1,000 gallons per minute

First gas-drilling related docket considered by DRBC

By FRITZ MAYER

BETHLEHEM, PA — On the afternoon of July 15, the largest gas-drilling company in the United States and environmental advocates in the Upper Delaware Valley eagerly awaited a decision by the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) that would leave one side or the other deeply unsatisfied. As it turned out, they will have to wait a little longer: early in the proceedings the DRBC announced that the commission would postpone its decision, though the hearing on the docket in question continued.

The company is Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, which has applied to the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) for a permit to withdraw up to one million gallons of water per day from the West Branch of the Delaware River, on the Pennsylvania side, just downstream from the bridge that runs between Buckingham Township and Hancock, NY.

The water will be used in connection with Chesapeake’s natural gas extraction activities, but according to the DRBC draft docket, which is a document prepared by DRBC staff in response to the permit application, 90 percent of the water will be used for hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Fracking is the process in which millions of gallons of water laced with sand and chemicals are forced into wells to facilitate gas extraction. The rate of water extraction would not exceed one million gallons per day, or 1,000 gallons per minute, and the company would be required to stop taking water from the river should the water flow “pass-by” in the area drop beneath a 31-million gallons per day threshold.

Staff of the DRBC have recommended to the commissioners that permission be granted to Chesapeake with a number of provisions. One of them would be that the approval would not give Chesapeake the authority to drill any gas wells in the Delaware River Basin (DRB), which must be approved separately.

The delay was not a complete surprise: there had been speculation in the run-up to the meeting, to be held in Bethlehem, that the commission would postpone a decision on the matter because of the complexities involved, and also because this would be the first water withdrawal permit issued in the DRB regarding gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale and might require more study.

Also, one of the most vocal opponents of gas drilling in the river valley, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, has expanded its legal representation, and the new lawyer, Jeff Zimmerman, fired off a letter to the DRBC that says the commission should not grant the permit without first evaluating the impact of the thousands of gas wells predicted for the region. It says, “If the DRBC approves this docket without having first examined and evaluated the environmental impacts from the full scope of the projected development it will be violating the National Environmental Policy Act.”

That is just one of a litany of complaints contained in the letter that point to what Zimmerman considered to be “scientifically and legally deficient” coverage of various subjects in the draft docket. Another complaint concerns the intake screen of the apparatus that will draw the water. The letter says, “There is no discussion at all in the docket about the potential for entrainment of fish and other aquatic life on the intake screen and the impact of such entrainment on this aquatic life.”

There is also concern that if the operation were to make full use of the water capacity, it would require some 200 trucks per day to ship the water from the site to the various wells, or about one truck every seven minutes, 24 hours per day. Zimmerman writes, “The relevant point regarding the truck traffic… is that there is no mention of this whatsoever in the proposed docket.”

There may be an additional hearing scheduled for a later date.

The Chesapeake docket can be found at www.state.nj.us/drbc/dockets/D-2009-020-1.pdf and the letter from Damascus Citizens can be viewed at www.damascuscitizens.org/DCS-Letter-DRBC.pdf.