THE ITHACA JOURNAL
December 9, 2009
Tompkins legislators wants gas drilling to wait
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20091209/NEWS01/912090343/Tompkins-legislators-wants-gas-drilling-to-wait
Draft of county's comments on DEC's impact statement calls for more
study
By Stacey Shackford
[email protected]
Tompkins County officials are worried that all the work they have
undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to meet an
ambitious 80 percent reduction target by 2050 could be undone if gas
drilling is allowed to proceed as outlined in the state's controversial
draft environmental impact statement.
It is one of the concerns county legislators have raised in a five-page
document they intend to submit to the New York Department of
Environmental Conservation as official comments to the DEC's 809-page
Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS).
In it, they call for a continued moratorium on drilling to allow the
DEC time to re-evaluate its report and incorporate further studies,
including one being undertaken by the federal Environmental Protection
Agency.
Members of two legislative committees met this week to discuss the
comments, which will be voted on at a full legislature meeting Tuesday.
They criticized the report's failure to address the cumulative impacts
of Marcellus Shale development and to take into account local planning
efforts.
The location of industrial sites, they point out, is an issue
municipalities take years to carefully plan to ensure there is
sufficient infrastructure to support the activity, including roads,
water and sewer infrastructure.
"Gas drilling, by contrast, is likely to occur in areas that are not
designated or suitable for industrial land uses, that have little or no
infrastructure adequate to support the activity, and that have not been
subjected to a comprehensive planning process to evaluate impacts of
the development," the legislative comments state.
They also highlighted potential environmental damage as a primary
concern, noting that the cumulative effects of removing billions of
gallons of water from the ecosystem are barely addressed in the report.
"Over the 30-year well lifetime, emissions from 100 one-well projects
will more than double all community emissions in Tompkins County over
that same 30-year time period," the legislative document also states.
"The result is that the proposed gas drilling, if implemented, will
make it impossible for Tompkins County to meet its greenhouse gas
emissions goals."
In all, they make 12 main points, including:
* Taxpayers should not bear the costs of water quality monitoring,
which should include the entire groundwater resource, not just existing
drinking water wells.
* More-stringent standards outlined for the New York City watershed
should be applied to every watershed, including Cayuga Lake.
* Operators should be required to obtain road use agreements with every
municipality through which they travel to drill sites.
* Municipalities should be allowed to weigh in on the suitability and
environmental impacts of individual sites through the DEC's
environmental assessment form process.
Other county agencies will also be submitting comments, including the
health department, planning department, Environmental Management
Council and Water Resources Council. The Tompkins County Council of
Governments and several individual municipalities are also expected to
weigh in by the Dec. 31 deadline.
BTW RE: climate change.According to the comments submitted by the
Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association analyses "carried out during the
past year by Rice University in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex,
results have shown that drilling related emissions of carbon diozide
and two other major greenhouse gases underlying climate change were
estimated to be roughly equivalent to the impact from two 750 Megawatt
coal-fired plants".
_______________________________________________
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