Loophole in NY Water Withdrawal Bill Gives Fracking Industry Unlimited Rights
Senate Bill Puts Public Water Into Private Hands
06.13.2011– WATKINS GLEN, NY – A loophole contained in a landmark water withdrawal bill now under consideration in the New York Senate will allow the fracking industry to take more than 100,000 gallons of water per day from state rivers, lakes and ponds free of charge with no environmental oversight or permit.
Mainstream environmental groups have championed the water withdrawal bill (S3798) as “pro-environment.” But numerous grassroots environmental organizations oppose the measure because it gives free access to millions of gallons of clean, fresh drinking water to the oil and gas industry for use in hydrofracking for methane gas and could lead to widespread contamination of groundwater resources.
Companion water withdrawal legislation proposed in Canada three years raised similar concerns. The Polaris Institute, an Ottawa-based organization of social activists, said at the time, “What we are witnessing in Ontario is the quiet restructuring of water resource management. This includes….defining water in ways that give private interests the legal right to exploit it.”
The Canadian bill, part of the Great Lakes Compact by the governors of Great Lakes states and the premiers of Ontario and Quebec, limited corporations to withdrawing just 50,000 gallons of water per day before getting a required permit. And it imposed fees for obtaining the permit. New York’s version of the Compact (S3798) doubles the amount of water that corporations are allowed to extract with no permit, and imposes no fees.
But the bill contains loopholes that allow the fracking industry to escape even those limits.
“We estimate that if the hydrofracking industry were to segment their water delivery needs among various independent water haulers, the 100,000 gallon loophole would provide more than enough to fulfill their water needs for fracking, without the need for any permit,” said Kevin Bunger, a member of the Coalition to Protect New York, one of the grassroots groups opposed to the water withdrawal bill.
CPNY and other groups have filed a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Law for documents and information relating to closed-door meetings that resulted in the controversial water withdrawal bill. The legislation has had no public hearings and received no input from citizens and small business owners who will be directly affected by this landmark piece of legislation.
“We don’t understand why this bill was written in the first place,” said CPNY Spokesman Jack Ossont. “But we particularly don’t understand where the threshold limit came from that allows the oil and gas industry to take 100,000 gallons a day of our water for free, and with no real oversight.”
“Apparently environmentalists in Canada recognized what our own elected officials and mainstream environmental groups here in the US fail to see,” said Joe Hoff, Chairman of Keuka Citizens Against Hydrofracking . “This water withdrawal compact is masquerading as a pro-environment piece of legislation when it, in fact, gives the fracking industry, the water bottling industry and the chemical industry near total control over the public’s drinking water.”
As in Canada, opponents in New York presented strong legal arguments by water rights experts that the bill, which will determine water rights for small and large users for decades to come, will have unintended consequences at a time when oil and gas companies are targeting New York State for drilling for methane gas by hydrofracking. Fracking requires vast amounts of water. However, under the proposal being considered by the Senate, these oil and gas corporations will be able to extract billions of gallons of water from New York lakes, rivers and ponds free of charge.
The opponents will continue to urge its members to contact their local senators and urge them to open the process up and hold public hearings.
Tags: S3798, water withdrawal bill
FAILURES OF DEC OIL & GAS REGULATION
By Brian Brock
Programs for oil and gas regulation by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation were reviewed by Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission in 1994. The resulting fifty five page report examines the details, but does not provide an overview. Nevertheless Finding I.10 is a good summary: “DMN can not meet its program responsibilities and administer an effective program under current budgetary conditions. The program is at a crossroads in this regard, because the status quo is not a tolerable long-term condition.” The Division of Mineral Resources (DMN) is the principle division in charge of oil and gas regulation.
This review was conducted by a team of six experts from IOGCC, state governments, industry, and an environmental group with observers from the federal government, industry, and another environmental group. First, DEC answered an extensive questionnaire. Next, DEC staff were interviewed in Saratoga Springs NY May 1 to 5. The review team met July 13 to 15 to discuss and prepare the draft report, which was then sent to all involved. The team met a final time August 29 to September 1 to consider all comments and prepare the final report. Funding was from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The full report, minus some of the appendices, is available at strongerinc.org.
From this final report “New York State Review, IOGCC/EPA State Review of Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Waste Management Regulatory Programs, September 1994”:
Rules and Regulations
“DMN’s regulations … largely originated in 1972. In the mid-1980s, DMN began a process to substantially upgrade its regulations through … the GEIS in July1992. Despite the substantial period of time that has expired since the inception of this effort, revised rules have not been proposed or promulgated to date.” {Page 5} No rules and regulations have been promulgated since. What is more, the recent draft SGEIS was likewise issued without a rules package.
“In absence of upgraded rules [and regulations], DMN relies substantially upon conditions attached to drilling permits to implement new technical guidance. … Such permit conditions only apply to new wells and therefore of limited utility. Enforcement questions may also arise from imposing generally applicable permit conditions without first issuing rules supporting those permitting conditions.” {Pages 5 to 6}
“One of the principal stated missions of the DEC is protection of human health and the environment. However Part 550 [to 559] of DMN’s rules do not expressly include protection of human health and environment as a goal or policy directive.” {Page 6}
“DMN regulations were not in conformance with Article 23 statutes after 1981 [revisions] and were changed as emergency in 1992.” {Appendix B, page 6}
Staffing
“From a peak staff level of 52 in the mid-1980s, the number of positions declined to 44 in FY 90[-91], and still further to 33 in the last two fiscal years. Equally important, non-personal funds for purchase of equipment, computers, gasoline, and supplies were dramatically reduced from $230,850 in FY 90-91 to approximately $76,000 in each of the last two fiscal years.” {Page 12}
“Consequently, six inspector positions [including one filled by an inspector on extended leave] are available statewide to inspect [500 to 600 annually of the] 14,000 active wells and 5,000 wells of unknown status.” {Page 38} Also an estimated 45,000 inactive wells. In 2008, DMN reported inspection of 2,445 sites annually with a staff of 19. The 2009 annual report has yet to be released.
“[Staff for] both regions [8 and 9] are under milage and overtime limitations, and have not been able to replace vehicles or purchase other equipment in the past five years.” {Page 38}
“… field staff indicated that they generally operate in a reactive mode due to staff limitations. For example, they have not conducted routine inspections in the last three years.” {Page 38}
“Additionally inspections such as well plugging, permit transfer, and temporary abandonment inspections are done as resources are available. Many of the 25 gas storage fields have not been inspected over the last 15 years.” {Page 38}
“The legal side of DMN activities suffers from similar resource deficiencies. There is currently one program attorney in headquarters, whose responsibilities are divided between oil/gas and mining activities. While DEC regional attorneys assist DMN regional staff in enforcement matters, this assistance is not always timely or adequate because of competing demands on these DEC attorneys.” {Page 14}
Siting and Permitting
“DMN rules contain several siting provisions, but these provisions apply to wells and not pits or tanks associated the wells.” {Page 21}
“DMN rules related to siting are not comprehensive, since they do not cover areas such as floodplains, wetlands, proximity to drinking water supplies, and depth to groundwater.” {Page 21}
“Fencing flagging, and caging requirements are instituted on a case-by-case basis and are not contained in regulation or guidance documents” {Page 31}
“DMN does not consider operator compliance history when issuing permits.” {Page 17}
“DMN does not provide notice of intention to issues drilling permits and does not allow public comment on drilling permits prior to issuance unless an EIS or other supplementary SEQR document is deemed necessary.” {Page 24} Since the release of the GEIS in 1992, no permit has required EIS or other supplementary SEQR documents.
“Permits are usually issued within 10-14 days of application” {Page 17}
Brine Wastes
“This [1987] survey indicated 8.6 million barrels [360 million gallons] of produced water were generated that year. Most produced water is discharged into streams, discharged to land surfaces, or roadspread for ice and dust control [85 to 90 percent] or recycled for water flooding [or commercially treated, 10 to 15 percent].” {Page 9} Percentages are from Appendix B, page 7.
“In Region 9, according to DMN, there is also a large but unknown number of discharges of produced water directly to land (where there is no pit at the end of the pipe).” {Page 10}
“DMN investigation activities to date have not included abandoned pits and other waste management units.” {Page 44}
“There is no explicit authority in DMN’s rules to require corrective action for non-oil releases.” {Page 27} Releases such as brine and gas.
“There is little or no coordination between DRA, DMN, DOW, and local governments regarding the determination of appropriate controls for roadspreading, the monitoring of environmental impacts, or sharing of information on this practice.” {Page 11} DRA is the Division of Regulatory Affairs, and DOW is Division of Water.
Other Wastes
“DMN’s programs do not require representative testing of drilling cuttings disposed on site, produced brines which are roadspread, or associated wastes.” {Page 29} Associated wastes include stimulating fluids, completion fluids, produced sands, and drying and sweetening chemicals.
“In short, no agency within the DEC is responsible for, or can produce, reliable information on associated wastes generation or disposal.” {Page 9}
“According to DMN, 90% of drilling solids are buried on-site, and 10% are recycled off-site.” {Page 9}
“E&P [exploration and production] waste is regulated by DSW as a municipal waste since it is specifically excluded from the definition of industrial waste.” {Page 19} DSW is Division of Solid Waste.
Orphaned Wells
“Almost 18,000 of the 30,000 wells in the database are not plugged according to DMN records. [Of these 18,000,] the agency has received reports from operators on 12,857 active wells, leaving approximately 5,000 wells of unknown status requiring further investigation.” {Page 42}
“Five thousand three hundred twenty-two unplugged wells of record drilled before 1973 are grandfathered [ie exempted] from financial assurance requirements. … [therefore] DMN holds approximately $12 million of financial assurance to cover a potential liability of $100 million.” {Page 19} Assumes that plugging a well will cost an average of $20,000.
While a few of these deficiencies are addressed in the dSGEIS, those changes would only apply to horizontally drilled shale gas wells.
Changes to the DEC programs since the summer of 1994 have not been documented. The DEC has not cooperated in a follow-up review to evaluate its progress in the last 17 years. In 2006, follow-up reviews for New York and Kentucky were scheduled, but the one for New York never took place. (In contrast, Pennsylvania DEP had its review in 1992, two follow-up reviews in 1997 and 2004, and a review of its hydraulic fracturing program in 2010.) In response to a 2009 survey, DEC claimed that of the 37 deficiencies cited in the 1994 report, they had fully remedied 10 (27%) and partially remedied 14 (38%), but no documentation was provided.
Tags: DEC, DMR, IOGCC, Stronger Inc
• No regulation can prevent the extraordinary squandering of fresh water, 5½ million gallons average per well, 100% of which becomes contaminated — permanently — and removed from the natural water cycle. This in an era of critically diminishing supplies of fresh water in the US and around the world.
According to Prof. Tony Ingraffea, Cornell rock fracture specialist, the oil and gas industry intends to drill tens of thousands of wells in the New York portion of the Marcellus layer. Add to this the number it may drill in other shales and sandstones.
• No regulation can prevent the salts, heavy metals and radioactive substances loosened by the fracking process from coming up with the fracking fluids.
• No regulation can stop up to 65% to 90% of the toxic fracking chemicals from remaining underground.
• No regulation can prevent these chemicals, salts, heavy metals and radioactive substances, now loosened and mixed by the fracking process, from becoming a toxic underground plume that can wangle its way into existing fissures as well as into new fractures created by the drilling.
• No regulation can predict or control the underground migration of these toxic plumes. Similar plumes are already oozing under Sublette County, Wyoming, Endicott, New York, and Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
• No regulation can predict or control the time frame — years, decades, millennia? — over which such plumes will migrate.
• No regulation can prevent the deterioration of the steel and cement casing intended to protect drinking water over the decades and centuries ahead.
• No regulation, in this era of economic plummet, can scrape together the billions of dollars needed to construct and maintain industrial waste treatment plants (reverse osmosis or dialysis), which do not exist anywhere in this state, that might be able to filter the toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive materials from fracking waste.
Radioactive cuttings and drilling muds from Pennsylvania are already being dumped in NYS landfills, potentially leaching in unpredictable directions.
• No regulation can create a safe manner or safe location for permanent storage of waste — even if the economy could support the very expensive construction and maintenance of appropriate industrial waste treatment plants. Once supposedly filtered, the remaining toxic waste still must be put somewhere.
The “produced” waters that continue to flow from wells during gas production are too saline to be treated and must be stored somewhere.
• No regulation can avoid the risk from high-pressure disposal in injection wells — of potential leakage and aquifer contamination, or of earthquakes. Tremors from such activity have already caused damage in Ashtabula, Ohio, and authorities are presently investigating swarms of quakes in Celburne, Texas, Guy, Arkansas, and Gassaway, West Virginia that may be caused by fracking fluid disposal in injection wells.
• No regulation can require that gas produced will contribute to “energy independence.” The gas will be shipped overseas if it’s more profitable to export than to sell domestically. At present, Asian, European and Canadian corporations already own significant pieces of US drilling companies, land and leases — thus, some profit may already be going beyond our borders.
• No regulation can guarantee enforcement. Without 24/7 oversight, drillers will not obey the grossly inadequate rules now in place to safeguard the safety and health of people, other living things or the environment. A trail of ruined lives and landscapes is documented in thousands of articles, many YouTube videos and several films, one of which — Gasland — was nominated for an Oscar.
Even though New York State is planning to issue permits to hydrofrack in state forests, former Governor Paterson reduced DEC staff and budget drastically. The approximately 16 inspectors now employed is a number ludicrously inadequate to deal with the level of industrialization the drillers have planned.
• Only a drastic change in existing regulation can thwart eminent domain abuse. New York State’s particularly vicious form is “compulsory integration,” which forces landowners who do not wish to lease to have their property drilled anyway. Until this is repaired, local, often poor citizens are influenced or manipulated by wealthy corporations, and powerful local and state agencies. Fixing this would leave all other vulnerabilities intact.
- Carl Arnold
Tags: statewide ban
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In a February 23rd story, the Denver Post reports that homeowner Tracy Dahl lost his case before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
Dahl’s water went bad on June 30, 2010, according to the Post story, “the same day that Pioneer fracked its Alibi well about 1300 feet away.”
The COGCC – which “regulates” gas extraction in the state – is notoriously pro-industry, a universal condition of regulating agencies, which really serve the industry they’re supposed to be watchdogging.
According to the story,
“‘There is no question there is something wrong with your well,” commission member Mark Cutright said. ‘The question is whether you proved fracking impacted your well.’
“The commission, in a unanimous vote, ruled Dahl had not.
“‘Alibi is a good name for that well,’ Dahl said.
“The commission investigates dozens of well complaints each year.”
Whether any of those complaints receive a fair hearing is a question worth considering. According to someone present at the hearing, “The landowner…was not allowed to present his side of the story and [was] barred from submitting his consultant’s reports on the grounds they were hearsay.”
The oil & gas industry is used to calling the shots wherever it goes, a reality that must be acknowledged by any individual considering leasing and every public official in every state where the industry seeks drilling permits. To fail to understand the nature of the industry, and the nature of its relationship with its “regulating” agencies, is to pave the way for tragedy and travesty.
Complete Denver Post story here.
Background:
Horizontally drilled, high-volume hydrofracturing (HD/HVHF) in shales has been under de facto moratorium since 2008, when the DEC was ordered to take testimony on the impacts of that proposed technology. Until the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) is produced (probably late spring 2011) that de facto moratorium is already in place.
The current moratorium legislation extends that coverage, by law, to vertically-drilled, low-volume fracturing in shales.
Where things stand:
What the legislation does
suspends until May 15, the issuance of new permits for the drilling of a well which utilizes the practice of hydraulic fracturing in low permeability natural gas reservoirs, such as the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.
applies to nine (9) wells in the whole state for which permit applications have already been filed, and that aren’t covered by the SGEIS de facto moratorium.
What the legislation does not do
does not prevent drilling of wells already permitted, or which will be permitted before the promulgation of the law following the governor’s signature, if it is forthcoming – seven (7) so far.
does not prevent new permit applications from being filed with the DEC, nor prevent the DEC from processing those and existing applications.
does not suspend the issuance of permits in non-shale formations – sandstones and limestones – which have constituted the bulk of the well drilling to date.
does not prevent the refracking of already-drilled wells.
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See more at: http://un-naturalgas.org/CDOGe-mail2010-12-03.htm
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From “The Spill Seekers,” Outside Magazine, November 2010
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While I was in Louisiana, there was an event at the Cajundome, in Lafayette, called the Rally for Economic Survival: 11,000 people packed the place to hear the governor, the lieutenant governor, and, of all people, the executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion Board rail against the Obama administration for stealing their jobs by imposing a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling.
“Enough is enough!” raged the lieutenant governor, Scott Angelle, in his thick Cajun accent. “Louisiana has a long and strong, distinguished history of fueling America, and we proudly do what few other states are willing to do. …America is not yet ready to get all of its fuel from the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees!”
True, but of the six billion to seven billion barrels of oil consumed by the U.S. each year, only about 10 percent comes from federal Gulf of Mexico waters; we get the same amount from both the Persian Gulf and Canada. Louisiana is no longer a significant source of crude, on- or off-shore. What it does supply is cheap labor and a pliant local government. In this, it’s eerily reminiscent of Third World places ruined by oil. The BPs of the world would have you believe oil brings prosperity to the countries where it’s discovered, but it brings misery so dependably that economists have a name for the phenomenon: the resource curse.
Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq: Bad things happen to countries “blessed” with oil. The Niger Delta is the Mississippi River Delta’s separated-at-birth twin, offering the scariest cautionary tale of all. This tropical river delta held some of the greatest wetlands on earth, with abundant shellfish, crabs, and shrimp, the foundation of the economy and culture, but it also harbored vast oil reserves. In the past 50 years, Shell has grown preposterously wealthy off that oil, while Nigeria, with the tenth-largest oil reserves in the world, has become a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Almost three times as much oil has spilled into the Niger River Delta as was spilled by the Deepwater Horizon: 546 million gallons and counting. The creeks are black, and the crabs and shrimp are dead. There are always leaking, corroded wellheads and pipelines. Gangs of rebels and oil thieves roam the jungle. Flaring rigs fill the air with mercury, arsenic, and carcinogens. Disease is rampant. The government is cardboard.
Southern Louisiana is no Nigeria, but it’s also no longer quite recognizable as the United States. The trailer homes on pilings, the dearth of education, the chronic disease, the fat parish chiefs – I know the Third World when I see it. Cajuns haven’t grown rich on crude; Houston has. And when the oil runs out, there’s nothing left to fall back on.
I bet Angelle would simply argue that oil is worth billions more than seafood. But that’s only because we aren’t sophisticated enough to put a value on all the multifarious “ecosystem services” the gulf provides: benefits of the natural world, resources and processes we all too often take for granted. If we were to add these things to the ledger – all that gulf seafood and the health savings from it, the hurricane protection and wildlife habitat in all those marshes, to name only a few – and apply the calculus of their self-perpetuating sustainability, the astronomical value would blow your mind. It leaves petroleum in the pit. … How much are all those acres of disappearing land worth? What price the mental anxiety of a culture watching its homeland disintegrate? How much added value do you assign oyster reefs because they’ve never, ever blown up and killed anyone? It’s only ignorance – an inability to tally all the gains and losses – that makes oil look good.
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Do yourself a favor: pick up a copy at your favorite newstand and read the whole piece. And say thanks to Outside Magazine.
Tags: the resource curse
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today.
A month ago, I was an average American citizen begging my government to save my air, my drinking water, and my community from the environmental devastation wrought by the natural gas industry across the country. I wrote dozens of letters to my legislators (receiving very few responses by the way). My husband and I sent several letters to the editors of newspapers and many were printed. We started a blog to compile them and to provide information to others who might be interested in the topic. We tried to parlay the success of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, a group of people just like us living in Luzerne County, into a chapter devoted to natural gas issues in Wyoming and Lackawanna Counties. I wrote, printed, and handed out informational flyers at lakeside communities near my home. And, I posted comments on Facebook and on the Susquehanna County Gas Forum. I admit it, in print, I was very loud… I have been desperate to make my case to you.
Apparently, my voice was loud enough to rouse the attention of my government, but not in the way I had hoped. Instead of my legislators paying attention to what I had to tell them, my government sicced the FBI, the Office of Homeland Security and the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response after me. My government branded me an extremist….or possibly an eco-terrorist. For WRITING a more balanced truth. For WRITING opinions that didn’t sit well with those in power. And now, for exercising my right to free speech, a dossier on me may now be secreted in the halls of Israeli Intelligence for all I know.
Now, on top of it all, I’m told that in concert with these bulletins, the FBI was compiling a list of names of “dissenters”. The FBI is a federal agency…so I ask…is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security now looking at me as a security risk?
For the first time in my life, I do not feel secure in my home. I worry that what I say on the phone is being recorded, I wonder if my emails are still being monitored. I am discomfited. Almost frightened, you might say. And not just because I’ve been spied on…..I feel this way because the very spies hired by my government have been so incompetent they saw me as a threat to the security of the state!…. On the one hand they were spying on me as an extremist; on the other they depicted me as a drilling advocate in their correspondence with Mr. Powers! .If they are so incompetent, then I wonder just how deep this incompetence goes….how many people out there have been told to watch out for me…that I’m a “person of interest?” We know that Marian Schweighofer, executive director of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, had access to the information in those intelligence bulletins… according to one newspaper report, she sent a message to her members telling them “there was reason to believe” that the Office of Homeland Security was ”tracking the anti-drillers” as terrorists. Is this why when some of us have stopped on the shoulder of a road to take a gander at the construction of or operations on a rig the security patrols have flown en masse at us to herd us back into our cars and away from the property? So the question in my mind is not just who was on the distribution list for those bulletins…..The question is: how far did the information in them travel? How many people who have real or potential control over my life…first responders, local government, state government…MY NEIGHBORS …and, of course, the gas companies ….have been put on alert about me? My small town is soon to be surrounded by gas wells….will their security patrols be alerted every time I get in my car? How are you going to erase that alert in people’s minds? This is not an Oops you can fix so easily.
When I received the email from James Powers, my heart nearly stopped. I asked myself first and foremost if I could have inadvertently done something illegal. When I collected myself and really studied that last line of the email, I was absolutely infuriated. Today I can tell you I am so outraged I don’t know what to do with my anger. Here I was, trying desperately to get my government to put some controls on the natural gas industry invasion, and my government was admitting it was in cahoots with that industry.
When I researched the Bravo Group, a lobbyist group cc’ed in the email, I found out that it lobbies for Chief Oil and Gas and several other energy companies. So not only was the Office of Homeland Security providing intelligence to the corporations about Pennsylvania citizens who might object to having their communities overrun by them….it was providing “intelligence” to the very people who lobby YOU, the legislators, on behalf of those companies. To tell you the truth, the incestuous relationship between our government, the gas industry, the Bravo Group, and the Marcellus Shale Coalition is so clear to me I can’t believe it isn’t a top story in every paper in this state. I suspect that every decision made by our government with regard to natural gas regulation is tainted by the industry’s deliberate attempts to blur the boundary line between itself and our government. In Pennsylvania, the natural gas companies think they’re in charge….and I ask my government….ARE THEY?
Senator, I don’t know whether hydraulic fracturing horizontally through the Marcellus Shale can be done safely. Nobody does. What I do know is that currently it ISN”T being done safely. There are hundreds of horror stories of water contamination, animal deaths, air pollution, people sick….many of which you as legislators have been carefully shielded from knowing about by the Bravo Group and the Marcellus Shale Coalition. Your position insulates you from “we the people” – you are making decisions about the future of Pennsylvania with only half the story in front of you. I hope to God this incident has shown you just how insulated you are…The lobbyists in question have made sure you haven’t learned the truth…just as they have tried to keep alleged “extremists” like me from telling you that truth.
I hope my legislators take a step back and ask tough questions and start reading between the lines when they’re presented with industry-spun facts. Ask just how many non-disclosure agreements Oil & Gas has with individuals in our state. Ask how many massive trucks will play chicken with Pennsylvania’s children’s school buses everyday. Ask whether hunters who come to Pennsylvania will be able to eat what they kill since the well pads aren’t fenced and wildlife will drink from the salty wastewater pits. Ask whether the citizens ….the majority of citizens…..in many parts of this state want their small town ways of life turned upside down?
Now, about James Powers. I’ve been listening to and reading about how this man should be fired. I even stood with a group on the steps of this building last week where some of the speakers were calling for that firing – I stood there because the group’s opposition to forced pooling – another assault on our constitutional rights — was more important to me than worrying about Mr. Powers’ future…..But after the rally, I took the leader of that group aside and told him I didn’t agree with him about what to do about our homeland security director. I tell you now what I tried to tell him – I honestly don’t know if firing James Powers is the right thing to do.
You see, in this country, we have an awful habit of making a fall guy out of the guy who was just doing his job. I’m reminded of what our nation did to Lt. Col. Oliver North during the Iran-Contra affair.
Mr. Powers is an Army veteran…and since he and I were both commissioned to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, I like to think that perhaps Mr. Powers fought bravely to protect our citizens’ first amendment rights and argued with the powers that be – the director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Governor – about how spying on US citizens exercising their rights to free speech and assembly was not the way to go. I like to think he was simply overruled. As far as I’m concerned, he should be given some benefit of the doubt here – he wasn’t necessarily the one with the ultimate authority over hiring ITRR – and I would HATE to give the oil and gas industry another win by sacrificing the due process rights Mr. Powers deserves as an American citizen.
Then again, maybe after all this, I am still hopefully naïve.
Finally, let me conclude with this:
Throughout history we have seen countries seduced all too easily by slick persuaders who’ve played on people’s economic desperation. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, pre-World War II Italy. There, the hearts and minds of the people were captured by those who painted rosy pictures of the future while concealing a terrible dark side. There they smothered the people’s rights to speak and write freely to expose that dark side. There they destroyed reputations and shuffled dissenters off to where they couldn’t cause the government any trouble. Like jail. Like Siberia.
So, I am very grateful to this investigative body for its recognition of just how dangerous Pennsylvania’s attempts to suppress dissenters’ rights had become. The very fact that we are here today tells me our country has not become a fascist state….that we still live in America.
Senator Baker… I applaud your efforts to get to the bottom of this debacle. Go get ‘em.
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Oral comment on scoping document for EPA study, 9/15/10, Binghamton, NY:
I own 200+ acres. I was offered a lease, and experience the difficult consequences of both long- and short-term economic trends. Yet this is not another plea for gas extraction.
The first problem with this scope is its foregone conclusion, found in its very first sentence. “Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future.” Two biases in twelve words! – the second of which is downright false: natural gas is NOT clean energy. What a way to begin a study! The sentence continues, “…and the process known as hydraulic fracturing is one way of accessing that vital resource.” Nowhere is the question asked: With present technology and the limits of human performance, CAN natural gas extraction proceed with guaranteed safety, including in a low-impact, non-industrializing manner? These assumptions and omissions are serious flaws.
Next, to avoid conclusions that are theoretical, nebulous, and open to manipulation, an essential aspect of data gathering is the close scrutiny of all records of all state regulatory agencies for problems associated with the full spectrum of natural gas extraction processes. Yet this channel of investigation receives little if any mention in this document. To the point, such records are difficult to find. In response to a 2009 FOIL request, the New York State DEC admitted that the agency does not compile a record of drilling problems requiring follow-up. In fact, for decades, regulatory agencies everywhere have had very cozy relationships with the industries they regulate. The result: a dearth of official documention and recognition of the fact that, as the tail follows the dog, groundwater pollution follows natural gas extraction whereever it goes.
Therefore, this study must:
1) dispense with foregone conclusions and biases
2) examine case histories and regulator records unflinchingly and in detail
3) provide a frank assessment of the effects of industry influence on regulators’ record-keeping
4) avoid all such influence itselfThank you.
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