You are here
Marcellus Shale Press Coverage
Secondary tabs
DEC Regulation Accusations
There are allegations that the State Department of Environmental Conservation has breached the public trust.
Those harsh words come from the President of the environmental database firm in Ithaca called Toxics Targeting. Walter Hang says an extensive review of the DEC Mineral Resources annual reports shows that the agency has failed to protect the environment and people from some past gas drilling. Hang says the DEC has allowed improper gas and oil regulation for decades. Allegations include the DEC failing to do enough to protect water supplies and allowing billions of gallons of contaminated production brine to be put in lagoons, pits, streams and on roads without treating it first to remove chemicals. Hang also says that decades ago the DEC identified thousands of unplugged gas wells, but has allowed them to remain.
Hang says the agency's actions prove that its policies that the fracking SGEIS is based on are inadequate. "What we're basically saying today is, it isn't enough to have good regulations based on science, you have to also enforce those regulations. There's no dispute that DEC has failed to do that."
Hang, Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan and other environmental advocates are asking Governor Andrew Cuomo to withdraw the SGEIS based on this information. You can see Hang's findings at toxicstargeting.com.
In response, the DEC says it takes all complaints of water contamination seriously and works with the state Health Department to make sure residents have safe drinking water. The DEC also says the revised SGEIS includes multiple safeguards to protect drinking water supplies. A spokeswoman adds that the agency has brine guidelines that are followed. And, that the SGEIS would not allow the use of Marcellus Shale production brine for road spreading until sufficient data is available to evaluate potential impacts. Lastly, the DEC says it will continue to work to plug abandoned wells. Under the SGEIS, drillers would be required to plug old wells if they are within one mile of a fracking operation.
Local Environmental Firm Wants S-GEIS Withdrawn
BINGHAMTON -- Quick reaction to a study concluding that Pennsylvania hasn't adequately monitored or enforced regulations involving natural gas wells. The study, by Washington-based Earthworks reports that more than 66,000 wells were left uninspected last year. Many companies who committed violations haven't been fined. Environmentalist Walter Hang says the findings in Pennsylvania reflect concerns he's uncovered with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation.
Hang, President of Toxics Targeting, Inc. doesn't believe the DEC's repeated assurances that the agency's regulations are adequate. Downtown today, he presented his findings of areas he says are clearly impacted negatively by natural gas drilling.
"The truth of the matter is, they've self documented an enormous array of problems that are not addressed by the revised draft S-GEIS," said Hang.
He says his findings are the result of his review of 25 years of reports and calls the results shocking including documentation of crude oil present in drinking water and deliberate oil dumping into ponds and lagoons.
He says these findings contradict the DEC's public statement: "As a result of New York's rigorous regulatory process, the types of problems reported to have occurred in states without such strong environmental laws and rigorous regulations haven't happened here."
"By uncovering this information, that appears to be a total fabrication," said Mayor of Binghamton, Matt Ryan.
"This is a breach of public trust," said Hang. I think what we're basically seeing is a conspiracy of silence that none of this information has been brought to the public's attention."
Hang says this conspiracy calls for a change in the way the DEC operates.
"I do not think we can trust the DEC," said Hang. "I think we need to clean house. I think we have to start all over again with a new Generic Environmental Impact Statement."
Both Hang and Ryan say that in addition to withdrawing the S-GEIS, New York is not well enough equipped to allow drilling.
"There is not a single waste water treatment plant any where in New York to handle this material," Hang said.
"We cannot play this game, we're not ready, we have to go back to the drawing board," said Ryan. "Governor Cuomo, do what you said you were going to do, protect the health and safety of everybody in this state."
Hang's next step is an appeal to the governor.
"We're going to be pushing very very hard to persuade Governor Cuomo to withdraw the revised draft S-GEIS and send it back to the drawing board," he said.
Hang says the letter asking Governor Cuomo to withdraw the S-GEIS already has over 22,000 signatures.
Pro-fracking groups in the Southern Tier have long argued that New York's regulations would be much tighter than Pennsylvania's reducing the likelihood that fracking in the area would not be properly monitored.
In Binghamton, Jeremy Donovan, Fox 40 HD News.
Hang rips DEC over old wells
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 PDF of print-version of article | 1.38 MB |
| Highlighted PDF of web-version of article | 49.52 KB |
Report Details DEC's Improper Gas and Oil Regulation
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton will be joining Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan and Toxics Targeting President Walter Hang this afternoon at a news conference in regards to the state DEC’s gas and oil regulation.
Hang says the DEC Mineral Resources Annual report shows billions of gallons of untreated gas and oil brine wastewater was dumped into pits and streams across the state.
Hang says the practice was supposed to be outlawed back in 1987 but continues to this day, and believes this contradicts an assertion the agency has made about problems associated with gas drilling.
He says the report details hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to plug and clean up nearly 5,000 abandoned vertical gas drilling and oil wells across the State.
Hang believes these reports further back his stance that a moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing should continue in New York State.
He adds much of these problems stemmed from conventional vertical fracking wells over the years.
NY records show history of oil, gas well problems
This article appeared in the following publications (see Attachments below for PDF-versions):
- Wall Street Journal
- CBS News
- Business Week
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- San Francisco Chronicle
- San Antonio Express-News
- Huffington Post
- Newsday (Long Island)
- The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
- WWOR (NJ/Manhattan)
- WAMC (Albany, NY) AUDIO
- The Republican (Western, Mass.)
- WTOV (Wheeling WV)
- WTRF (Wheeling WV, CBS affiliate)
- WCHS (Huntington WV)
- NY FoxNews
- North Country Public Radio
- The Republic (Columbus, IN)
- Hometown Stations (Lima, OH)
- Press-News (Minerva, OH)
- WFMJ (Youngstown OH, NBC)
- WTVG (Toledo, OH)
- WJTV (Jackson MS, CBS)
- WVVA (Bluefield, WV, NBC)
- WCAX, (Burlington, VT, CBS)
- Society of Environmental Journalists
ALBANY, N.Y. — State regulators claim a strong record of oil and gas drilling oversight, but their own reports reveal thousands of unplugged abandoned wells and other industrial problems that could pose a threat to groundwater, wetlands, air quality and public safety.
Annual reports and incident reports prepared by Department of Environmental Conservation staff and reviewed by The Associated Press run counter to the agency's long-stated assertion that the types of problems reported in other states have been prevented in New York by strong regulations.
The review comes as New York officials prepare to issue a decision on whether to allow hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a lucrative method of extracting natural gas that has raised environmental concerns.
"Division of Mineral Resources annual reports over two decades show that the DEC's inadequate regulation of gas and oil extraction activities resulted in thousands of unresolved pollution threats to public health and the environment," said Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, an Ithaca-based consulting firm that provided the reports. Hang leads an effort to ban natural gas drilling in New York, where drilling has been on hold since the DEC began an environmental impact review in 2008.
That same year, then-DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis said: "As a result of New York's rigorous regulatory process, the types of problems that have occurred in states without such strong environmental laws and rigorous regulations haven't happened here."
A DEC spokeswoman said agency enforcement personnel have resolved or are working to address problems noted in the agency's reports, including oil spills and soil and water contamination. She also noted that under the proposed new regulations on natural gas drilling, the DEC would get help capping wells because companies would have to survey the land within a mile of a new well and plug, at the driller's expense, any wells found there that are "orphans" — unplugged wells with no known owner.
"By and large, complaints received by DEC regarding potentially leaking wells have proven to be from wells drilled before environmental regulations were put in place, or were from naturally occurring sources of contamination," spokeswoman Emily DeSantis said Wednesday.
"DEC takes all complaints of water contamination seriously and works with the state Health Department to ensure New York residents have a safe source of drinking water," DeSantis said. If fracking is allowed, new regulations include "multiple protections and measures required to safeguard the integrity of New York's drinking water supplies," DeSantis added.
But environmental groups have questioned whether DEC oversight is strong enough. A study released in July by Earthworks, an environmental group, found that in New York, well inspections occur too infrequently and too irregularly; fines are inadequate; lack of data prevents public scrutiny of DEC's oversight; and citizen complains aren't used efficiently to improve oversight.
The problem of orphan wells is widespread in drilling states. The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission estimates the number at about 50,000 nationwide. Pennsylvania officially lists about 8,200 abandoned wells.
Annual reports from the New York DEC's Division of Mineral Resources as early as 1995 have repeatedly identified unplugged, abandoned wells as a major problem, with about 4,800 known and an equal number yet to be discovered in woods, backyards, playgrounds and even under buildings.
"One of the biggest challenges facing the oil and gas regulatory program is the growing liability of idle and abandoned wells," Gregory Sovas, former director of the minerals division, wrote in the 1995 report. These wells pose a liability for local taxpayers, he said. "This is not a hypothetical worst-case scenario, but reflects current events already happening in the counties."
For example, in the Allegany County community of Bolivar 65 miles southeast of Buffalo, workers found several abandoned well while constructing a school bus garage, and in Wyoming County, the DEC plugged a well that was leaking brine in a school parking lot, according to the DEC reports. Such wells pose a risk for groundwater contamination by providing a pathway for hydrocarbons and other toxic pollutants to migrate to the water table.
In addition to unplugged wells, the DEC reports identify vegetation killed by leaking waste pits, brine leaking from rusted storage tanks, and crude oil contaminating residential wells and streams.
The agency said the cost of plugging abandoned wells ranges from $5,000 to $50,000 per well. DeSantis said the DEC has plugged more than 115 wells since 2002 using $459,000 from the Oil and Gas Account. The account balance is currently $156,000, and there are 4,100 wells on the priority list. The Environmental Protection Agency has plugged another 126 abandoned, leaking wells, DeSantis said.
Leaking brine storage tanks were also identified as a problem in the DEC reports. In 1996, DEC inspectors found that about 40 percent of brine tanks examined at active well sites were leaking or had holes in them. The 1997 report said enforcement efforts had reduced the number to 7 percent.
In addition to annual reports, the DEC also has individual spill reports detailing numerous incidents. For example:
— In September 2011, a family in Bolivar had black crude oil in their sinks, toilets and shower. Tests of their well found crude that matched oil sampled at an oil well more than 1,000 feet away. DeSantis said the DEC upgraded and deepened the family's well and has done quarterly water testing that has shown no petroleum contamination.
— In December 2010, oil was reported in a residential water well in nearby Scio. The resident believed it came from an oil well about three-quarters of a mile up the road; he hired a local well driller to clean out his water well. DeSantis said investigators found evidence of oil drilling on the site decades ago.
— In May 2011, a man in nearby Allentown, N.Y., alerted the DEC to an oil separator pond at a neighboring drilling site. The inspector found crude oil had been discharged into a stream leading to the Genesee River. The driller was ordered to clean up the spill and install a device to prevent discharges to the creek. DeSantis said additional action against the driller is being considered.
© 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.