, that drilling is imminent. A spokesperson for the agency, Lori Severino, said in an email that publication of the notice is required by law. However, she wrote, “there is no regulatory or statutory time frame for issuing permits after the notice is published. We do not plan to issue these permits ahead of completing the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Survey (SGEIS) process.”

The SGEIS is the process in which the DEC is re-examining the states’ environmental rules regarding gas and oil drilling to determine if the extraction method that will be used in the Marcellus Shale?horizontal drilling with very large volumes of fracking fluid-will need new rules specifically suited to this type of gas mining. The SGEIS process is moving forward with input from state and local politicians and many other stakeholders, and is not expected to be complete until the summer.

In October 2008, Chesapeake applied to the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) for a permit to withdraw up to 999,999 gallons of water per day from the East Branch at Peas Eddy. The water would be used in the well-drilling and fracking processes.

That amount of water is roughly two percent of the flow of the lowest recorded flows for the river in the last 10 years. The company said it would only withdraw water 185 days each year.

But with trout fishing enthusiasts and tourism officials already prodding the DRBC and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to release more from the reservoirs to protect the cold-water fisheries of the Upper Delaware, any amount of water taken out of the watershed will face opposition, and some organizations, such as the local chapter of Trout Unlimited, have already expressed concern.

However, it will be a while before the withdrawal permit is issued, and will probably not be before the SGEIS process is completed. Additionally, the entire application process and the roles of the DRBC and the DEC are not yet entirely settled.

Clarke Rupert, a spokesman for the DRBC, told The River Reporter that Chesapeake would need to apply not only for a water withdrawal permit for the wells, but also for a separate permit for the drilling, in addition to the one that will be issued by the DEC, and so far has not applied for the drilling permit.

A spokesperson for Chesapeake in November 2008 was not aware that this additional step was needed. However, if the emerging process follows what has happened in Pennsylvania, the issue might become clearer. Recently, the DRBC said that it had reached an informal agreement with the PA Department of Environmental Protection in which the DRBC will rely on the DEP’s drilling application requirements and add additional requirements unique to the DRBC.

A representative from Chesapeake did not respond to a request for comment.