In its Executive Summary of the revised SGEIS released yesterday, the DEC states clearly that groundwater is at sufficient risk from gas drilling to restrict gas drilling to protect  those drinking groundwater. But they only afford that protection to those drinking from primary aquifers. The DEC leaves the great majority of drinkers of groundwater in the Marcellus unprotected. They have some explaining to do.

I’m looking forward to hearing the DEC’s logic and science—their risk assessment strategy— used to assess that only some drinkers of contaminated groundwater need protection.

Primary aquifers are used as drinking water for some municipalities.

The list is on  on page 5: http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/togs213.pdf

The list includes about 300,000 people in those municipalities drinking water from these primary aquifers in counties in the Marcellus shale. (see attached spreadsheet and chart at bottom.)

Page 18 of the new DEC doc describes the exclusion of primary aquifers. It’s pasted below, bold face added.

No HVHF Operations on Primary Aquifers

Although not subject to Filtration Avoidance Determinations, 18 other aquifers in the State of New York have been identified by the New York State Department of Health as highly productive aquifers presently utilized as sources of water supply by major municipal water supply systems and are designated as “primary aquifers.” Because these aquifers are the primary source of drinking water for many public drinking water supplies, the Department recommends in this dSGEIS that site disturbance relating to HVHF operations should not be permitted there either or in a protective 500-foot buffer area around them. Horizontal extraction of gas resources underneath Primary Aquifers from well pads located outside this area would not significantly impact this valuable water resource.
- http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/execsumsgeis072011.pdf

As the DEC says, this is in addition to the exclusion of drilling in the watersheds of NYC and Syracuse.

Now, one can make an argument, as the DEC has, that the exclusion of drilling in the NYC and Syracuse water supplies is based on their being unfiltered surface water (as opposed to ground  water), with a risk of “turbidity” from surface drilling activity.  And because there have been rules in place for years restricting industry and development  in unfiltered surface watersheds to avoid having to build  super-expensive filtration plants, as  for NYC.  A more clear eyed assessment of carving out the NYC watershed is that the DEC wants to excise the political opposition of NYC, which could easily create a critical mass of opposition in the state.  But they do have the surface water “turbidity” argument  to fall back on to explain this preferential exclusion, even if politics is the underlying reason.

But when you are dealing with groundwater sources, how can you rationally and scientifically exclude some aquifers and not others? Again, the actual rationale appears overtly political, rather than based on the science or risk.  The DEC is trying to carve out the opposition of the  municipalities drinking from primary aquifers—including Jamestown, Elmira, Cortland, Binghamton, Corning, Salamanca.  After all, these municipalities  are really organized entities of people…….. who would otherwise likely oppose drilling.

Problem is, there are at least 1,140,000 people drinking groundwater in the Marcellus shale.   What’s up, DEC? You’ve determined that groundwater is at risk. You’re going to protect 300,000 people from ground water pollution, but not the other 840,000.

Who are those people? Hello, it’s us, the people of rural NY State who will be drinking from polluted wells. It’s us,  people who will not be receiving equal protection against the very threats that the DEC assesses are too risky for the people of upstate municipalities.

I think I’m going to call my lawyer.

Ken Jaffe, MD
Slope Farms
Meredith, NY
www.slopefarms.com

Source material
http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/36164.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/305bgrndw10.pdf
http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/46381.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/togs213.pdf

“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