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THE RIVER REPORTER Water expert: public health is top drilling issue By SANDY LONG, December 18, 2008 UPPER DELAWARE REGION — While acknowledging the environmental and economic impacts of natural gas drilling, Albert Appleton, the designer of the New York City watershed protection program and New York City Commissioner of Environmental Protection from 1990 to 1993, has identified the most pressing drilling issue to be a matter of public health: “Risks to drinking water are not just environmental issues; first and foremost, they are public health issues.” In his statement to New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regulators on Marcellus Shale gas drilling, Appleton wrote, “The standard for assessing public health risk is not the environmental standard of balancing environmental risks against economic benefits.” Commenting on this statement, he added, “We don’t balance public health risk. The standard is no risk.” Appleton recently testified to the potential harms of natural gas drilling within the city’s Catskill watershed during a public hearing held by NYC councilman James Gennaro and New York City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee on December 12. As chair of this committee, Gennaro has called for a complete ban on drilling in the watershed that affects the drinking water for nine million New Yorkers and may jeopardize a special permit that allows the city to operate without a water filtration plant. Building one could cost nearly $20 billion dollars, according to Genarro. A recent series of public scoping sessions conducted by the DEC did not include a hearing in New York City, prompting state officials to call for one, and to request the hiring of an outside consultant to evaluate potential impacts to the city’s watershed. Earlier this year, Governor Patterson called for a Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) on drilling. Appleton has questioned the ability for adequate enforcement of the SGEIS, given the DEC’s limited staffing resources and current fiscal crisis. Calling the dimensions of such enforcement “staggering,” Appleton noted, “If just 20 percent of the 12 million acres of the Marcellus Shale was developed at an extremely low density of one well pad every 100 acres—one every 25 acres is common—New York would have to oversee 25,000 well pads.” Such oversight would require the addition of more permit administrators, field inspectors, emergency responders, groundwater hydrologists, drilling technology experts, public health specialists, testing-lab workers, hearing officers, lawyers, accountants, environmental law enforcement professionals, land use planners and administrative support personnel, according to Appleton. Speaking from experience, he noted, “When New York City staffed up its Catskill watershed protection program, it hired 400 new staff to do a less complicated task in an area only 10 percent of the size of the Marcellus.” Appleton described the dangers of moving forward without such measures in place as “regulatory and landscape disaster,” and has called for a new system of annual permit fees, in addition to increased staff, before the EIS is completed and permits are issued. The locally based group Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS) has retained the international water expert as a consultant, according to DCS representative Pat Carullo. “He is singular in his experience and knowledge about the requirements for the design, development and operation of municipal water systems here and around the world,” said Carullo. “He will be working with us and our national, regional and local partner organizations.” “In the 21st century, it’s everyone’s responsibility to be green and sustainable,” said Appleton. “But when it comes to drilling, the first standard is, can we do this without imposing a risk on drinking water supply?” Calling the fracturing fluids used to force gas out of deep deposits a “witch’s brew of water and toxic chemicals,” the water expert advocates for prevention as the only effective strategy for keeping the contaminants out of drinking water supplies in the first place. Appleton places responsibility on the gas drilling industry for meeting the challenge of cleaning up the “dirty and damaging” process of natural gas extraction and constructively embracing an effective regulatory program to prove that shale drilling presents no risk to drinking water. “The process, from cradle to grave, must be sustainable,” he said. “You don’t solve one problem by creating two more.” © 2008 The River Reporter http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/08-12-18/news-drilling.html Associated Press Hunt for gas lead drillers to NYC watershed By ERNEST SCHEYDER, December 12, 2008; 5:05 PM NEW YORK -- The hunt for the natural gas fields that could help make the U.S. more energy independent has brought developers to the edge of the watershed for one of the world's biggest cities. Now drilling in the Marcellus shale formation, which some estimate could meet the nation's natural gas needs for the next decade, has raised fears of tainted drinking water in New York City. "The Marcellus gas shale represents such a threat to the watershed," Albert Appleton, former commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection, said Friday at a city council environmental protection committee meeting. "No risk to drinking water is acceptable." To extract the gas, well operators blast millions of gallons of water treated with chemicals into horizontal cracks a mile under the earth, a process commonly known as fracking. A well is bored thousands of feet beneath potable water supplies before branching out horizontally. Fracking fluid is blasted into the shale, opening cracks several hundred feet wide that let trapped gas escape. Some of the fracking fluid, which is comprised of about 99 percent water and less than 1 percent of various chemicals, stays in the ground after drilling. "The fracturing fluid itself is composed of hazardous components that, if released into the environment, could pose a very grave threat to water quality," Steven Lawitts, acting commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, said at Friday's committee meeting. New York is one of only five U.S. cities that has been granted a waiver on federal requirements to filter tap water. City Councilman James Gennaro said fracking could force the city to spend billions on a filtration plant, negating any financial gains from drilling. "What the people of New York are looking at, I fear, is a $20 billion consequence to this 'drill, baby, drill' mentality," said Gennaro, chair of the New York's environmental protection committee. The city operates six reservoirs in the Catskill region of upstate New York that are fed by rainwater, mountain runoff and streams. The reservoirs deliver 1.2 billion gallons of water each day to more than 8 million people. The city is under severe financial strain and could, in theory, turn a huge profit selling mineral rights. Gennaro rejects that possibility outright. "We are the custodians of our water supply," said Gennaro. "We have to protect it." In the meantime, developers are lining up for a piece of the Marcellus shale. There are 835 active drilling applications in the state, a 28 percent increase since 2007. None of the permits allow for drilling in the watershed, according to the New York DEP. Heidi Gogins, who raises chickens on her 167-acre farm in New York's Delaware County, said drilling would be "disastrous" for the watershed. "Nobody wants to be poor," she said. "But you can be poor in lots of ways, including not having any water." © 2008 The Associated Press http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/12/AR2008121203027.html |
