800 Pound Gorilla Weighs in on Gas Drilling

On Tuesday, the New York City DEP (Department of Environmental Protection), the city agency responsible for the New York City watersheds and water supply, came out firmly against gas drilling and sent a letter to the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation calling on the state to withdraw the draft regulations under review to approve drilling. (NY Times article.) The city couldn't be more unequivocal in its opposition, and its position is quite damning for gas drilling for two reasons.

First, the city's opposition is based on an extensive study by independent consultants commissioned by the city that studied the geological science related to gas drilling. It's not  environmental emotionalism that has charged much of the debate. Second, New York City has political clout that outweighs any other party weighing in on the issue.

Of course, New York City is primarily concerned with the Catskill watershed, an area covering approximately 1,500 square miles in Sullivan, Delaware and Ulster counties. The watershed has been defined loosely as any land upon which water that falls will ultimately flow into one of the New York City reservoirs, which is why the watershed has such an irregular boundary. There are instances where property on one side of a hill is in the watershed and property on the other side isn't because groundwater on that side flows into a different creek and river system.

The interesting thing about gas drilling related to the watershed is that the traditional groundwater run off definition of the watershed may not apply, because the hydrofracking required for gas drilling occurs thousands of feet below the surface. The city's study points out that fracking chemicals can travel along fissures underground. The study also notes the potential damage to the water transport infrastructure, those huge tunnels located outside of the watershed per se that carry the water from the Catskills to the city.

Notably, the city's response apparently did not just request a drilling exclusion for the watershed with possibly an expansion of the geographic defintion of the watershed. They asked that the draft environmental impact statement be pulled entirely! You may want to check out the NYC DEP site, where there is a release about their comments as well as the supporting documents they sent to the state.

Comments

[JM]

Chesapeake decided not to drill in the watershed.

Phillip-Morris agreed not to advertise to minors.

[ar]

The city's position is certainly helpful but it is easy to imagine how a compromise would leave western Sullivan County endangered. The southernmost boundary of the watershed is quite some distance from the towns of Fremont, Callicoon, Delaware, Cochecton, Bethel, Highland, etc. It would be easy enough for a political deal to be cut placing the watershed out of bounds while clearing the way for drilling in those towns and other areas south of the watershed. Even if some of the northern part of Sullivan County won protection, that wouldn't help further south in Bethel, Highland, Cochecton, etc.

[Bix]

This is really important news.

What the NYC study means is not that gas drilling is bad for NYC, but that it is bad for everybody. It just can't be done safely.

[Jacques]

"This is really important news.

What the NYC study means is not that gas drilling is bad for NYC, but that it is bad for everybody. It just can't be done safely."

------

Well, duh, Bix.

What it also means is that New York City is looking after their own (and that's not you in Callicoon, North Branch, Barryville, etc.) and wants hands off in the watershed.

However when it comes to all the tributaries, streams and creeks in Western Sullivan County and Delaware County that lead into the reservoirs along with the Delaware River which is NOT within their watershed - well, you little towns - you're on your own when it comes to doing battle with either the NYS DEC and / or the gas companies.

Happy new year.

Jacques

[rod]

and these little towns did a great job battling with the billion dollar powerlines - I doubt the will or persistence of these little towns should be underestimated, whatever the outcome.

[ames]

The problem is the word: "everybody." I'd rather focus on the word: "nobody."

If they drill in the West are they impacting "everybody" or a few "nobodys" ?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Fabricate the need and make the price right and all is forgiven.

[mary ellen]

No one has brought up the issue of compensating Sullivan County if it decides not to drill. Plenty are against drilling, but will NYC attempt to compensate the people of the county who are giving up millions of dollars for the sake of a possibility of danger to their water supply?

Notice the silence?

[Felix]

Rod, the powerlines are a bit different than the gas drilling issue.

With the powerlines - nobody wanted them.

Farmers, second home owners, fourth generation good ol' boys, Republicans, Democrats, young, old, liberal or conservative.

Nobody wanted them here.

The gas drilling issue is very different than the power lines since it pits some of those who have lots of land (whether they be locals, hunting clubs or newcomers) for monetary gain from leasing and possible royalties *versus* those others - whether they be locals or not - whether they have lots of land or not.

In time, you will find the topic of gas drilling will divide and polarize communities and towns whereas the powerline topic was a catalyst than brought many disparate elements of the population together for a common good.

Felix

[Bix]

Jacques, you're missing the point. You can't expect NYC to speak up for the small homeowners in the western part of the county. But now the western part of the county can say "what about us? Don't we have a right to clean water?" All the technical points NYC made are equally applicable everywhere.

Today the federal EPA weighed in, which makes it even better. Here's the Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/science/earth/31drill.html

Here's a good piece today in ProPublica:
http://www.propublica.org/feature/natural-gas-drilling-what-we-dont-know-1231

I think that these studies will also give pause to the farmers who are so anxious to lease their land. Now they have to consider that if they do that they'll wind up destroying their property for future generations.

[JM]

Mary Ellen says land owners ought to be compensated should drilling in SC not be allowed.

I live in NYC and I am not allowed to gas drill. Should I be compensated? I would like to have a drilled water well but am not allowed and must therefore pay nyc water charges. Should I be compensated? I would like to hunt within NYC limits to kill the overpopulation of racoons. Can I be compensated? I would like to burn my own garbage instead of laying it curbside. Can I be compensated?

The silence I hear is from the pro-gas drilling crowd.

[me]

ProPublica is created and maintained by the oil industry; it is not an unbiased "report." It is designed to keep oil as our main source of energy.

Big grain of salt needed when reading it.

[Rod]

Point well made, Felix. Although with all the vacant, unleased land available and not pursued by the gas companies, there are supply and demand as well as regulatory variables that have stopped cold the 'lease rush' of 2 yrs ago.

[Bix]

Felix, what throws off your equation is as follows:

1. Powerlines were a local issue, and nobody outside Sullivan County cared. Gas drilling is not a lovsl issue. It affects New York City, and I believe also there are issues affecting the Delaware River. The Delaware is a source of water downstream, including Philadelphia.

2. Large landowners were fed gas industry propaganda that they could have their cake and eat it too, that gas drilling wouldn't hurt their wells. Now they know different, and have to weigh the income they get versus the damage to the environment.

[me]

OK. OK. Just burn the raccoons and I'll write you a check.

[ar]

JM -- Your argument doesn't work. Upstate folks are not the ones prohibiting you from doing the various things on your list in NYC, and they are not benefitting from your being prohibited from doing them. NYC, on the other hand, wants to prohibit upstaters from exploiting gas drilling because NYC sees a benefit for itself if gas drilling is prohibited. If X is going to stop Y from doing something on Y's property, X has to pay Y. That's Mary Ellen's argument, and it is reasonable.

[Sandy Weill]

Bix,
Happy new year to you.

Please get your facts straight.

NYRI concerned a few other counties besides Sullivan.

Seven or eight counties I believe.

Google is your friend. Please see below.

===============================================

Bix writes:
"1. Powerlines were a local issue, and nobody outside Sullivan County cared..."

Posted by: Bix | January 01, 2010 at 10:11 AM

========================

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&source=hp&q=nyri%2C%20power%20lines%2C%20counties%20involved&rlz=1R2ADRA_enUS358&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_365040029.html

http://www.uticaod.com/news/x370509327/Arcuris-2009

[keith]

There are already regulations about what a person can do on their own property if it detracts from their neighbors property. For example, zoning laws prohibit land owners from living in a trailer on their own property because it would adversely affect property values for the whole neighborhood. When changing your cars oil you can't just let the old oil drain in the woods since it can flow into some one elses drinking water. And landowners receive no compensation for having to abide by these restrictions (and they shouldn't be compensated for being "good neighbors").

The gas companies are not denying that the fracking fluid contains benzene, and no one disputes that benzene is a carcinogen (and I'm citing just one component of the fluid). The fracking fluid is pumped into the ground at pressures high enough to fracture shale, so it's plausible there's a danger that the fluid (as well as methane) can get into the drinking water. The watershed supplies drinking water for nearly half of the population of NY state. Potable water is a more precious resource than natural gas or money (e.g. you can live without the latter two, but not without the first).

The gas companies sole interest is in making money. Period. During the tech stock, real estate, and "mortgage backed security's" bubbles, people in those industries knew exactly what was going on, knew there were people who were eventually going to get badly burned but cared little since they knew it wasn't going to be them. Ditto with the gas companies.

[Bix]

AR--no, NYC sees *harm* to itself if gas drilling is allowed, which is perfectly reasonable. It's not as if NYC gets some kind of cash dividend if there is no drilling. It just gets the status quo which is clean water, which I would think we ALL would want. If there is gas drilling, all of our wells will be in danger.

[Charles Manny]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6044KE20100105

Chesapeake says N.Y. could drive away gas drillers

[David Knudsen]

I saw Avatar last night. Interesting metaphor for Sullivan County and gas drilling.

[ar]

Bix -- avoidance of "harm" IS a "benefit." And that is the benefit that NYC perceives that it stands to gain by prohibiting drilling in the watershed.

The posters who distinguish gas drilling from the NYRI situation are entirely correct. As they point out, NYRI threatened a far broader populace. And many of the people who opposed NYRI probably stand to gain from drilling because they own leasable land, and while they may have opposed 13-story towers being erected on their land in return for little or no compensation, gas wells on that same land could make them a lot of money.

There is, however, one important parallel between the NYRI project and the gas drilling threat. Both target an area whose economic distress and relative lack of political clout make it vulnerable to exploitation that would never get any traction in the swankier second-home areas in the Hamptons or the Hudson Valley. That vulnerability is not going to go away (I would wager that son-of-NYRI will arrive within the next few years). It is something to factor into any decision about buying up here.

[ME]

Public outcry is an expected part of every large engineering or construction project. It usually brings about various doses of mitigation until everyone finds the project acceptable.

With a state deficit of 3.5 billion, I can hear Albany salivating over the whole gas drilling issue. I think it will happen, but the industry is going to take a new turn. Gone are the free-for-all days of unregulated drilling. They are not going to run over NYC as they did other areas, but I believe the stakes are too high for the drilling people and the state to say fawgettaboutit.

[Charles Manny]

Chesapeake already said fogetaboutit

[keith]

When it comes to natural gas drilling, the NYC watershed will be the ANWR of NY, that will be the very last place drilling would happen, if at all. In addition to lack of political clout, the enormous sums of $ involved, what also makes the western side of Sullivan County vulnerable is proximity to the gas pipeline.

[keith]

For people who think that NYC should be forced to buy the mineral rights of all the property in their watershed, here's a thought. Suppose you live in an area that's zoned "residential." Since you can't run a convenience store out of your basement, would you expect the town to reimburse you for the profits you're missing out on??? I'm no fan of NYC either, but I try to not let that cloud my objectivity. Being originally from the Town of Neversink, I understand that farms were uprooted in order to flood valleys for reservoirs. But farming is dead in Sullivan County, so the point is moot and NYC brings significant $ to the party. So in addition to having mucho political clout, areas in the watershed aren't in as dire need for cash, money is the most powerful political motivator (in this country it is anyway) Sometimes "bad" things happen for a reason.