Natural gas drilling at New York’s Catskills watershed was officially denied by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) at a presentation on Wednesday. Officials said the drilling would interfere with the operation of the city’s unfiltered water supply system.
The DEP took the stance in response to the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s draft regulations on gas drilling in New York’s part of the Marcellus Shale region, which includes portions of the Catskills watershed—reservoirs that supply drinking water for 9 million New Yorkers.
“Based on the latest science and available technology, as well as the data and limited analysis presented by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), high-volume hydrofracking and horizontal drilling pose unacceptable threats to the unfiltered fresh water supply of 9 million New Yorkers,” said Acting DEP Commissioner Steven W. Lawitts in a news release.
Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers and the only leaseholder in the watershed region, said that it would not drill the Catskills because of opposition from elected officials and environmental groups. Nevertheless, opposition has continued to call for a ban, saying the company’s word alone is not good enough.
The state continues to take public comments on its 800-plus page draft until Dec. 31. The DEP had withheld comment until finally publishing its “Final Impact Assessment Report,” a lengthy review of potential risks of gas exploration using hydraulic fracturing, which blasts millions of gallons of chemical-contaminated water down into the shale just to release trapped gas.
After reviewing the report, DEP has called for a prohibition on any drilling in the upstate watershed.
Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer said Mayor Bloomberg agreed with the ban and urged Governor Paterson to also come out strongly for a ban of natural gas drilling in the city’s watershed. “If New York state continues to signal that short term interests will be allowed to trump long term environmental concerns, we will be destined to follow in the same steps as our neighbors in Pennsylvania, except instead of small water wells the governor will be gambling with the unfiltered water supply on which nine million people depend,” Stringer said in a statement.
Since 1997, the city has been granted a Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This designation recognizes the quality of New York City’s West of Hudson water supply. The city has, since then, spent approximately $1.5 billion to protect these pure waters.
Gas drilling in its current form, according to DEP’s report, is inconsistent with ensuring both the protection of these source waters and the continuation of the FAD. The inherent environmental impact and risks of gas drilling could result in the need to construct a filtration plant at a minimum cost of $10 billion, which would translate into a 30 percent increase in water rates.
The following bullets summarize DEP’s report:
• Industrialization: Gas drilling brings with it an industrial infrastructure with inherent environmental risks: as many as 3,000 to 6,000 wells would result in millions of truck trips, thousands of acres of site clearing and grading, millions of tons of fracking chemicals, and millions of tons of waste from produced water, all of which can contaminate water.
• Chemical Contamination: The chemicals used as part of the process are injected into subsurface rock formations and can travel along underground fissures to ground water and ultimately streams that feed reservoirs; extensive subsurface fracture systems and known “brittle” geological structures exist that commonly extend over a mile in length, and as far as seven miles in the vicinity of NYC infrastructure. In addition, the resulting wastewater—potentially 1 billion gallons per year—can also contaminate water supplies. Currently, there is no way to locally treat this wastewater.
• Infrastructure Damage: High-volume hydraulic fracking could damage the city’s water supply infrastructure; of greatest concern are our tunnels which are located both inside and outside the New York City watershed. Naturally occurring fracture systems have been demonstrated to transmit fluid and pressure, as evidenced by saline water and methane seeps encountered at grade and in shallow formations near the city’s infrastructure during and since its construction.
The DEP took the stance in response to the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s draft regulations on gas drilling in New York’s part of the Marcellus Shale region, which includes portions of the Catskills watershed—reservoirs that supply drinking water for 9 million New Yorkers.
“Based on the latest science and available technology, as well as the data and limited analysis presented by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), high-volume hydrofracking and horizontal drilling pose unacceptable threats to the unfiltered fresh water supply of 9 million New Yorkers,” said Acting DEP Commissioner Steven W. Lawitts in a news release.
Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers and the only leaseholder in the watershed region, said that it would not drill the Catskills because of opposition from elected officials and environmental groups. Nevertheless, opposition has continued to call for a ban, saying the company’s word alone is not good enough.
The state continues to take public comments on its 800-plus page draft until Dec. 31. The DEP had withheld comment until finally publishing its “Final Impact Assessment Report,” a lengthy review of potential risks of gas exploration using hydraulic fracturing, which blasts millions of gallons of chemical-contaminated water down into the shale just to release trapped gas.
After reviewing the report, DEP has called for a prohibition on any drilling in the upstate watershed.
Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer said Mayor Bloomberg agreed with the ban and urged Governor Paterson to also come out strongly for a ban of natural gas drilling in the city’s watershed. “If New York state continues to signal that short term interests will be allowed to trump long term environmental concerns, we will be destined to follow in the same steps as our neighbors in Pennsylvania, except instead of small water wells the governor will be gambling with the unfiltered water supply on which nine million people depend,” Stringer said in a statement.
Since 1997, the city has been granted a Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This designation recognizes the quality of New York City’s West of Hudson water supply. The city has, since then, spent approximately $1.5 billion to protect these pure waters.
Gas drilling in its current form, according to DEP’s report, is inconsistent with ensuring both the protection of these source waters and the continuation of the FAD. The inherent environmental impact and risks of gas drilling could result in the need to construct a filtration plant at a minimum cost of $10 billion, which would translate into a 30 percent increase in water rates.
The following bullets summarize DEP’s report:
• Industrialization: Gas drilling brings with it an industrial infrastructure with inherent environmental risks: as many as 3,000 to 6,000 wells would result in millions of truck trips, thousands of acres of site clearing and grading, millions of tons of fracking chemicals, and millions of tons of waste from produced water, all of which can contaminate water.
• Chemical Contamination: The chemicals used as part of the process are injected into subsurface rock formations and can travel along underground fissures to ground water and ultimately streams that feed reservoirs; extensive subsurface fracture systems and known “brittle” geological structures exist that commonly extend over a mile in length, and as far as seven miles in the vicinity of NYC infrastructure. In addition, the resulting wastewater—potentially 1 billion gallons per year—can also contaminate water supplies. Currently, there is no way to locally treat this wastewater.
• Infrastructure Damage: High-volume hydraulic fracking could damage the city’s water supply infrastructure; of greatest concern are our tunnels which are located both inside and outside the New York City watershed. Naturally occurring fracture systems have been demonstrated to transmit fluid and pressure, as evidenced by saline water and methane seeps encountered at grade and in shallow formations near the city’s infrastructure during and since its construction.
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