Long email from Walter Hang. Urge Hinchey and Arcuri to sign!!
Jeanne
Homestretch Marcellus Shale Citizen Action Update
Greetings,
More than 8,000 citizens, Mayors, Assembly members, Town Supervisors,
County Legislators, a Congressional Representative, other elected
officials, religious leaders and local/state/national environmental
organizations have now signed the coalition letter requesting Governor
Paterson to withdraw the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement (dSGEIS) for Marcellus Shale Horizontal Drilling and
Hydrofracking. Our efforts continue to receive extensive local, state
and national media coverage.
Signatories include key New York City officials, notably City Council
Member James Gennaro, Chair of the Committee on Environmental
Protection, and Assembly Member Catherine Nolan as well as more than
100 wineries, farms, businesses and good government organizations.
As we head down the homestretch of the public comment period with only
nine days to go, your help is more essential than ever.
Governor Paterson is reportedly being deluged with emails, phone calls
and faxes. Keep pushing the governor to withdraw the dSGEIS. See
below.
Congressional Representatives Maurice Hinchey and Michael Arcuri have
inexplicably failed to sign the coalition letter. Please call them
today and very respectfully urge them to become signatories and to take
personal action to persuade Governor Paterson to withdraw the draft
SGEIS. Congressman Eric Massa is a signatory.
Congressman Hinchey has been a leading environmental advocate for
decades. As a former chair of the Assembly Environmental Conservation
Committee, he served many years with DEC Commissioner Grannis. He also
worked extensively with the governor. His district includes the
Catskills where New York City has major reservoirs. He could play a
pivotal role in withdrawing the dSGEIS.
Email his environmental staffperson: [email protected]
Call Congressman Hinchey:
Middletown Office
Phone: (845) 344-3211
Binghamton Office
Phone: (607) 773-2768
Kingston Office
Phone: (845) 331-4466
Ithaca Office
Phone: (607) 273-1388
Monticello Office
Phone: (845) 791-7116
Email Congressman Arcuri:
http://forms.house.gov/arcuri/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Call Congressman Arcuri:
Cortland Office
Phone: 607-756-2470
Utica Office
Phone: 315-793-8146/8147
Auburn Office
Phone: 315 252-2777/2778
Recent Media Coverage: Politicians Choose Sides in Marcellus Shale
Drilling Debate:
http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200912132145/NEWS01/912130366
Private Well in Geneva, NY reportedly impacted by natural gas fracking:
http://www.cnycentral.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=388797
Damning New Evidence Raises Concerns About Threats to New York's Water
From Gas Drilling: New York may be the next state to become embroiled
in a mess of litigation and public outcry over a controversial drilling
technique: http://www.truthout.org/1213095
Proposed Gas Drilling Threatens New York City's Water. See below.
Urge your family, friends, colleagues and elected representatives to
take immediate action. Forward this email or post our Contact the
Governor page on your preferred social networking site. See below.
After you persuade everyone you know to sign the coalition letter plus
email and phone Governor Paterson, you can consider trying to persuade
your local City, Town or Village officials to adopt a resolution in
favor of withdrawing the dSGEIS. I earlier provided a Town of Ithaca
resolution that can be adapted for any community.
Thanks for all your help. POUR IT ON. NO EXCUSES. Happy Holidays.
Walter Hang
Email Governor David A. Paterson: [email protected]. ny.us
Please bcc: [email protected] so we can maintain a record of all
contacts.
Call or write the governor:
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
518-474-8390 (o)
518-474-1513 (Fax)
Make the following points succinctly and emphatically:
Governor Paterson must immediately withdraw the draft Supplemental GEIS
because it is utterly inadequate to safeguard New York's environment
and public health.
The Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) own spill reports
document that existing regulations have failed to prevent or to require
the clean up of hundreds of natural gas and oil drilling problems
involving fires, explosions, polluted drinking water wells, home
evacuations and massive drilling wastewater releases. DEC must not
issue new gas drilling permits until those regulatory concerns have
been fully resolved. That is why the Supplemental GEIS review must be
restarted.
The draft SGEIS totally fails to propose a safe method of managing
natural gas drilling wastewater and hydrofracking fluid. It simply
leaves that task to localities. Improper management of natural gas
drilling wastewater has already caused massive toxic pollution impacts.
The SGEIS must solve this disposal problem before new natural gas
drilling permits are issued.
DEC is woefully understaffed to cope with existing natural gas drilling
problems. Only 17 staff are available to regulate nearly 7,000
existing natural gas wells. New gas drilling permits must not be
issued until the SGEIS solves this problem.
The SGEIS fails to address critical issues associated with strict clean
up liability, natural gas spill reporting, private right of legal
action, insurance coverage and unfunded local government mandates. All
those concerns must be addressed prior to the issuance of new gas
drilling permits.
Share your personal concerns with Governor Paterson. Please be
respectful, but remember Governor Paterson has a duty to protect New
York's natural resources and public health. That is why the draft
SGEIS must be withdrawn.
Thank you for your assistance. Contact me if you have questions.
Coalition Letter sign-up:
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/coalition_letter
Contact the Governor:
http://toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/contact_gov
The coalition letter's signatories can be viewed at:
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/coalition_letter
Marcellus Shale Section: http://toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ithaca-NY/Toxics-Targeting/95035142437
Twitter: http://twitter.com/toxicstargeting
11/10/09 DEMOCRACY NOW!:
* Watchdog: New York State Regulation of Natural Gas Wells Has Been
"Woefully Insufficient for Decades." *
The New York-based Toxics Targeting went through the Department of
Environmental Conservation's own database of hazardous substances
spills over the past thirty years. They found 270 cases documenting
fires, explosions, wastewater spills, well contamination and ecological
damage related to gas drilling. Many of the cases remain unresolved.
The findings are contrary to repeated government assurances that
existing natural gas well regulations are sufficient to safeguard the
environment and public health. The state is considering allowing for
gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale watershed, the source of drinking
water for 15 million people, including nine million New Yorkers.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/watchdog_new_york_state_regulation_of
11/16/09 WHCU Interview With Walter Hang About Marcellus Gas
Drillng
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/podcasts/whcu_gas_drilling_dec
Natural gas quest: State files show 270 drilling accidents in past 30
years
By Tom Wilber [email protected] . November 8, 2009, 7:15 pm
http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20091108/NEWS01/911080372&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
The state's depiction of a clean, tightly regulated natural gas
industry just got a shot of muck in the eye.
As the debate over the merits of Marcellus Shale development reaches a
crescendo, an Ithaca researcher has culled a list of 270 files
documenting wastewater spills, well contamination, explosions, methane
migration and ecological damage related to gas production in the state
since 1979.
Walter Hang, president of Toxic Targeting, compiled the files using the
Department of Environmental Conservation's own hazard substances spills
database.
Oil and gas drilling problems
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20091208/NEWS01/912080356/6-000-sign-petition-asking-DEC-to-strengthen-natural-gas-drilling-regulations
Proposed natural gas drilling threatens New York City's water
Public comment period ends Dec. 31
New York City's abundant, inexpensive water supply could disappear if
proposals to drill for natural gas in upstate New York using a process
called "hydrofracking" are allowed to go forward. (Photo: Terese Loeb
Kreuzer)
New York City's prized tap water, which comes from upstate reservoirs,
is under assault. Companies that drill for natural gas want to use a
process called "hydrofracking" to access the natural gas in the vast
Marcellus Shale, which runs from New York to Tennessee and west to
Ohio. It is the biggest natural gas formation in the country and worth
a trillion dollars, according to Walter Hang, principal of an
environmental data collection company in Ithaca, N.Y. called Toxics
Targeting.
If the oil and gas companies succeed in getting New York State
regulatory approval to permit fractal drilling, they could pollute New
York City's water supply and create monumental problems upstate, where
the toxic, radioactive waste water from the drilling would be disposed
of.
The public comment period on fractal drilling ends Dec. 31, 2009.
Subsequently, the comments will go to New York State's Department of
Environmental Conservation (DEC), which will process them. The possible
outcome could include anything from adopting an environmental impact
statement that would permit the drilling, to rejecting it, especially
if the governor so orders. "It's the governor's call," said Mr. Hang.
"He runs the DEC. If he decides he doesn't want his administration to
do something, it will get yanked."
Fractal drilling in single, vertical wells isn't new in New York State,
but the scope of what is now being proposed is new and untried here.
"New York has been mining gas since 1821," Mr. Hang explained, "but
they'd drill a well and hit a pocket of gas under pressure, and it
would just come up. The Marcellus Shale is almost totally impermeable.
If you drill into it, no gas comes out."
To release the gas in the Marcellus Shale, the oil and gas companies
would have to drill around one mile into the Earth and then drill
horizontally, injecting millions of gallons of sand and water under
tremendous pressure into the fissures to hold them open.
"You can't drill a well within 300 feet of a city reservoir and the DEC
said they had never had a problem," said Mr. Hang. "But," he continued,
"I found a gas problem in Freedom, N.Y. where the gas came blasting out
of a 2,000-foot-deep bore hole in a matter of minutes. It went 8,000
feet horizontally and actually impacted 12 homes, a pond, drainage
ditches and permanently polluted private water supply wells. It
happened in 1996 and the water is still polluted."
The DEC says on its Marcellus Shale home page that other states may
have had problems with natural gas drilling but New York State will not
because of its superior regulatory system. Mr. Hang disagrees. "The
existing regulations are completely inadequate for preventing and
requiring the clean up of gas drilling and gas infrastructure
problems," he said. "I found 270 massive spills, many of which had
never been cleaned up for up to 26 years. This whole effort should be
sent back to the drawing board."
In the New York State legislature, Senators Daniel Squadron and Thomas
Duane and Assembly Member James Brennan have sponsored bills to
protect the New York City watershed by prohibiting drilling for natural
gas within five miles of the watershed boundaries and in the Delaware
River watershed. Their bills would also increase regulation of
hydraulic fracturing in areas where it is permitted. Community Board 1
supports these bills. In a resolution unanimously passed at the last
full board meeting on Nov. 24, CB1 stated that it "is concerned that
the State of New York, as a landowner, is seeking to close its budget
gap in part by leasing mineral rights connected with its public lands
at the same time that it is ostensibly protecting the environment for
all New Yorkers." The CB1 resolution requested that the law require
natural gas drillers, gas aggregators and gas companies to be
"responsible for any and all damages, including, but not limited to
property and environmental damage which occurs in the process of
drilling and transporting natural gas. DEC shall require financial
security to ensure that landowners are protected from any contingent
liability."
Mr. Hang believes that the bills don't go far enough. No one knows, he
said, if a five-mile barrier would be sufficient to protect the water
supply.
Steven Lawitts, the acting commissioner for New York City's Department
of Environmental Protection (DEP), had this to say: "DEP is deeply
concerned about the potential impacts that natural gas drilling poses
to water quality, available water supply, and critical water supply
infrastructure. DEP is conducting a comprehensive review of the draft
Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement and will provide
extensive comments. On Wednesday, DEP will brief the Water Board on the
Final Impact Assessment Report, an in-depth scientific analysis on the
impacts of natural gas drilling in the New York City watershed."
If the gas drilling goes through and the New York City water supply
becomes contaminated, it will cost billions of dollars to build a
filtration plant to supply the city with water, "and it's not
necessarily going to render the water safe," said Catherine McVay
Hughes, vice chairperson of Community Board 1.
Mr. Hang said there could be other costs associated with the drilling.
"Everyone is thinking this is money, money, money," he said, "but the
problem is that 100,000 pound trucks [bringing water to the drilling
site and taking waste water away] are going to destroy hundreds of
structurally deficient bridges. And who's going to deal with the waste
water? Who's going to deal with all the infrastructure problems?
Suddenly it's not looking like the goose that laid the golden egg
anymore."
- Terese Loeb Kreuzer
Click here to comment on the proposed drilling via the office of
Borough of Manhattan President Scott Stringer, who is opposed to the
drilling. The Web site of Toxics Targeting ( www.toxicstargeting.com)
also has a letter addressed to Gov. David Paterson. Click here for that
letter.
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