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Experts: Gas drilling won't start in N.Y. in 2012
JOHNSON CITY -- Area experts on natural gas drilling agree: New York's swath of the Marcellus Shale isn't likely to be tapped in 2012.
Panelists on both sides of the issue discussed the future of natural gas drilling in the Southern Tier at a roundtable discussion hosted by Press & Sun-Bulletin on Thursday at the Gannett Central N.Y. Production Facility.
"It doesn't look like the issue is going to be resolved this year, based on what we've heard coming from the governor and based on the fact that there hasn't been a budget request for it," said Brian Shea, legislative director for Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell.
High-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing -- a technique used to unlock large quantities of natural gas from shale formations -- has been on hold in New York since 2008 during an ongoing review by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The DEC's lengthy review process has frustrated energy interests and environmental advocates alike, and experts said Thursday it isn't likely to come to a conclusion by the year's end.
"Right now in New York state, virtually no gas companies are interested in signing leases," said Robert Wedlake, a partner at Hinman Howard & Kattell, which represents six landowner coalitions. "Gas companies have other alternatives: They can go to Pennsylvania; they can go to Ohio."
Gas companies -- and possibilities for economic growth -- have been leaving the state as pessimism grows about New York's regulatory climate, said Brad Gill, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York.
But Walter Hang, owner of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting, said the delays aren't without reason. He and other environmental advocates will continue to scrutinize the DEC's proposed regulatory documents, he said, "until a really meaningful plan is in place to make sure that irreparable harm doesn't occur."
"I'm unhappy, unfortunately, that it isn't going better, faster," Hang said.
Tom Wilber, a former Press & Sun-Bulletin reporter and author of a forthcoming book on the shale gas rush, noted the DEC has to review some 40,000 public comments it has received before it finalizes a key regulatory policy document and moves toward issuing permits.
"My prediction is, I don't see it being finalized this year," Wilber said
Strictly Business: Is this the year for fracking in N.Y.?
I'm beginning to wonder if high-volume hydraulic fracturing, the method of extracting natural gas from tight shale formations underground, will ever be allowed in New York.
I don't say that because opponents have successfully lobbied against it. I say that after looking at the enormity of the task now facing New York's Department of Environmental Conservation.
At midnight on Wednesday, the state's top environmental watchdog agency closed the four-month public comment period on the environmental impact review and rules that will regulate fracking. DEC will now prepare a "responsiveness summary" to address each substantive issue raised during the comment period on the latest environmental impact statement and the first draft released in 2009.
If you think that's what the DEC administrators get paid the big bucks for, then consider this and show some sympathy. There were about 13,000 comments received on the first draft. This time around, the agency has nearly 40,000 comments on a variety of fracking-related health and environmental issues.
A group calling itself NY Water Rangers had something to say to DEC. Environmental groups, including Walter Hang's Toxics Targeting of Ithaca, gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo nearly 500 letters and a petition with more than 20,000 signatures citing what they consider serious flaws in the regulations drafted by DEC.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Riverkeeper, Catskill Mountainkeeper and Delaware Riverkeeper Network said their review of the 1,500-plus-page document showed the whole thing needs to be redone. To back up its claims, the coalition submitted more than 500 pages of comments including review and analysis by consultants with backgrounds in hydrology, toxicology, economics and other specialties.
The Environmental Protection Agency has gotten in on the act. The federal agency cited numerous shortcomings in the first environmental review draft and submitted additional comments on the latest version. The EPA is also conducting its own scientific study on how high-volume fracking impacts water resources.
And in the blue corner, fracking supporters say the proposed regulations will prevent environmental harm and bring thousands of jobs and other economic benefits to New York. They've tossed around numbers like $21 billion, which is said to represent lease and royalty payments going to landowners in Broome, Chemung, Tioga and Steuben counties.
To that end, a pro-drilling landowners' group has submitted comments signed by 10,000 of its members. A coalition of residents, businesses, labor, and political leaders rallied in Albany and four other upstate cities on Tuesday to voice support for natural gas development and the $5.8 billion in new potential tax revenues it stand to create.
Meanwhile, the Independent Gas and Oil Association of New York says the repeated delays in New York's environmental study have resulted in lost jobs, and overregulation will make it too expensive for energy companies to drill in New York. The trade group also says the DEC's proposed setbacks and areas where drilling will be banned puts half of the New York's "known and desirable" Marcellus Shale formation out of bounds.
Whew!
Sometime later this year, the DEC optimistically estimates it will have waded through the tens of thousands of comments to see if they are all adequately addressed in the draft environmental impact statement. If so, the agency says it intends to issue the final regulations and begin to review permit applications for using fracking to drill into Marcellus Shale.
But I see things differently. I foresee injunction-hungry opponents tying the issue up in the courts. I see local governments passing "home rule" laws banning fracking, and frustrated landowners challenging those new laws. In short, I don't see too much changing from where we are today -- pro- and anti-fracking groups in New York continuing their debate while the risks and rewards of high-volume hydrofracking are playing out less than 20 miles away in Pennsylvania.
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EPA Weighs in on New York Fracking Plan
Public comment on the state D-E-C's draft fracking environmental impact statement - or SGEIS - is done. Reaction to that comment is not. Especially the hundreds submitted late last night by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Joint Landowner Coalition attorney Scott Kurkoski hasn't combed through the dozens of pages of EPA suggestions yet, but is encouraged by the agency's cover letter recognizing natural gas as a key in the country's energy future.
"The EPA believes that New York state is leading the way on these issues throughout our country. And that's what we've been telling everyone. The SGEIS is a plan that establishes safeguards for our lands that is better than any other state in the country," said Kurkoski.
When asked the impact the E-P-A's comments will have on the state's final SGEIS, the D-E-C didn't comment specifically on the E-P-A's suggestions. Those critical of the state's plan say the EPA is going to share authority with the state in some regulations and lead in others.
"For some of the regulatory programs like if you were dumping gas drilling wastewater into a local municipal treatment plant, EPA is the principal authority," said Walter Hang, President of Toxics Targeting.
And Hang says the EPA has submitted almost twice as many comments as it did for the first SGEIS draft in 2009.
"The main concerns were failure to come up with a way to deal with this incredibly toxic wastewater, failure to protect drinking water, failure to protect radiologic hazards for both the worker and environment."
But Kurkoski sees the end of the public comment period being the start of bring fracking to New York.
"Companies interested in leasing properties in New York should get busy because landowners are ready to do that. I think companies should be too."
EPA questions fracking study
ALBANY — Opponents of natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, said Thursday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fired a shot across the bow of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
In a 26-page response to DEC's proposed environmental review of hydfrofracking, EPA Regional Director Judith Enck proposed dozens of improvements ranging from giving a voice in the review to the state Public Service Commission to the establishment of larger no-drilling zones around water supplies, and tougher handling of wastewater and potentially radioactive drilling waste.
Enck even questioned whether DEC, which has been dealing with staff cuts in recent years, is ready to oversee natural gas drilling.
"It is not made clear how DEC plans to do this, given the current state of the economy," according to the EPA response. The EPA's opinion was among more than 40,000 comments that DEC received by Wednesday midnight's deadline for reaction to a kind of environmental road map — called a draft generic environmental impact state — for hydrofracking that DEC released in September.
Enck, a former high-ranking environmental official in the office of former governors Eliot Spitzer and David Patterson, was not available for comment. DEC did not offer any reaction to her report other than to cite an official statement by its Commissioner Joe Martens that all comments will be carefully considered.
Hydrofracking relies on a high-pressure blend of water, chemicals and sand to break up gas-bearing rock formations deep underground. Since the state first started its review in 2009, the issue has become bitterly divisive.
Opponents claim the process, which is being used in Pennsylvania and other states, threatens water and air quality, while the industry insists that it is safe.
"EPA has identified significant flaws in the state's fracking proposals, particularly inadequate plans to treat hazardous wastewater, questions about unsafe levels of radiation in fracking waste, and the absence of any consideration of the environmental impacts of the infrastructure associated with fracking, such as pipelines and compressor stations," said a statement issued by a coalition of hydrofracking opponents including Catskill Mountainkeeper, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Environmental Advocates of New York, Natural Resources Defense Council and others.
PSC spokeswoman Anne Dalton declined comment on EPA's suggestion that the commission become part of DEC's environmental review. The PSC would be responsible for regulating the pipelines that would transport natural gas from the wells to markets elsewhere.
The Independent Gas Association of New York, which represents the gas drilling industry and has been urging the state to being issuing drilling permits this year, also declined comment on the EPA report.
The EPA's response also:
Recommended that DEC study recent reports that linked hydrofracking in the United Kingdom to potentially induced earthquakes;
Told DEC that, based on test results in Pennsylvania, naturally occurring radioactive materials unearthed during drilling can be more potent than DEC was claiming;
Asserted that EPA, not the DEC, has the authority to authorize the "pre-treatment" of drilling wastewater prior to it being brought to authorized municipal wastewater treatment plants for disposal;
Urged DEC to reconsider allowing water that comes back up from hydrofracking, which contains natural salts, from being allowed to be spread on roadways during the winter for traction;
Urged that landowners, not drilling companies, pick out companies to test well water at drillers' expense prior to drilling to "remove any concerns about the water testing results being biased."
Another hydrofracking opponent, Walter Hang of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting, said EPA's "public health protection proposals differ vastly from" those of DEC.
EPA, he noted, has proposed a one-mile buffer zone around selected water supply wells; DEC's proposed buffer is 150 feet.
EPA issued this statement: "Those comments were specific to natural gas extraction activities in New York. EPA and the (Obama) administration have been clear that we believe natural gas has a central role to play in our energy future, and we continue to take steps to ensure that as we leverage this important resource it takes place safely and responsibly."
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/EPA-questions-fracking-study-249...
EPA weighs in on hydrofracking in N.Y.
ALBANY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is urging New York regulators to take steps to bolster the state's proposed hydraulic fracturing rules, providing a meticulous, line-by-line critique of its 1,500-page report.
Beating a midnight Wednesday deadline to submit comments by less than three hours, the federal agency recommended dozens of ways for the Department of Environmental Conservation to strengthen its hydrofracking proposals. Those suggestions include beefing up a ban on the technique within two major water supplies and taking a closer look at naturally occurring radioactive material found in gas-drilling waste.
But while the EPA's comments included plenty of critiques, the agency took a much gentler tone than in its December 2009 letter to state regulators. Then, the federal regulators blasted a previous draft report for not taking a strong enough look at the impact of a gas-drilling boom.
"New York has demonstrated leadership with this issue and will help set the pace for improved safeguards across the country," EPA Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck wrote in a brief cover letter.
Enck, who was appointed to her post in 2009, served in then-Gov. David Paterson's administration when the state put high-volume hydrofracking on hold in 2008 while the DEC undertook a thorough review. The technique, when combined with gas drilling, involves the use of water, sand and chemicals injected deep underground to unlock natural gas from shale formations, such as the Marcellus Shale spanning the Southern Tier and parts of the Catskills.
The EPA's most recent comments left plenty of room for interpretation from lobbying groups on both sides of the contentious gas-drilling debate.
Environmental organizations latched on to 26 pages of EPA suggestions, including a request to further clarify plans to deal with hydrofracking wastewater and to complete further study of the impact of pipelines and other infrastructure associated with gas drilling.
The EPA found "significant flaws in the state's fracking proposals," according to a statement released by the New York Water Rangers, a coalition of environmental groups.
"EPA identifies literally hundreds of critical concerns regarding virtually every aspect of the revised draft (DEC report)," said Walter Hang, an Ithaca activist and owner of environmental database firm Toxics Targeting.
Gas industry trade groups were encouraged by Enck's cover letter, which highlighted natural gas' "key role in our nation's clean energy future."
Many of the EPA's suggestions are sure to draw the industry's ire, however, including the expansion of a ban within 4,000 feet of the New York City and Syracuse watersheds to include all forms of hydrofracking regardless of volume. As it stands, the ban would apply only to hydrofracking operations using less than 300,000 gallons of fluid.
"Some of the (DEC's) recommendations in the watersheds are not justified by the science," said Karen Moreau, executive director of the state Petroleum Council, a lobbying group. "We certainly would not be in favor of adding further restrictions on those property owners who own mineral rights in those watersheds."
DEC Commissioner Joe Martens said his agency will thoroughly review the EPA's comments and make changes to his department's hydrofracking proposals as needed.
But high-volume hydrofracking bans in the two watersheds, as well as setbacks and prohibitions within aquifers and other water supplies, were based on firm technical study, he said. The department's current draft recommendations only apply to hydrofracking operations with more than 300,000 gallons; lower volumes are covered under a 1992 environmental impact study.
"I don't think the level of concerns are anywhere near what they are for conventional, low-volume fracking as they are for high-volume hydrofracking," Martens said in an interview.
The EPA's response was just one of an estimated 40,000 received during a four-month comment period, according to the DEC. Before high-volume hydrofracking is given the green light in New York, the DEC has to reply to any substantive issues raised in the comments with a "responsiveness summary," and its report must be finalized.
The review of comments, Martens said, is expected to take "months," but the agency maintains it will be finished sometime in 2012.