Rules versus permit conditions

SGEIS comment period extended

By FRITZ MAYER

ALBANY, NY — Officials call them permit conditions or regulatory controls, but for some advocates, that leaves too much room for drilling companies to maneuver around them.

The new permit conditions being considered by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) include some that environmentalists have been clamoring for. For instance, one permit condition would require drillers to test private wells for baseline information in advance of gas well drilling, and to allow for ongoing monitoring of the private wells.

But according to Deborah Goldberg, a managing attorney with Earthjustice, a permit condition is not nearly as strong as a more formal rule when it comes to protecting the environment.

Goldberg said that if DEC staff wanted to, for instance, leave the private well testing condition off the permit of a given gas drilling project, they would have the discretion to do that, provided that they found that the drilling company had put other mitigation measures in place that subsituted for the permit condition.

Rules, on the other hand, are harder to circumvent. Goldberg said, “Real rules are binding equally on everybody; they’re the product of an open, transparent rule-making process in which there is public participation, and you can be sure that they will be applied consistently to everybody or there could be legal challenges, and they can be enforced because they’re mandatory.”

It’s a point that is underscored on the Earthjustice website, www.earthjustice.org, which says, “Without rules that are transparent, consistent, and enforceable, you better believe that drillers will lobby for exceptions at every turn.”

Those who support the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) make the point that the DEC does not simply toss out permit conditions without good cause.

In any case, Goldberg will be making that point and others in written comments to the DEC regarding the SGEIS, and will now have until the end of December to do so.

Last week, the DEC announced it extended the public comment period from November 30 to December 31. Many environmental organizations have been calling for the extension since the draft SGEIS was released on September 30.

One lawmaker who was advocating for the extension was U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who released a statement saying, “I am pleased that New York State has extended the comment period on drilling in the Marcellus Shale through the end of the year. While this proposal holds tremendous economic opportunity for New York, our quest for new sources of energy and growth cannot come at the expense of clean air and safe drinking water for New Yorkers.”

Comments regarding the SGEIS can be submitted in various ways: there is an online submission system at www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/SGEISComments; e-mail comments may be submitted to dmnsgeis@gw.dec.state.ny.us; and written comments should be sent to: Attn: dSGEIS Comments, Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation, NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources, 625 Broadway, Third Floor, Albany, NY 12233-6500.