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From Clearville Times, who blogs at http://clearville.wordpress.com/
Clearville, PA like DISH, Texas: “pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which from the gas storage owner’s point of view, made it the perfect place”
Clearville had five production wells drilled by PGE gas drilling company, which produced about two years in the Oriskany formation. Wells suddenly stopped production on the same day and were sold to a gas storage company from somewhere in Texas, known as Spectra Energy or maybe known as a “Spin off of Duke Energy?” from a gas storage operator’s point of view, Clearville, PA made it the perfect place” known as the ” Steckman Ridge Gas Storage Project.”
In Pennsylvania, gas is stored in the Oriskany formation, the source rock for the Oriskany is the Marcellus Shale.
In the middle of nowhere, there seems to be a trend for gas storage fields in the Oriskany formation located near the Marcellus Shale. There is a gas storage field located a few miles down the road from the Steckman Ridge’s underground gas storage field known as the Columbia Gas Storage field, in Artemas, PA. Columbia gas storage field is also located in the middle of nowhere but has been the perfect place since the early 1940′s . Columbia gas has been storing gas in the Oriskany formation where the Marcellus Shale is the source rock.
There is a big difference, between then and now’s, when it comes to gas storage project acquisitions, at least up until 2005. Columbia Gas Storage got off to an easier start in the 1940′s. At that period in time, most all gas production leases gave away gas storage rights in gas production leases.
Landowners over the years with the advent of the internet, became more savvy and placed no gas storage clauses in their gas production leases. Soon these gas leases became known as obstacles in the market place which needed a removal tool. Someone, somewhere, came up with the perfect legal tool to remove these obstacles in the market place for gas storage projects.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney used legal legislative laws as the best use obstacle removal tool in EPACT of 2005. At that time, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney likely knew a little about the gas market, heard about obstacles in the market place, and knew a solution was needed for the problem. Minds of genius noted for acquisitions developed and signed a law which classified depleted gas wells which can be taken legally for underground gas storage projects because they are now considered public utilities. This law is broad and can take land which has no gas leases. This law will take any land and give it to a private company for profit once they eye your land as the perfect place for a federally backed underground gas storage field.
Clearville, PA was eyed as the perfect place. Landowners watched Halliburton and Schlumberger legally use exempted fracking chemicals from the SDWA. They watched as horizontal gas storage wells were drilled into the Oriskany sandstone formation. This was a federally backed gas storage project with all the amenities.
Remember: “There is no way to save your land from the laws of a federally backed gas storage project. If someone, somewhere, spots your land as the perfect place, you can kiss it goodbye.”
Clearville, PA; the Oriskany formation; the Marcellus Shale is the Oriskany source rock; in the middle of nowhere; all goes somewhere; from a gas storage operator’s point of view; Clearville was another perfect place.
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Tags: clearville, DEP, eminent domain, Marcellus, natural gas, PA, Steckman Ridge compressor station
Anne Marie Garti writes:
The FRAC Act would remove the hydrofracking exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), but the proposed bill will not protect most of the land area of the US because many aquifers, especially in the northeast, do not flow into a PUBLIC water supply of 25 + users, and whether they would be capable of supplying municipal water in the future is open to interpretation. The required flow rate is not defined anyplace, and needs to be so that there is a uniform standard across the US.
Specifically, the Underground Injection Control (UIC) section of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) needs to include a definition, or standard, of the following phrase: “sufficient quantity of ground water to supply a public water system”
“Sufficient” needs to be defined in the FRAC Act so that the flow rate of individual homeowner’s water well or spring is covered. It should be a federal standard, not open to different interpretations by Courts in every region of the EPA. The Atlanta or Georgia region of EPA uses a 1 gallon per minute flow rate.
Some people have suggested that one gallon per minute may be a sufficient flow rate for water wells, but I’m not sure if that’s true for springs. As water resources diminish as a result of climate change, a much lower standard might be reasonable. Even a trickle of clean water could keep you alive in the future, and those trickles, when combined, add up to rivers in some places.
I am not proposing that the entire SDWA be amended to include the springs and wells of homeowners. The required change in language should only apply to the UIC section of the SDWA.
…
Some background information from the EPA:
http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/sdwa/basicinformation.html
“The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was originally passed by Congress in 1974 to protect public health by regulating the nation’s public drinking water supply. The law was amended in 1986 and 1996 and requires many actions to protect drinking water and its sources: rivers, lakes, reservoirs, springs, and ground water wells. (SDWA does not regulate private wells which serve fewer than 25 individuals.) ”The UIC (Underground Injection Control) program includes 5 classes of protection:
www.epa.gov/safewater/uicHere’s more specific information:
http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/uic/basicinformation.htmlAnd this is the specific area that needs adjusting:
http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/uic/basicinformation.html#what_is_a_usdwQuote from the EPA:
What is a USDW?
An underground source of drinking water (USDW) is an aquifer or a part of an aquifer that is currently used as a drinking water source or may be needed as a drinking water source in the future. Specifically, a USDW:
- Supplies any public water system, or
- Contains a sufficient quantity of ground water to supply a public water system, and
- currently supplies drinking water for human consumption, or
- contains fewer than 10,000 mg/l total dissolved solids (TDS), and
- is not an exempted aquifer
From EnergyJustice.net
> SIGN THE PETITION <
The Kerry, Graham and Lieberman climate bill has become so compromised it’s rotten. Let Congress know that you are deeply concerned about climate change, and therefore support a vote AGAINST this bill. Tell them a much, much stronger climate bill is absolutely necessary!
When the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act last year, many (including NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen) called the bill “worse than nothing,” and found themselves, sadly, opposing climate legislation. Why?? Because the bill failed to rise to the challenge, offered absurdly weak targets, provided ludicrous quantities of corporate handouts to polluters, funded a slew of dirty false solutions (carbon capture and sequestration, biomass burning, nuclear, etc). Overall, it sought to maintain business as usual, rather than putting the nation on the path to avoid catastrophic warming.
Many powerful industry and government interests view climate change not as a serious problem to be resolved by all means possible, but rather as an opportunity to maintain and enhance profits. They would seek to build more polluting incinerators, continue mountaintop removal and coal burning, expand industrial agriculture, drill our coastlines, mine uranium and build more nuclear reactors, leaving us to cope with more cancer, asthma and other health problems, and an altogether questionable future for our children.
When Senators Kerry & Boxer introduced a companion bill largely mirroring “worse than nothing,” it was entirely rejected by some Senators, who, unbelievably, fail to recognize climate change as a problem worth addressing, and are entirely beholden to their fossil fuel and other industry supporters. Kerry went back to the drawing board, this time inviting the participation of industry and the climate change deniers who have made it clear that in order to win the needed 60 votes, they would require fulfillment of their “wishlist.” We are now faced with a bill written to fulfill the wishes of the worst polluters and guaranteed to be FAR worse than nothing.
The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill would even take away EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — our one proven tool for regulating air pollution, which industry fears because it will be more effective than the carbon trading schemes in this legislation. The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill would even invalidate any state and local-level laws that are stronger than the weak policies in their bill!
Just because this is a so-called “climate bill” doesn’t mean it is a good bill! Tell your senator and representatives to vote AGAINST this rotten bill because it fails on every count. Demand a much, much stronger climate bill that will embrace targets that meet the mandates of climate science, put an end to dirty energy, restore ecosystems, protect our health and fulfill our obligations to the international community.
For more information, and to sign the petition, visit
Tags: climate change, greenhouse gas
See it November 19, 7pm at the Bouck Auditorium, SUNY Cobleskill. The Student Environmental Action Coalition presents: A Snowmobile for George. “A rambunctious road trip reveals the toll that environmental deregulation has had on the lives of ordinary people.”
Tags: film
Unnatural Gas: The Inflated Promise of a Not-So-Clean Fuel
Meanwhile, in competing with Big Coal for the affections of Congress, the newly formed America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) launched an $80 million advertising and lobbying campaign earlier this year to promote its “clean, abundant, American, reliable, and versatile” product. As climate bills work their way through Congress, ANGA’s efforts appear to be paying off.
Risking our water so we can burn more natural gas will not be the planet’s miracle climate cure. For the United States to achieve necessary reductions in greenhouse emissions – estimated at more than 80 percent – will require not more energy production, even if somewhat cleaner, but deep cuts in energy consumption.
Coal must be phased out as quickly as possible, but more gas won’t accomplish that. While electric utilities’ gas consumption doubled from 1996 to 2007, coal use continued its steady climb.
What if, with shale drilling, we could achieve another doubling of gas-fired electricity generation, but this time eliminate an equivalent amount of coal-fired generation? Even that steep escalation of gas drilling would cut the utility industry’s carbon emissions by only 12 percent and the nation’s total carbon emissions by just 5 percent, based on Energy Department figures.
Financier T. Boone Pickens recommends running our vehicles on natural gas. But substituting natural gas for gasoline in all vehicles would reduce the nation’s total carbon emissions by less than 9 percent. Converting all gasoline-powered vehicles would consume more natural gas than electric utilities, homes and businesses combined. Consequences for the nation’s water would be disastrous.
Natural gas is being hailed by some, including Pickens, as a high-energy “bridge” to a renewable future, and by others as sufficiently climate-friendly to be a “destination” fuel. But as gas’ environmental drawbacks become more evident, it’s looking more like a bridge to nowhere.
Read the entire piece at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/04-5
On Saturday, October 17, 2009, the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club met in Syracuse and passed a resolution calling on the NYS legislature to enact a ban on unconventional gas drilling in NYS.
To sign an online petition calling for a ban on natural gas drilling across NYS, go to:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/NY-Statewide-Ban-On-Natural-Gas-Drilling
As of October 28, 2009, the following groups have issued statements in support a state-wide ban, and/or in support the following Sierra Club resolution:
Atlantic Chapter of Sierra Club
Action Otsego
Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy (CCSE)
CDOG (Chenango Delaware Otsego Gas Drilling Opposition Group)
Citizens Action Alliance
Concerned Citizens of Otego
Damascus Citizens for Sustainability
Environmental Working Group of Central New York
Friends of Brook Park
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederation)
Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON)
New York Climate Action Group (NYCAG)
NYH2O
More Gardens!
Shaleshock Citizens Action Alliance
Sustainable Otsego
SWiM (Safe Water Movement)
The Atlantic Chapter of Sierra Club resolution
“WHEREAS extensive environmental and health damages would be caused by horizontal drilling and high pressure hydrofracturing gas extraction techniques due to the contamination of water, soil and air by the toxic chemicals used in drilling and fracturing, and the naturally occurring toxic chemicals brought to the surface from deep in the ground,
“WHEREAS these environmental and human and animal health damages will have damaging economic consequences on residential property values, and on the state’s tourism, agriculture, forestry, winery, real estate development and educational businesses,
“WHEREAS the infrastructure costs of building and repairing roads, water treatment facilities, and other public services would far exceed any economic benefit to local communities, and
“WHEREAS it is yet to be proven that the green house effects of the production and use of natural gas produced by horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing are any less than those of the production and use of coal when the life cycle emissions of natural gas production and the higher impact of methane as a green house gas are taken into account.
“Be It Resolved that the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club calls on the New York State Legislature to enact a ban on permitting gas wells that use horizontal drilling and hydro-fracturing to release gas from tight sand and shale formations such as the Marcellus.”
Tags: petition, Sierra Club, statewide ban
Drilling Contamination Spreads as Polluter’s Bankruptcy Looms
Joint Release: Powder River Basin Resource Council * EARTHWORKS
Clark, WY, 10/01 — Clark Resource Council has learned that Windsor Energy Group, LLC recently put its assets up for bid. At a public meeting in September Windsor representatives explained that benzene is also above regulatory levels east of Line Creek where Windsor had guaranteed it would not go. Assuming no buyer is found, the logical next step is bankruptcy: leaving the community’s groundwater, and cleanup of the pollution, in doubt.
“Every thing Industry told us would not happen, has,” says Deb Thomas local resident and organizer for the Clark Resource Council. “Before the first operators of this project bankrupted, we were told that drilling was safe and no toxic chemicals were used. Since Windsor bought the development, we’ve had years of leaking waste pits, illegal dumping of drilling fluids, inadequate engineering, and finally, the blow out, which left us with contaminated drinking water aquifers. Windsor said the contamination plume wouldn’t move into private water wells or jump the Creek, and it did both. Now we fear that Windsor will join their predecessors by bankrupting and simply walk away from their mess.”
Windsor Energy Group’s Crosby 25-3 gas well blew out in the small community of Clark, Wyoming three years ago. Contamination plumes have continued to move since then, and how clean up will occur remains undecided. The blowout resulted in a 10 million cubic foot plume of groundwater contamination or more than 100 Olympic-size swimming pools worth.
The plume has contaminated drinking water aquifers, 2 private water wells and natural springs with benzene, diesel range organics, and an extensive list of toxic chemicals. The plume is also putting more than 20 downstream drinking water wells at risk. As much as 300,000 gallons of contaminated water has dumped daily into the Line Creek drainage, which then flows into the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone River.
Clark Resource Council, Powder River Basin Resource Council and Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project emphasize that the experience in Clark shows that State agencies are not adequately equipped to address the impacts and risks associated with drilling projects.
“I want other communities who are facing development to understand that they’re at risk from the oil and gas industry’s cavalier regard for the environment and human health, ” says impacted resident, Dick Bilodeau. “When oil and gas companies screw up, the results are neither simple, nor cheap, to clean up. We need adequate federal oversight to protect areas under development, and complete disclosure so that impacted people can determine what health problems they’re facing now and will be in the future.”
In Wyoming the State’s Voluntary Remediation Program allows polluters like Windsor to remediate contamination and then be released from liability. With Windsor Energy Group’s bankruptcy looming, Bilodeau and other community members fear that the extent of the contamination will never be adequately assessed and clean up will never happen.
The news of contamination crossing under Line Creek and Windsor’s asset sale comes just after the EPA released it’s investigative finding on water contamination in Pavillion, Wy, which residents fear is associated with EnCana’s deep gas operations.
“These cases demonstrate the clear and present danger posed by drilling operations under current regulation,” says Bruce Baizel, staff attorney for EARTHWORKS’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project. “They clearly show the urgent need for incremental federal regulation, like the FRAC Act now before Congress, and they also show that the FRAC Act only begins to address the need for stronger oversight.”
http://www.earthworksaction.org/PR_ClarkWindsor.cfm
Tags: bankruptcy, benzene, Clark, groundwater, water wells, Windsor Energy Group, WY
The Washington Post reports:
Oil Group’s ‘Citizen’ Rally Memo Stirs Debate
Firms Asked to Recruit Employees, Retirees
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 16, 2009
A petroleum industry trade group is asking oil companies to recruit employees and retirees to attend rallies attacking climate-change legislation, an approach to grass-roots politics that resembles strategies used recently by some opponents of health-care reform.
In a memo this month, American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard detailed plans for “Energy Citizen” rallies to be held in 20 states during the final two weeks of Congress’s August recess. Gerard wrote that the intent was to put a “human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy,” including a climate-change bill passed by the House in June.
“Please indicate to your company leadership your strong support for employee participation in the rallies,” Gerard wrote in the memo, saying that contractors and suppliers should also be recruited.
Environmental groups on Saturday criticized the rallies, which they described as manufactured events intended to pass as organic assemblies of concerned citizens. Greenpeace activists said they saw parallels to the health-care debate, where opponents of reform — including some organizations that receive heavy funding from industry groups and individuals — have organized efforts to shout down lawmakers at “town hall” meetings.
“It’s the most powerful among us, masquerading as grass-roots outrage to stifle debate on global warming,” Michael Crocker, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said of the oil group’s plans. “These are manufactured concerns, and the people who get involved in this are paid to put on this theater.”
The memo, obtained by Greenpeace, was first reported on by the Financial Times Saturday.
Kert Davies, another official with Greenpeace, said the group opposes the climate bill, too, deeming it too lenient on polluters.
. . . . .
The House bill calls for a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, measured against 2005 levels, by 2020. It would also require polluters to buy “allowances” for each ton of emissions and allow them to exceed their allotted share of pollution only by buying more allowances.
Democratic leaders in the Senate have said they will use the House bill as a model for their version of the legislation.
The oil industry seems divided on the issue. Shell Oil and BP America, both members of the American Petroleum Institute, are also members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which has supported a “cap and trade” approach. Spokesmen for both companies said yesterday they would not participate in the “Energy Citizen” rallies.
And former vice president Al Gore’s group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, is part of an effort to hold rallies attended by people who have — or would like to have — jobs in the renewable-energy sector. Their economic prospects might improve if a climate bill passes.
Alice McKeon, a spokeswoman for the group, said she did not think attendees were being recruited through their employers, in the way the oil group aims to do.
“They’re reaching out to the businesses directly and getting their people involved in it, as employees, and that’s not something that we’ve used as a tactic,” she said.
Complete story at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/15/AR2009081502698.html
Tags: API, astroturfing, cap and trade, grassroots, memo, rally
…You wonder if they wondered why.
Smells like… astroturf, don’t you think?
___________________Credit all photos Cecile A Lawrence (c)____________________
Tags: astroturfing, Bainbridge, coalition, Marcellus, our rights our land our future, rally
It’s a media miracle.
Like water into wine, like the loaves and fishes, somehow there were more people at the rally than arrived or left – even resorting to adding those 2 figures together. This handful of people who attended a coalition rally in Bainbridge on August 23 were, through the magic of reporting, turned into “two thousand.”
These pictures were taken at the height of the attendance, not early in the day.
On the evidence, it could easily be concluded that most of the people there were family members of organizers – or selling something. Look at all the company and bank reps standing around with no one to peddle their wares to.
It’s hard to conclude that in real terms, this thing was anything other than a bust. But when you can get the media to report that 2000 people showed up, and then you can take the newspaper article with the bloated figures to your politicians to pressure them to betray the majority population of their constituencies, suddenly, the sow’s ear becomes a silk purse.
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Kudos to the voice of caution – who evidently wasn’t standing alone on the fringe of the field, as reported by the media.
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___________________Credit all photos Cecile A Lawrence (c)____________________
Tags: astroturfing, Bainbridge, coalition, Marcellus, our rights our land our future, rally
In a July 27 post, Robert F Kennedy correctly lists some of the reasons we need to move away from burning coal for energy generation. Unfortunately, his conclusion that the solution is to replace coal with natural gas is as erroneous as his convictions about coal are correct.
At http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/king-coal_b_245117.html he concludes:
“Natural gas comes with its own set of environmental caveats. It is a carbon-based fuel and [its] extraction from shale, the most significant new source, if not managed carefully, can cause serious water, land use, and wildlife impacts, especially in the hands of irresponsible producers and lax regulators. But those impacts are dwarfed by the disastrous holocaust of coal and can be mitigated by careful regulation.
“The giant advantage of a quick conversion from coal to gas is the quickest route for jumpstarting our economy and saving our planet.”
In response, SplashdownPA writes:
“It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
“All we need are responsible producers and vigilant regulators!“Congress can’t even agree that this is necessary! Money isn’t there for environmental protection agencies to hire the number of inspectors necessary to monitor this lawless industry. And YES! coal mining and burning is dangerously toxic, but when Kennedy talks about enough affordable natural gas to last us into the next century, he’s supporting perpetuation of a carbon-based energy industry that has demonstrated it is unwilling to divert a nickel of its profits to safeguard our absolutely VITAL resources: WATER, AIR and LAND. Their best practices are simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Especially not a century’s worth!!!
“Closing coal fired plants would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 20%.. BUT, what measure of CO2 and even more environmentally harmful methane is released into the atmosphere during extraction of natural gas, including toxic air polluting emissions from transporting the millions of gallons of water to and from well pads, treatment or burial of “produced water”, operating drilling rigs, compressors and other associated gas production equipment and activities, over and above emissions from well flares and finally, power plant emissions from energy generation from natural gas? How does all that stack up against that 20%?
“How too does Kennedy justify the permanent depletion and contamination of drinking water supplies across the country, occurring as a result of mining for gas? Surely he can’t think that indicating the need for responsibility and vigilance is going to suddenly manifest a new attitude on all fronts, by all players in this play?
“What guarantees do we have that a gluttonous industry won’t milk the quick fix dry, leaving us with an irrevocable permanent loss in exchange for temporary energy?
“There are important unanswered, and without drilling reform legislation in place, perhaps unanswerable questions. They loom like loopholes in his argument as we continue to learn how criminally untrustworthy corporate America is willing to be in pursuit of the almighty dollar. We’ve seen too how even regulations aren’t foolproof, and how when one entity acts outside the law it encourages others to follow suit.
“Meanwhile, the gas industry has already been irresponsible for deadly releases of toxins into the atmosphere, deadly releases of toxins into our waters, for killing and/or sickening livestock, wildlife and humans, for the seepage of toxic wastewater into our lands, contaminating land and water, the evaporation into the atmosphere of carcinogens from open sludgepits… in short, there isn’t anything healthy or friendly about the production of natural gas and turning a blind eye to the devastating problems of the lesser of two evils does not make the lesser evil any better.”
Read more at:
http://splashdownpa.blogspot.com/2009/07/king-coal-rf-kennedy-jr-weighs-in-on.html
Tags: air emissions, coal, energy generation, groundwater, Huffington Post, natural gas, RFK
MB writes:
One thing that struck me as I read the bill
is that we have to guard against letting our own standards slip to
levels we would not have dreamed of accepting before we heard of this
drilling nightmare. For example, read the section on noise limits. It
says the noise cannot be at a level which can be heard indoors in
residences located on “adjacent property” (whatever that means)
between the hours of 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. to 10
a.m. on weekends. When I first read that, I thought, “Oh, that would
be an improvement.” And then I thought, “Wait a minute! That means
that for five days a week you can have 12 hours of noise that is
audible INSIDE your home, and that for the other 12 hours you can
still have noise that is audible outside the home (which presumably
means it will be audible if you have the nerve to open a window). And
then you can also have just slightly less noise on the weekend!”
Also–and this is very important–it seems to me that in order to be
truly effective, the section on controlling noise should be written
with very specific distances and decibel levels, not a bunch of
ambiguous terms like “adjacent property” and “audible
indoors.” (Audible to whom? Your deaf great-grandfather? The nice DEC
inspector? Hmmmm……)
What has happened here is that despite the fact that we own the gas
and the land, the gas industry has set the parameters for the
discussion. We start with their insane ideas of how the drilling
should be conducted and then desperately try to modify those insane
ideas to make them just a little bit less insane, instead of starting
with reasonable ideas from the reasonable people who actually own the
land and the gas–the people who live in the area, who have invested
their time, energy, and hard-earned dollars in the area, and who want
to be able to continue to live in the area for years to come.
Tags: A08748, Brennan bill
And another critique:
“AD 44 KIngs County Assemblyman Brennan’s A08748 is a remodeled version of Brennan’s earlier A01322.
“A08748 would provide Jim Crow environmentalism… separate and unequal protection.
“Under the provisions of Brennan’s A08748, the waters of the Catskill/Delaware Watershed, which was colonized by and for the disproportionately politically powerful New York City, would be exclusively and absolutely protected from Halliburton’s high pressure chemical hydrofracking process; while the air, water and soil, that all the far less powerful individuals throughout the Southern Tier of New York State depend upon for their health and well being, would be relentlessly assaulted by that same process that Brennan clearly understands can’t ever be safe… no matter how it is done, nor who is watching it while it is done.
“Fact is, the DEC hasn’t regulated gas drilling. The drillers manage, monitor and investigate themselves… on the corporate honor system. Even if all the smoke surrounding Brennan’s bill were to remain, if it were passed without any amendments, it would then be just the soot of empty promises. The thoroughly corporate compromised Albany government would never allow the DEC to have sufficient staff to effectively protect our environment from corporate short-term profit based practices. Brennan’s bill only serves to aid the DEC in regulating and neutralizing dissent.
“The goal of Brennan’s bill is for New York City to be able to continue to drink reliably pure water, while the entire Southern Tier (outside the Catskill/Delaware Watershed) is inexorably Iraqified to provide stone gas for New York City to burn.
“New York City should use its enormously disproportionate power within New York State to protect the water of all New Yorkers — everywhere within this state — by providing state legislation banning the stone gas extraction Halliburton horizontal hydrofracking everywhere within New York State.
“In interpreting provision 2 of 23-2901 of Brennan’s bill,
’2. Natural gas drilling shall not be permitted within the watershed of the Delaware River, in any recharge area of a sole source aquifer, in any area where groundwater contributes a significant base flow to surface water sources of drinking water, and in any other area where the department shall find presents a significant threat of hydraulic fracturing compounds entering into a significant source of drinking water’
it’s important to first grasp the meaning of the last sentence of the first paragraph of Section 1 (its **INTENT** clause):
“‘Legislative intent. 1. The legislature finds that the process used to stimulate natural gas extraction referred to as hydraulic fracturing utilizes components that are often toxic, that are non-biodegradable, and that are virtually impossible to remove once they enter the natural environment. Thus, they pose such a high level of environmental risk that the policy of the state must be to insure [sic] they are excluded from any area that is significant for public drinking water resources or any other area that is environmentally sensitive.’
“a) The intent of Brennan’s bill is clearly to protect special people’s places only, while corporate invaders are allowed to occupy and exploit those of other people, who are not so special. Every provision of the bill must be interpreted in that light. It’s easy to enforce a complete and absolute ban on drilling within a specific area special to special people. It will not be possible for the DEC to ever actually protect the health and well being of all those not so special people, at hazard from the thousands of stone gas drilling sites industry desired over the vast area in which the Halliburton process would still be allowed by the Brennan bill.
“b) Note the interesting ambiguity of that provision 2, of 23-2901 of Brennan’s bill, which you quoted. It’s just one sentence, using commas… not semicolons. Is it intended as a list of different places? That should use semicolons. The 1st clause is independent. The other 3 that follow might be fully dependent (embedded or subordinate to the 1st clause: i.e. related to the watershed of the Delaware River)… which a contextual reading of that bill (and a knowledge of its precursor) implies. But let us be generous, and assume that each clause in that sentence does refer to discretely different situations. The first (“watershed of the Delaware River”) is quite explicit. The others are vague and subject to proofs necessarily provided by those targeted for drilling… proofs that places where their water comes from are “significant” “public” and “environmentally sensitive” too. Even without knowing the history of this bill, it is obvious that its goal is an absolute ban for protection for New York City’s water supply, while allowing for as much stone gas drilling as possible outside the watershed that New York City is dependent upon. The recent inclusion of “sole source aquifers” is merely an act of political expedience, cynically calculated to gain support for the bill in those few population areas within the Marcellus formation region, that are supplied by the already designated sole source aquifers (see map): http://www.epa.gov/Region2/water/aquifer/
“c) Note that the one and only river mentioned anywhere in Brennan’s bill, which its 12 sponsors deem worthy of mention to be worthy of any particular protection within all of New York State, is the Delaware River (the river upon which New York City is greatly dependent, and near which river a great number of relatively affluent New York City residents have 2nd homes). Why doesn’t Brennan’s bill also specifically call for the same protection within the watersheds of any of the other rivers in New York State, like the Susquehanna, or the Genesee? Why doesn’t it call for the same protection for the watersheds of **ALL** the rivers within New York State? Why doesn’t it call for the same protection of **ALL** watersheds and **ALL** wells within New York State? The reason is clear. It’s a bill designed to absolutely protect the water of those having more political power, while allowing the air, water and soil of those not having as much political power to be jeopardized by the hazard of the Halliburton process… while ignoring the reality that the strong share the same environment as the weak… that what is done to the weak will some day eventually affect the strong too.
“d) Note that the qualifier “significant” is used 3 times in that one sentence of the Brennan bill that you quoted. Who will actually be deciding who and what is significant?
“Consider the first complete sentence in the NYS Constitution’s Article 1 (Bill of Rights) Section 11: ‘No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof.’”
David J. Cyr
Delhi, NY
GPNYS SC member – Delaware County
see also pdf: brennan-a8748-merits-and-demerits1
Tags: A08748, Brennan, Marcellus, unequal protection
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