Protecting New York City's Water Supply from Gas Companies
New Yorkers were out in force last Tuesday to protect the purity of their legendary water. A public comment event, held downtown by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation focused on drilling in the Marcellus shale, a vast reservoir of natural gas that developers are seeking to exploit. The event was packed to the gills with people speaking passionately -- and often angrily -- about the failure of the DEC to protect the city's watershed. The drilling companies propose to use toxic chemicals to extract the gas. One of only five cities in the country that is not required to filter its water supply, New York depends on its pristine upstate watersheds and reservoirs to deliver H20 that some have said is better than anything you can buy bottled. The city has the largest unfiltered water supply in the world. According to the New York Times as well as officials speaking last night, if gas extraction fouled the watershed, estimates are that filtration would cost a staggering $10 billion dollars to start, and $100 million per year to maintain.
The Marcellus Shale
Marcellus Shale, a layer of rock deep underground, curves northward from West Virginia to the southern counties of New York State. Trapped between the layers of rock are enormous deposits of natural gas that, proponents argue, would add to energy supplies and stimulate sluggish upstate economies. But the gas is hard to get to. The process of extracting it, called "fracking," uses a mixture of sand, water, and chemicals shot into the ground at ultra high pressure. The fracking process generates millions of gallons of waste water which must then be contained and transported, creating further risks to the environment. What's more some of the chemical laden water remains in the ground -- where it can seep into groundwater. Moreover, the Marcellus Shale lies especially deep -- miles -- underground, and the fracking process would produce enormous quantities of the fluid. Escaped fluid could contaminate both the upstate region where the drilling is done, as well as seep into the area that supplies water to New York City and New Jersey. Hundreds of cases of pollution of water by fracking have been reported in other states, most recently in Pennsylvania, where drilling in this part of the shale is already under way. One company, Chesapeake Oil, recently said it has decided it will not drill in the watershed because the risks are just too great.
The Watershed
The city's watershed is a 1,900 square mile area of reservoirs and the land surrounding them in the Catskills and Delaware valley, a region spread over eight counties, but primarily within Delaware, Ulster, Greene, and Sullivan. Nine million people in New York and its suburbs rely on the watershed for their water. New York City actually owns only 10% of the watershed -- there are residents and even dairy farms within its borders -- but in recent years, has worked with upstate communities to acquire and protect land in the watershed area, to minimize development and prevent contamination by runoff.
The DEC held the hearing in order to help it decide what, if any regulations to place on the drilling, which the state has already approved.
Mayor Bloomberg has ordered a separate study of the environmental impact of the drilling, due the end of the year.
The Outcry
At the public comment, 160 people lined up to speak for five minutes each in the Stuyvesant High School auditorium on Chambers Street, and at least for the first hour, their voices -- including those of a representative of the Mayor and a member of the city council -- were emphatically opposed to drilling. As Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer put it, "We don't even let people build a house in the watershed, and now you're telling us it's okay to pour dangerous chemicals into the ground!"
Several groups present called for a ban on all drilling in New York State. One man was ejected for interrupting a representative of the DEC who was trying to speak.
The reaction from New Yorkers to this latest threat to our health from corporations who ravage our environment -- and the politicians who enable them -- was visceral. Maybe it was the realization that this time they are messing with something as basic to life and as primal as water, that for the sake of profit they are about to mess with 2/3 of what -- biologically speaking -- we're made of.
If the degree of resistance from the mayor's office on down is any indication, this time they may not have their way.
To take action, go to Catskills Citizens for Safe Energy (http://www.catskillcitizens.org)
For health action, news, and science get the free Health Outlook at www.health-journalist.com
Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/healthattitude
Scott Stringer: State Must End Threat to NYC's Drinking Water
New York State regulators trail everybody else in protecting New York City's drinking water from natural gas drilling, despite the fact that they alone have the authority to do so.
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It is also a responsibility. Of course I accept that liability goes hand in hand. I also accept responsibilty for where my energy comes from. Everyone against this turns a blind eye. If they cannot see Iraqi families being descimated so we can steal their oil, that makes it okay to just go about their business, & protest clean local energy. Not in their "backyard". Unless you wear buckskin, raise all your own food and walk everwhere you go I consider you a hypocrite. Odds of spillage or accidents increase with distance to end user. I run my car, and heat my home partially, with fossil fuels. Dirty coal and oil cause acid rain. Natural gas is much cleaner while we await viable large scale renewables.
The slight risks with gas production is far less than the current situation. Fracking has been done commercially since 1949. Acceptable risk. This is not a public health issue or it would never have been allowed anywhere. It is a property rights issue and a moral issue.
LIFE is dangerous. Did you know that it has been proven that in 99.9% + cases, life is FATAL! Hadn't someone ought to be banning this?
Again, re the methane contamination in Dimock: The point is not that "methane is methane." The point is that the methane in the water supplies of those 13 homes in Dimock WOULD NOT BE THERE if not for the drilling. The drilling is to blame. Initially, Cabot was NOT supplying water to all of the homes involved: I believe they initially supplied water to only four of the homes and everyone else had to fight like mad for months and months to get Cabot to supply water. In the meantime, the people in Dimock were spending a lot of money to buy their own drinking water. As of now, NONE of those 13 homes has a permanent water supply. Probably none of those homes could be sold to anyone. Certainly they could not be sold for as much as they were worth prior to the drilling.
The methane contamination was discovered when a water well exploded. If someone had been standing on or next to it when it blew, they could have been seriously injured or even killed. (The explosion blew up a heavy concrete lid on top of the water well.) Having flammable, explosive water is not a normal way of life--it is not safe--and it is something that everyone should be warned about before another gas lease is ever signed. The casual, "methane is methane" attitude of those who want to drill shows an appalling disregard for human life and safety.
methane is methane, methane can migrate with or without drilling and the "explosion" was as I stated earlier, because the house was not being lived in the owners had been away, allowing the gas to build up in their absence. Accidents happen and Cabot will remediate. This just illustrates that the PA DEP laws in place are adequate. NYS DEC has MUCH more stringent laws than PA DEP.
As someone who's slogged through all 809 pages of the dSGEIS, I can tell you it's woefully inadequate. It naively (or cynically) relies on industry self-reporting, "encourages" rather than "requires" safer practices, ignores factual data from respected scientific organizations, relies on studies from industry-dominated organizations, avoids considering cumulative impacts, and actually claims it's too hard to predict the full scale of operations in the region. If I did this bad a job on a project at my office, I'd get fired.
The dSGEIS actually proposes the use of 5-acre holding ponds for toxic fracking fluids that come back up out of the wells. FIVE ACRES of water that now contains carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, systemic toxins, and naturally occuring radioactive materials like Radium 226/228. Many compounds will evaporate and become airborne, traveling far beyond leased lands. What lines the pits? Essentially, two sheets of plastic, with acceptable leakage rates listed as up to 100 gallons per acre per day. (Section 7.1.7.3.) A 5-acre pit could leak up to 15,000 gallons (100 x 5 x 30) a month before raising an eyebrow at the DEC.
All New Yorkers need to be concerned about their watersheds, upstate foodsheds, and air quality. Hydraulic fracturing has no place in the state of New York (or anywhere else, for that matter). We all deserve better than this.
Methane occurs naturally in upstate NY and PA. It can seep into water wells that are are isolated from any quarry work or drilling. Additionally, the water from many wells in the area change color, become cloudy, and have funny tastes and smells at various times throughout the year as surface run off seeps down into the aquifers, especially in the spring or after substantial rain falls.
The problems in Dimock may or may not have been caused soley by the gas drilling. Here is a video clip of my husband lighting our bathroom faucet. Our 420' water well turned into a gas well, complete with the brine that accompanies methane in rock. We had to have a new water well drilled because of the danger from the gas. There are no quarries or gas wells anywhere near us. The gas just seeps into rock where it can!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOKJwI_VZis
Having lived in NYC, I understand the fear that can be generated among people who are dependent on upstate for water. However, these same people need to become educated about natural phenomena, as well as the technologies that enable them to live in a city - i.e. electric and gas production and distribution, sewage treatment, trash and snow removal and disposal, and water treatment and filtration. The urban dwellers should not be imposing their uneducated views on rural populations, like they do their trash, medical waste and sludge!
From the actual PA DEP website
http://www.ahs2.dep.state.pa.us/newsreleases/default.asp?ID=5722
"The consent order and agreement caps a DEP investigation that began early this year when numerous Dimock area residents reported evidence of natural gas in their water supplies. DEP inspectors discovered that the well casings on some of Cabot’s natural gas wells were cemented improperly or insufficiently, allowing natural gas to migrate to groundwater."
I am a local resident, the methane was not previously contaminating wells, it was caused by improper drilling by Cabot. As the drilling ramps up in my area and others places in the N.E.expect to see more of this. Do your homework, water problems seem tio be the foot print of this industry.
Concerning the methane contamination in Dimock & the allegation of some that the contamination was natural: I followed that story quite closely as it developed, reading everything that was reported in local newspapers, and on the PA DEP's website. Lab tests revealed that the methane in the Dimock residents' well water was thermogenic, which means that it came from a deep rock layer, NOT from the much shallower sources of methane that sometimes lead to "natural" contamination of water wells. According to a Nov. 4 PA DEP news release, Cabot has been given until March 31 to come up with a plan to permanently replace the 13 water supplies that were contaminated with methane. To say that this contamination is natural is to ignore the lab test results and also the PA DEP's approach, which has been to hold Cabot responsible. Please note that this methane contamination first came to light on Jan. 1, 2009, and now, if they're lucky, by Mar. 31, 2010 the affected homeowners will have a "plan" for some sort of permanent replacement of their water.
I think that some of those who want to drill are letting their hopes for gas drilling dollars blind them to the very real risks of drilling. A home without a permanent water supply is worth nothing: even if you can find someone foolish enough to buy it, they'd better have the cash in hand, because they won't be able to get a mortgage.
Methane is methane, whether thermogenic, biogenic or abiogenic. The migration from deeper levels is because drilling distured the formations there and allowed the gas a pathway to migrate. Same as biogenic methane does from shallower sources, and yes, that is why Cabot was cited to remediate. That fact is evidence that the systems of protection in place ARE working.
The point is it is a naturally occurring substance and is in no way a "fracking fluid".
It is no worse than if it had come from closer to the surface, and is being addressed by the responsible party, because they DO insure that.
My husband and I live in upstate NY, above the Marcellus Shale; we are deeply concerned about the environmental and public health problems related to shale gas drilling.
The NYSDEC's draft SGEIS barely even considers the cumulative impacts of drilling thousands of shale gas wells. Also, the setbacks from waterways in the NYC watershed are larger than those in the rest of the state, yet many upstate residents drink unfiltered water from wells. The city of Binghamton draws water from the Susquehanna River, and I doubt that its water treatment plant can handle some of the chemicals and radioactive materials that could enter the river due to drilling-related spills or illegal dumping. If drilling in the NYC watershed is unsafe (and I think it is), then it is even more unsafe in the rest of the state where the setbacks are smaller and the burden of ensuring water quality often falls on private individuals who drink from wells!
The gas industry has exemptions to a host of federal environmental laws (e.g. Safe Drinking Water Act). In NY state it is exempt from zoning laws used to protect residential areas. Once a gas company has leased 60% of the acreage needed for a drilling unit, NY's compulsory integration law can be used to force surrounding landowners into the unit. (Note: that's 60% of the ACREAGE, not 60% of the landowners.) The laws favor the industry and do not provide sufficient protection for NY's residents!
All of outrageous claims are being made. Some claim that water supplies have never been contaminated. Other claim that a ban on drilling is a "taking" in a remarkable reinterpretation of the 5th amendment... then that damage to their neighbor's property, safety, health, and water isn't. If all the assertions without documentation are driving you nuts it is even worse trying to find news and information while battling millions of dollars of PR from oil and gas shills. Start researching the issues at: http://www.nywellwatch.org
Not allowing me to utilize the resources of the property I own, bought and paid for, and pay taxes on, is ABSOLUTELY a taking and is unconstitutional. You don't like it, you'd better start organizing for a constitutional amendment. If a taking occurs, there will be a backlash by Americans, not only in the watershed, but across the entire country.
You may have investments or a stock portfolio, most upstate landowners do not. We are land rich and cash poor. Our land is our investment. If you do not allow us to utilize it, you are going against the US Constitution. You are like Madoff - abusing the system to steal what is not yours.
This land is mine.
IT IS NOT YOURS!
Absolutely, the land Is YOURS. And following that logic any thing that comes from your land and contaminates the land, water or air of your neighbor is also YOURS.
With rights come responsibilities. I learned this in civics class and I learned it from my elders as a child.
Are you willing to accept the liability that comes with drilling on your land if it contaminates your neighbors, health , wealth or well being? And what about generations to come? When the gas companies are long gone, whose problem will it be then, you and your rights will be long gone.As an example, look at the problems with abandoned wells in many parts of PA or abandoned coal mines. The damage was done and we are still dealing with it.
What a selfish attitude.
There has never been a documented case of hydraulic fracturing chemicals ‘seeping into’ groundwater. In fact the Groundwater Protection Council, an organization of state environmental regulators and state officials, say it has never happened. The fracturing zone and the freshwater aquifer are separated by thousands of feet of solid rock. http://www.gwpc.org/home/GWPC_Home.dwt
See Alison Rose Levy's Profile
Seriously?
So just to be clear-- in your view, the onus is on people like those average citizens in Dimock, PA who the Pennsylvania press reported had experienced serious health problems after their tap water turned color and later proved undrinkable following gas drilling in their region-- the onus is on them to prove that their water is unsafe, rather than on the national and international companies drilling in their area to prove that their practices do not contaminate groundwater.
The average person must undertake a study, even though the companies refused to supply these citizens' doctors with the information as to the chemicals used in fracking, which the doctors needed to know to successfully treat novel diseases in their ill patients who drank tap water in that region.
Unfortunately, the companies withheld that information as proprietary.
Nevertheless, until, as you suggest, the patients and doctors perform studies (even without being able to identify the hundreds of chemicals used in fracking)-- there can be no concern about health dangers?
Well, thank you for sharing your unique perspective.
Ms Levy,
seriously! this is not unique perspective. Many share it, myself included.
The substance in the Dimock wells was methane - a naturally occurring gas. Yes, there is gas (methane) in the ground, yes it can come up through the water pipes. The water pipes offer the gas an area of less pressure than the surrounding rock, so it takes the path of least resistance.
This happens with or without gas drilling! In 2 of my residences that are upstate and not connected to municipal water supplies but have individual water wells, there is strong methane coming up through the pipes. Some people consider it heathful. You've heard of Saratoga Springs There are towns of Richford Springs, Sanataria Springs - many others upstate. People came from the city to "take the waters".
If you run the water regularly, the gas does not accumulate to dangerous amounts. If you close up the house and do not run the taps, it is possible to have it accumulate. That is what happened in Dimock. The "fracking fluids" are 5000 feet below the ground. The aquifer is at a depth of 500 feet or closer to the surface. There has never been fracking fluid contamination in drinking water.
The Dimock water pipelines may not have had methane migrate to them previous to drilling activity, but they might have any time had methane start to migrate to them with or without drilling. It is our geology here. There is gas here!
I'm not talking about any study that was undertaken. I'm simply stating that the GWPC asked it's member states, which include all gas-producing states, if they had documented a case of hydraulic fracturing leading to groundwater contamination. Every state official submitted written testimony that said it had never happened.
It's all part of the DEC supplement being debated right now.
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/ogsgeisapp2.pdf
...and the frac chemicals are not hidden; they're here:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/ogdsgeischap5.pdf
and here:
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/oilgas/FractListing.pdf
and here:
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/publications/naturalgas_general/Shale_Gas_Primer_2009.pdf
Perhaps you have not read the recent news story from Pavilion, Wyoming.
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/epa_chemicals_found_in_wyo_drinking_water_might_be_from_fracking/C35/L35/
Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination near the ranching town of Pavillion, Wyo., have found that at least three water wells contain a chemical used in the natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing. Scientists also found traces of other contaminants, including oil, gas or metals, in 11 of 39 wells tested there since March.
From the same article you source above:
"They were careful to say they’re investigating a broad array of sources for the contamination, including agricultural activity. They said the contaminant causing the most concern – a compound called 2-butoxyethanol, known as 2-BE – can be found in some common household cleaners, not just in fracturing fluids."
Maybe if NYC supported upstate more by buying our produce, dairy and meat products (which, by the way are some of the best in the world), we wouldn't have to try and get extra income from gas drilling. I live up here- moved five years ago from the NY metropolitan area. I raise honey bees and organic fruit trees. The state makes it difficult for farmers to sell their local produce anywhere. Hasn't anyone noticed there aren't any more road side fruit and vegetable stands? That's due to unfair legislation that wiped them out. I live in Tioga County near Ithaca and Binghamton and if I go into any sizeable grocery store I see apples from New Zealand and Chile, meat and poultry from from some factory farm in the mid west or the Carolinas.... for crying out loud. We grow all of that right here in our own state and they're fresher and don't require that kind of crazy transportation cost. My advice .... Buy LOCAL!!! Buy products from upstate NY!!!!!
Contrary to the statements of numerous politicains there, they did not speak for me. I attended the NYC hearings in support of the dSGEIS as written. It was quite a spectacle I must say. Of the est. 1000 people in attendence, a total of 7 commented in support of the DEC's monumental efforts in responsible regulation. The rest repeated a mantra of half truths & distortions endlessly. The only thing that changed was the estimated cost of the water filtration system needed for decades now, but postponed due to costs - from $2 billion to,by the end of the evening each successive speaker had boosted it incrementally, to $36 billion+ No one noticed this figure climbing while we listened? Remarkable! A statewide ban on drilling constitutes a "taking" of private property from the upstate landowners that would require full compensation. Ironic: the hearing within blocks of Ground Zero & there people were, protesting the utilization of our own domestic energy resources! A public golf course uses more water than fracking a well, and that the golf course runoff of toxic weedkillers actually directly enters the aquifer whereas the fracking fluids are more than 5000 feet below the water source. Oh yeah, and the feared radiation from shale can be found in your very own gourmet kitchens emanating from the granite countertops that surround that professional GAS range. Get a clue where your energy comes from, and own up to the responsibility of creating it.
OkieMon's right. It will not only ruin the drinking water, it could wreck the upsate environment too--huge trucks and rigs, torn up fields, open pits with fracking fluid, a large transient population brought in by the gas companies--welcome to the place you once went to to get away. And for the farmers who live there and are leasing their lands to the gas cormpanies, it's a Faustian bargain. The land they inherited from generations back and planned to pass on may be polluted, the once rural character of the mountains given over to industry, their wells contaminated..
what about gas drilling in upstate NY? people there are just chopped liver????
See Alison Rose Levy's Profile
Thanks, OkieMon: I'm sorry if I wasn't clear but fracking affects both upstate and the water supplies downstream-- a lose-lose for all.
Thanks!
Alison
Yes there is an Upstate beyond the NYC Watershed!
We drink water too, and we will also be breathing the fouled and toxic air that gas companies vent directly during production. Are we going to risk ruining the Catskills for the sake of gas profits mostly for large gas corporations and a few land owners (mostly absentee in our area)?
Yes, there will no doubt be an initial local economic boom in our area from drilling, God knows we need one. But what about down the road after the gas companies have turned our beautiful pristine area into an industrialized zone ? Would you buy a vacation or retirement home near a gas field?
For a much closer look at what the impacts will be, see "Hancock and the Macellus Shale", a report prepared by the the Columbia University Urban Design Research Seminar. The report focuses on the environmental, social and economic impacts of natural gas drilling using The Town of Hancock, NY for visioning what those impacts will be.
Copies may be obtained from The Open Space Institute by calling 212-290-8200, emailing your name and address to: webmaster@osiny.org, or down loading it at:
http://www.osiny.org/custom/HancockAndTheMarcellusShale.pdf
For more on air pollution associated with gas drilling see:
www.edf.org/documents/9235_Barnett_Shale_Report.pdf
Oh yes, then there's also the small problem of the potential of the toxic chemical laden drilling waste water ( millions of gallons per well) being radioactive....
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