Drilling proponents, foes square off in New PaltzText Size:

By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record
Posted: March 09, 2010 - 2:00 AM

NEW PALTZ — Why has natural-gas drilling been discussed and debated, praised and protested everywhere from a youth center in the western Sullivan County hamlet of Callicoon to the halls of Congress — and, on Monday night, at SUNY New Paltz?

Because whether folks are for or against it, just about everyone agrees that drilling the gas-rich Marcellus shale, which sits beneath Sullivan and parts of Ulster counties, will profoundly change lives.

"A game changer," said Scott Rotruck, a vice president of Chesapeake Energy. He was the only pro-drilling member of the SUNY New Paltz panel that included two representatives of environmental groups, the executive deputy commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation and the chairman of the New York City Council's Environmental Protection Committee. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, was the keynote speaker.
Proponents such as Rotruck once again said drilling is medicine for an ailing New York.

"It will immediately provide jobs and energy and economic independence," he said. 

Those against it — including New York City and most of the crowd of some 200 Monday night — again said drilling, or specifically, the horizontal drilling technique called "fracking," will pollute the water and scar the pristine land atop the shale.

"The industrialization of the landscape," said Kate Sinding, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, pointing to incidents of pollution in Western states.

The debate has intensified over the past few months, as the state prepares new regulations for drilling.

But Monday night, several speakers said the proposed rules fall short — even though the DEC is still reviewing more than 10,000 comments on them and apparently incorporating changes.

"This document should not be approved," said Hinchey, who noted, "While I'm not opposed to drilling, it must be done with the most oversight and regulation."

Sinding — like Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper — called for the DEC to start the regulations process over again because there's no analysis of the "cumulative impact" of drilling.

All of which makes the DEC's job of balancing environmental protection with the development of natural resources even tougher.
"It's an extremely complicated process," said the DEC's executive deputy commissioner, Stuart Gruskin.

sisrael@th-record.com

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From: Oil & Gas Investments Bulletin

Fracking Fluids Part I: A Controversy Coming to an Energy Investment Near You by admin on March 4, 2010

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From: Liz Bucar's Blog:  Breathing is Political March 5, 2010 Post 

Gas Drilling : Sullivan County’s Hazards Mitigation Plan

In early January 1987, emergency sirens in Cochecton, Lake Huntington and Callicoon shattered the cold afternoon.* The children and I stared fearfully at the Plektron© where it sat on its living room shelf crackling with meager details. Like any good fire chief’s wife, I didn’t pick up the phone to call him. He’d ring us the minute he had a chance.

Slowly, painfully, news reached us. A train had derailed just behind the Callicoon hospital on route 97. A chemical had spilled and was filling the air with caustic vapor.

Snow and mud were making access difficult. All we knew for certain was that several train cars had jumped the track and were lying on their sides.

For hours, the nature and toxicity of the chemical remained unknown but our husbands, brothers and sons were having trouble seeing and breathing. The Ladies Auxiliaries prepared coffee and sandwiches that remained undelivered. We were banned from the site. Our unanswered questions floated in the air around us, “Where’s Conrail? What kind of poison is it? What’s happening to our men?”

Barely two miles south of the spill, as our eyes and throats began to tingle, we learned that young Doc Salzberg had rolled up his sleeves and was helping to evacuate the hospital. There were too few ambulances for speed or efficiency.

The baby in my belly kicked as my own fear rose. At some point, I remembered to feed his brother and sisters and thanked the fates we weren’t amongst the families being forced from their homes.
That was the night we learned there were serious holes in our county-wide disaster response.

Within weeks of the incident, local leaders, representatives of ConRail and our Congressional representatives gathered at the Cochecton Firehouse and began to rectify the situation. It was an admirable and worthy effort on the part of a small county with minimal resources and to this day, I couldn’t be more grateful for the care our leaders showed.

Fast forward to 2010 and Sullivan County is asking residents to help update its All-Hazard Mitigation Plan by completing and returning its Hazard Mitigation Questionnaire by March 31, 2010. According to Sullivan County’s Division of Planning and Environmental Management, “[The questionnaire] can be mailed, faxed or emailed to Michael Brother at Barton and Loguidice, the consulting firm that is conducting the plan update. His contact information is listed on the first page of the questionnaire.”

Although the questionnaire does not address gas drilling or hydraulic fracturing specifically, comments concerning the gas extraction industry and its potential for disastrous accidents can be appended at the last page of the questionnaire.

In December 2009, the Cornell Law School Water Law Clinic submitted its comments on the Draft Supplemental Generic Impact Statement (dSGEIS) issued by New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The report stated, “...[DEC's] current staffing incapacties must be remedied….To demonstrate the critical need for additional field staff, principal tasks specifically identified in the Chapter 7 of the dSGEIS are summarized in the 15-page Memorandum…”

In turn, the Memorandum states unequivocally, “…. The scope and extent of these tasks are clearly beyond the capacity of the DEC.” (Cornell comments dsgeis) (Cornell Law School WLC Memo)

During Mayor Calvin Tillman’s recent tour of upstate New York and Pennsylvania, the DISH, Texas official was asked, “If a well catches fire in Texas, do local firefighters get called in?”

“No,” he answered. “We go to the scene but even emergency responders aren’t allowed on a site. Even if they were, most don’t have special training. If a relief valve goes off, our emergency responders show up and just wait for the guy to turn it off. We can’t get access.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2000 report on compliance in the Oil and Gas Extraction Industries, “Oil and gas extraction facilities are inspected much less frequently (46 months between inspections on average) than facilities in most other industries… and the enforcement to inspection ratio (0.05) is among the lowest of the included industries.” (Page 121: Environmental Protection Agency’s Compliance Assistance Notebooks: Oil and Gas Extraction Industry) In a chart on page 120 of the report, the “enforcement to Inspection Rate” in Region 2 (including New York State) was 0.17% while Region 3’s rate (including Pennsylvania) was .04%. (More recent data was unavailable at the site.)

So, if oversight and enforcement of the gas drilling industry “is beyond the capacity of the DEC,” and the enforcement ratio was already abysmal during Clinton’s “boom times” in the 1990s, what disaster mitigation can we expect now in cash-strapped Sullivan County relative to gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing?

Here are a few clues:

if residents see a possible gas drilling spill or other emergency, we’re encouraged to call the EPA’s newly-established TIPLINE (877-919-4EPA) or email the Agency at eyesondrilling@epa.gov
of the 30-plus gas extraction States in the US, only Pennslvania and New York have no severance tax on the industry. States that have the tax use its revenue for, among other things, community services and infrastructure;
under emergency conditions, the FRAC Act (S1215 – 5 sponsors, HR2766 – 51 sponsors) would require gas extractors to reveal the fracturing toxins used at a particular site. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near passage and consequently, there is no reason to believe emergency personnel would know the nature of the chemical soup confronting them.

Nonetheless, as Sullivan County’s Manager, David Fanslau says, “Federal law requires that the municipalities of Sullivan County develop and implement local hazard mitigation plans in order to obtain future FEMA grant monies for hazard mitigation. These plans must be updated every five years. Upon final approval from FEMA, Sullivan County and each participating municipality must formally adopt and approve the plan.”

In light of FEMA’s requirements and the potential harm from drilling activities, Breathing suggests the following:

Download a copy of Sullivan County’s current Disaster Mitigation Plan and complete the Hazard Mitigation Questionnaire. It isn’t complicated and won’t take long! (Be sure to append your concerns about gas drilling on its final comment page);

Download and read a copy of “A Gas Drilling Research Task Force Report for Sullivan County.” (Its emergency mitigation recommendations are excerpted below this article);**

Let the Sullivan County Legislature know whether those mitigation recommendations satisfy your concerns in the event of a gas drilling accident in our county;

Encourage the Sullivan County Legislature to hold public meetings where residents can hear from, and ask questions of, our Commissioners of Public Health, Public Works, Planning and the County’s emergency responders;
Ask your Town, Village and County representatives if they were present in Narrowsburg on February 19, 2010 when Mayor Tillman met with local officials to discuss his and his residents’ experiences with the gas industry in DISH, Texas;

Ask your County Legislator to propose and/or support a Resolution demanding that New York State maintain a moratorium on gas drilling until cumulative impact studies have been conducted on the industry and drilling; until Congress completes its investigation of the industry’s practices; until residents can be assured of adequate oversight and enforcement of the industry; until New York State has a severance tax which can be used to train emergency personnel and maintain our infrastructure; and until the FRAC Act has been passed and communities have full-knowledge of the toxins we’ll confront in an emergency.

Some County Legislators can be be contacted here and if you’re not sure which District is yours, look on this Legislative District map.

Individual Town websites will have contact information for your Supervisor and Town Board.
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**Sullivan County’s Gas Drilling Task Force Report. Its Emergency Mitigation portion is excerpted here:

“Along with impacts to local road infrastructure, emergency management issues are another concern at the local level. Interviews with Emergency
Management counterparts in other parts of New York State indicate that gas drilling companies have been very good to allow the emergency services (police, fire and EMS) to attend training sessions which explain how and where a drilling operation will be set up to include a site visit and hands on question sessions. In summary, our investigation has shown that most natural gas production wells are located in the Western part of the state and the Emergency Service agencies in those counties have reported no fire or health hazardous to be associated in there areas for the past twenty plus years. A few safeguard measures and protocols must be instituted:

We must be provided with a list of operational telephone numbers and email addresses of management contacts and especially emergency contacts that can be called in the event of an incident near or at a drill site.

Each well site will need a 911 address and access information (gate and lock locations plus access) to ensure that emergency response units can access the site. As will be discussed in the section to follow, the driveway permit process at the town level can be integrated with 911 addressing provided by the Sullivan County Division of Planning. As will be discussed in the next section, the driveway permit forms will need to be revised to require a site plan showing the drilling site and driveway access, as well as photos of the site before construction, after a well is installed and after any subsequent change (e.g., when a well is capped or abandoned) requiring a change in or addition to the NYS DEC permit).

Interface with NY Alert to inform Sullivan County residents of a chemical spill or gas fire.

Communicate with the public about the importance of registering on-line with NY-Alert to secure receipt of notifications of emergencies.
Transportation of waste water/or fracing fluid should be reviewed with emergency response agencies by each operator of a drill site.
Emergency management personnel should have access to, or know, the contents of the fracing fluids, to know how to treat injuries and protect the health of emergency personnel and medical staff.

For the purposes of health treatment by EMS units and hospital ER’s, the exact contents of the fluid should be on record so that proper treatment is made available.

Municipal emergency management staffs need to interact with DEC Region 3 Office and the Mineral Division of the DEC to understand the use of blow out preventers during drilling operations to understand how to control unexpected flows of gas which could result in fires. Along with the DEC, municipal emergency management staff should witness a blow out preventer test prior to drilling.

Local emergency management personnel should understand the gas flaring procedure and the layout of flow lines. As for pipeline transport of product through the existing natural gas line or new lines as built, we already have emergency reporting information and training as to how to response to a natural gas line break. This information is updated yearly by the Columbia Gas Transmission Company with their contractor for safety:Paradigm Liaison Services, Wichita, KS.
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*Here’s a NY Times reference to what we subsequently learned was an acetaldehyde spill behind the Callicoon Hospital in 1987:
DERAILMENT IN UPSTATE NEW YORK CALLICOON, N.Y., Jan. 4 (AP) -Twenty-seven cars of a Conrail freight train derailed in a wooded area near the Delaware River this evening, discharging a hazardous chemical from one car and forcing the evacuation of several homes and a small hospital, state police officials said.
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Resources you might find helpful as you fill out the County’s Hazard Mitigation Questionnaire:

Environmental Protection Agency’s Emergency Planning and Community-Right-To-Know Act

Environmental Protection Agency’s Compliance Assistance Notebooks: Oil and Gas Extraction Industry

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DEC rules ensure adequate protection for the state's air, land and water.

by Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York ALBANY, NY (03/03/2010)(readMedia)-- Proponents of natural gas exploration petitioned the governor, lawmakers and regulatory agencies and lawmakers to allow drilling to be expanded in New York's Southern Tier and Western Catskills.

More than 4,300 people have so far signed an online petition already, which reminds elected officials and regulators that harvesting clean-burning natural gas in New York will heat our homes, spur our economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil for decades to come and bring thousands of job and billions of dollars to New York.

The petition, sponsored by the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, will remain open to those interested in urging decision-makers to form objective and scientific opinions on whether expanded natural gas exploration is right for New York. It is available at www.marcellusfacts.com.

"We are very pleased that many so right-minded New Yorkers have spoken up." said Brad Gill, IOGA of NY executive director. "New York's leaders have to focus on this tremendous opportunity for our communities and our state, instead being distracted by bad science and misinformation being spread by obstructionists who don't actually understand our work and history of environmental stewardship."

The petition follows a Jan. 25 outdoor rally in Albany, where 700 landowners and supporters raised their voices in support of natural gas extraction through a process known as hydraulic fracturing – or "fracking." The delegation represented 23 landowner groups and 17,500 families.

The fracking process will help release natural gas locked in the Marcellus Shale formation by injecting pressurized water, sand chemicals and other ingredients to shatter the rock. It occurs deep underground and far from groundwater and surface water, and it has been performed safely in New York and nationwide for decades.

IOGA-NY was founded in 1980 to protect, foster and advance the common interests of oil and gas producers, as well as professionals and related industries in the State of New York.

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Dave ColavitoFreelance writer
Posted: March 2, 2010 10:31 AM Governor Paterson's Parting Shot
Fracking , Marcellus Shale , Natural Gas Drilling , New York , Sullivan County , New York News 


There's no question New York State faces unprecedented budgetary challenges, so it's understandable that policy makers would be searching far and wide for potential revenue generators. However recent developments should cause all state residents to ask, "at what cost"? For Sullivan County, that cost is too high.

State Senator John Bonacic and Town of Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini deserve credit for standing on the side of fiscal prudence. They recognize that pumping $6 million into infrastructure upgrades associated with renovating the Concord Hotel at this time is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

They recognize what's widely acknowledged; the Concord project is on life-support, and that's being generous, considering it's been a year since any pulse has been detectable there.

The Governor's decision to release this money is beyond difficult to understand because Sullivan County is in the midst of its own unprecedented fiscal crisis: a new jail estimated at $80 million, $36 million for landfill monitoring and maintenance over the next 30 years, and, by my math, an estimated $42 million in landfill debt service through 2022 - all this in addition to whatever reductions will be mandated from Albany.

We could have used that money to address these real issues facing our communities. But the Governor decided to fund a project that arguably may never see the light of day. Taken by itself it's indicative of the same run-away spending he has cited as the cornerstone for New York's economic woes, and exemplifies the dysfunction and double-speak that so many have sadly come to expect from Albany.

But you can't take this by itself, because it's not alone.
Governor Paterson is also pushing, hard, for natural gas extraction from Sullivan County and surrounding areas proximate to the New York City watershed. This, in spite of serious concerns expressed by agency professionals and the public that the risks have yet to be adequately addressed. The party line has been drilling is safe and will be tightly regulated. But regardless of where you stand on this issue, the Governor's 34% proposed reduction in Department of Environmental Conservation's funding contained in his submitted budget is cause for more than just concern.

We do not yet know how much of this proposed reduction will make its way into DEC's Division of Minerals Resources, the division responsible for ensuring compliance with State regulations. We do not yet know how many gas wells will ultimately get drilled in the Marcellus Shale formation. What we do know is that while the folks at Minerals may be fine folks, they are still just folks, not endowed with superhuman attributes. Our State's 14,000 active wells and 2,500 active mines already place responsibilities for over 1,000 mineral sites per Division inspector. With deep budget cuts likely and a significant increase in responsibilities, you don't need to be a genius to understand how that math will go.

Governor Paterson has decided not to run for office in November. I am asking that he take into consideration, in a credible way, the needs of area residents who don't have the luxury of running anywhere. Sullivan County residents will be living here long after he leaves office.

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From pressconnects.com of Binghamton, NY

DEC standards high

February 28, 2010, 12:00 am
The controversy about drilling in the Marcellus Shale reserves hit the state legislature in Albany big time on Jan. 25. One TV station estimated 700-plus people came to demonstrate their support for this new gas industry in a rally that took place in the pouring rain.

Given the scaremongering of the environmental extremists who have weighed in on this issue, the most important disclosure at this rally was the fact that more than 10,000 wells have been drilled in New York over the last two decades under present regulations with only one minor incident involving methane seepage which was corrected within three days.

This safety record is a testament to the professionalism of the DEC and the high standards already incorporated into state law with respect to natural gas exploration and production.

Noel van Swol: President

Sullivan-Delaware Property Owners Association

Mike Markham of Colorado has an explosive problem: His tap water catches fire. Markham demonstrates this in a new documentary, “Gasland,” which just won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize. Director Josh Fox films Markham as he runs his kitchen faucet, holding a cigarette lighter up to the running water. After a few seconds, a ball of fire erupts out of the sink, almost enveloping Markham’s head.