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NYC worried over gas drilling in watershed
The possibility of natural gas production in New York City's watershed has triggered a move by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection to insert itself into the permitting process while activists call for a drilling technology called hydraulic fracturing to be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd last month asked New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation to include DEP in the review for any drilling permit applications within the watershed and to require disclosure of all chemicals used in drilling activities in the watershed She also asked for a ban on gas drilling within a one-mile buffer around all NYC water supply infrastructure ― reservoirs, tunnels, shafts, etc. ― as well as affirmation that "natural gas exploration and extraction are not exempt from the city's Watershed Rules and Regulations." In a statement released Aug. 19, a DEP spokesman said DEC has "assured us that any project proposed in the watershed will undergo a stringent environmental review and that DEP will have a significant role in this process. DEC has informed us that there are neither any existing permits nor are there any pending permits for gas drilling in the watershed. " The natural gas industry has expressed interest in drilling for gas locked in the huge Marcellus Shale formation, underlying portions of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states. "The entirety of the city's West-of-Hudson Watershed sits atop...[the] Marcellus Shale formation, a mineral reserve that some have estimated to hold enough natural gas to supply the entire country for two years," Lloyd wrote. After signing state legislation last month that allows horizontal well drilling and expanded drilling activity, Gov. David A. Patterson also requested a Generic Environmental Impact Statement. Hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting fluid under pressure to crack rock and open fissures that allow oil and gas to escape, is a technology that environmentalists say is being used on shale formations. USEPA does not regulate most hydraulic fracturing under the Underground Injection Control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act because it considers this an activity "associated with production wells [for oil and gas] and not covered by the UIC Program or the SDWA." The 2005 Energy Policy Act excluded hydraulic fracturing of coalbed methane from SDWA jurisdiction, and only Alabama now regulates the practice. In 2004, USEPA studied use of the technology on coalbed methane wells and concluded "the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids by CBM wells posed little or no threat to USDWs [underground sources of drinking water]." However, environmental activists are renewing their push to reverse that exemption. Environmental Working Group and a group called The Endocrine Disruption Exchange wrote Patterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Aug. 11, highlighting a recently completed study on chemical injection at oil and gas wells in Colorado that found 65 substances classified as toxic under six federal laws. Because they are used in natural gas drilling operations, study authors wrote they are "completely exempt from environmental reporting requirements, and their use is not controlled in any meaningful way." The Colorado study cited a 2005 report by a Colorado-based group, Oil and Gas Accountability Project, that claimed to have found a draft USEPA study showing that "companies were injecting at least nine fracturing chemicals into underground drinking water sources at concentrations that pose risks to human health: aromatics, benzene, ethylene glycol, fluorenes, methanol, 1-methylnapthalene, 2-methylnapthalene, naphthalene and phenanthrenes." The OGAP wrote that USEPA “removed this information from its final study released in 2004 which found that fracturing 'poses little or no threat' to drinking water." EWG and TEDX called on New York to adopt standards that ensure natural gas drilling is safe and does not harm water quantity or quality, prohibit the use of chemicals that are not safe for humans and the environment, and require public disclosure of chemicals used. Another coalition of environmental groups wrote Patterson around the same time as Lloyd did, asking for a moratorium on all new gas drilling permits until completion of the EIS. The DEP spokesperson said DEC has assured the agency "no permits will be granted within the watershed until an updated Environmental Impact Statement is complete." Riverkeeper went further in early August, calling for ban on gas drilling in the NYC watershed.
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