DEC flooded with comments

Growing chorus says hold off on fracking

By FRITZ MAYER

NEW YORK STATE — With the end of the year came the end of the comment period, where a host of groups and individuals wrote to New York in hopes of influencing the future of gas exploration. That future will be shaped by the supplemental generic environmental impact statement (SGEIS), which is being developed by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

There were some who called for the state to finish the process soon and finalize the new guidelines. The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York, for instance, with a coalition of 16 business and economic development groups, sent a letter to the DEC saying, “The extremely stringent requirements proposed by the SGEIS provide the public with the necessary oversight that natural gas exploration and extraction will be conducted in an environmentally safe manner.” Among the signatories to the letter was the Delaware County Board of Supervisors.

And while it is generally acknowledged that New York, through the DEC, has gone further than any other state in creating guidelines that will safeguard human health and the environment from the negative impacts of drilling, many influential organizations and individuals said the SGEIS does not go far enough, that it should be scrapped and a moratorium on the kind of drilling needed to extract gas from the Marcellus Shale—horizontal drilling with fracking—should continue for at least another year, or should be banned altogether.

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), for instance, wrote, “The study is fatally flawed and must be withdrawn.”

NRDC, along with Earthjustice, Delaware Riverkeeper and Catskill Mountainkeeper, filed a 20-page highly technical comment on the draft SGEIS, enumerating a lengthy list of shortcomings, such as that it does not include an analysis of the cumulative impacts of multiple wells on resources such as water and air.

The draft is also faulted for not considering the social and economic impacts of drilling, and the coming of hundreds of new transient gas workers to New York from states such as Texas and Oklahoma.

Separately, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed a letter co-signed by 14 organizations in New Jersey calling for the withdrawal of the draft SGEIS because it does not consider the downstream impacts of gas drilling to communities. According to the letter, some 2.8 million New Jersey residents get their water directly from the Delaware River, which could be impacted by drilling.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey also wrote to the DEC, saying, “The DEC has taken a good step forward in setting some environmental guidelines, but a lot more work needs to be done.” Among the steps he listed was a study of cumulative impacts.

Perhaps the most significant comments on the SGEIS process are those provided by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency wrote, “analysis and discussion of cumulative and indirect impacts in the dSGEIS need to be significantly expanded.”

The EPA further said that greater attention needs to be paid to the impacts of drilling, and specifically fracking, on human health. The agency suggested that the NY Department of Health (DOH) join the DEC in the study. The agency wrote, “Not only does DOH have expertise to offer on health impacts, but it was delegated primary enforcement responsibility... of the Safe Drinking Water Act by EPA. This is of direct interest to EPA as we are responsible for overseeing DOH’s implementation and enforcement of the drinking-water program.”

Finally, George A. Mathewson, a former DEC regional attorney, recommended keeping the Marcellus Shale drilling moratorium in place until such time as the DEC can further study impacts such as possible downward pressure on property values, and allow time for other advancements, such as the construction of facilities that can treat the enormous amount of waste water that is expected to be produced by drilling and fracking.

The DEC received some 9,600 comments on the draft SGEIS. Some of them are multiple communications of the same comment, but it’s clear that there is a substantial amount of interest in the subject among credible groups and individuals.

The DEC must now consider all of the comments and possibly make changes to the SGEIS. It is not yet clear whether that will result in a further delay of drilling in the Marcellus Shale.