City Water Supply Threatened by Gas Drilling
You’ll really need that water filter now. — Photo by Jeremy Sapienza
It’s boom time for the natural gas industry in the Northeast and recent drilling proposals in the Catskill Mountains could pose a serious threat to our top-rated drinking water supply — that’s the entire city, not just Bushwick.
Rising natural gas prices have put deep, hard-to-get-to gas reserves in the Appalachian Basin back on the drilling radar and energy companies are targeting the Marcellus Shale, a large, underground rock formation full of untapped gas deposits which extends from the Catskills to West Virginia.
The new “gas rush” has drawn strong criticism from environmentalists, who argue drilling near Catskill Mountain State Park would foul up the New York City watershed — the main water source for more than 8 million New Yorkers.
Deborah Goldberg, an attorney for Earthjustice, and environmental law firm, said she is most concerned about recent technological enhancements in gas extraction, specifically horizontal hydraulic fracturing or “hydrofracking,” a method that pumps chemically-treated water into the underground rock deposits to force gases to the surface. Goldberg argues the method could contaminate the region’s aquifers with an array of unknown pollutants.
“Horizontal hydrofracking … will require the use of millions of gallons of water per well,” Goldberg said in her testimony during the New York State Assembly hearing on oil and gas drilling in October. “Mixed into the [injected] water will be friction reducers, oxygen scavengers and other corrosion inhibitors, biocides, surfactants, and scale inhibitors, many of which pose human health hazards.”
A New York DEC map of the Marcellus Shale formation (outlined in brown), a region full of deep natural gas deposits that could attract new drilling operations near Catskill State Park (outlined in blue) and pollute New York City’s main water source (the green area).
DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis also testified during the hearing, where he said hydrofracking takes place well below groundwater zones and should not contaminate any water resources.
“The same geology that has sealed natural gas in the rock for millions of years, together with our strict well casing and cementing requirements, prevents any risk of groundwater contamination from the drilling and fracking operation,” he said. “As a result, the only likely vector for possible threats to groundwater comes from the surface management of the water used in the drilling and fracking operations.”
The DEC is holding a series of public meetings to give residents a chance to comment on the proposed drilling plans — but none of the hearings have been scheduled in New York City! Even worse, the deadline for public comment is December 15.
Here’s your chance to do something: Click here to send an electronic letter to Grannis asking for a public hearing in New York City — home to the majority of people that would be affected by “gas rush” drilling in the Catskills.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
The fact that the people are so uneducated about this topic, which leaves us only until the fifteenth of this month is a complete irresponsibility. The oil and gas industry needs to be regulated. The reason we have to worry about all of this is because these destructive companies are exempt from environmental mandates like the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, The Safe Drinking Water Act, The Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), and The Planning and Community Right to Know Act. Let there be no mistake that these companies have already polluted peoples ground water in places like New Mexico, with toxic spills in over 800 sites, and in Colorado where 300 spills have affected ground water.
I don’t know why NYC hasn’t been involved with the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS), which includes all concerns in an effort to rewrite mandates on these issues.
Along with pollutants supplemented to the water for drilling, the Marcellus shale is known to have NORMS which stand for Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials. Such radioactive materials like uranium and thorium will be at risk of leaching into our aquifers and undoubtedly into the NYC watershed.
If you think we will never run out of water, as far as human existence goes, you are right. But, drinkable water is scarce. This will affect flora and fauna as well. They need to be stopped. I vote for a moratorium on these drilling projects until we can either eradicate these companies and there mission to drill or at least mandate them to take every possible environmental and human health precaution there is above and beyond.
People should write a letter to governor Paterson and get a hold of the SGEIS. Write even if it’s a sentence saying you do not want this happening. Here’s the link: http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/47554.html
OR
Mail comments to: Attn: Scope Comments, Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation, NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources, 625 Broadway, Third Floor, Albany, NY 12233-6500.
Email comments to: dmnog@gw.dec.state.ny.us with “Scope Comments” in the subject line. Include your name and return mail or email address to ensure receipt of a copy of the Final Scope when it is available.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
P.S. They are only accepting comments up until December 15th of this year.
-Sorry for those typos in the previous message.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 pm
“Eradicate these companies”? I agree that people shouldn’t be allowed to contaminate our drinking water but I don’t see the point of this kind of rhetoric, especially since it’s the stuff of fantasy.
December 4th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Beware! Educate yourselves about this issue. Hydraulic fracturing causes many problems.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
ever read the monkeywrench gang by edward abbey. good book. all i’m saying
try this too: http://www.ecodefense.com/
education is the key to resistance
December 4th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Aren’t those counties in the DELAWARE WATER SHED? We’re in the Hudson.
I just tested my water for lead with the city’s 311 lead detector.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
i think eradicating these industries is exactly what needs to happen. there is no need to let exploitative industries like this run all over the collective world population. we’re going to further damage what was one of the most diverse ecosystems in the united states for 14 years worth of natural gas? yeah, strip the mountains, contaminate the water, as long as we get nearly a decade and a half more of the good life! wooohoo! slash and burn!
if world (or state or local) governments have any reason at all to exist it is to stop this. not to stop me from marrying another man or smoking weed, or to stop people from crossing the fictitious line that separates a poor country from a wealthy country. the focus should be on stopping the formation of companies like this (and mining companies, etc.) whose sole reason for existence is to strip the land bare of resources in the name of private profits. instead we have governments who sell them the rights in order to line their pockets and feed their own swinish appetites.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Pete, the fact that governments DO exist and DO own land (they say it’s public land but it is de facto state corporate property) makes it possible for these companies to exist on the scale they do in the first place. From timber to drilling to mining, the vast majority of this activity takes place on state land. This is the same problem affecting the Amazon — Brasilia owns the rainforest and has the right to do anything it wants with it — so it leases it out to companies with no interest or investment in the land whatsoever after they have sucked it dry. The people who have lived on it for 1000 years have no say.
Everywhere in the world where the state owns/controls the means of production, environmental destruction is greatest. Eastern Europe was synonymous with sooty faces and stupidly low life expectancies until the fall of the iron curtain. Not so now.
These companies endangering our water supply are not a market failure. They are a government failure. Or triumph, depending on your philosophy. What’s a little pollution and a few years off your life to avoid the moral horror of private property? Right?
December 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
jeremy, agreed. and further, i think governments only serve to legitimize environmental exploitation and degradation. i don’t advocate for state stewardship of the land, but i don’t advocate for private property rights either.
ultimately, i think that the land should be collective property, with decisions made at consensus-based open forums where all interested groups and individuals can have their voices heard. truly heard, not like one of these bullshit offers to email some bureaucrat your concerns so they can be ignored.
but in the current situation, where the state does control the land, they should be setting policies that protect the long term interests of the most people possible, not the short term interests of a privileged few. and if that is not what they are doing (its not) then we should think about taking that control back.
December 9th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Has anyone been following Nat Gas prices? Since that NYT article was published Nat Gas prices have fallen nearly 50%. And per BTU, Nat Gas is actually cheaper than oil (despite oil having fallen further over the same period). Many people think that existing natural gas gathering facilities will be cutting production. So I doubt there is as much incentive drill for Nat Gas in new areas.