DEC Announces Scoping Document for LPG Underground Storage near Seneca Lake

Just a bit over two months ago my colleague Peter Mantius wrote about the intent of industry to turn salt mines adjacent to Seneca Lake into LPG storage caverns. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), as Lead Agency for the Finger Lakes liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage project, has determined that the scope of the proposed action and its potential for significant adverse environmental impacts is such that a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) should be prepared. A Draft Scoping Outline for the DSEIS is available for review here - but if you want to comment, you'll need to hurry. Comments are due by the end of the month.

Finger Lakes LPG Storage, LLC proposes to construct and operate a new underground liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage facility for the storage and distribution of propane and butane on a portion of a 576 acre site located on NYS Routes 14 and 14A west of Seneca Lake in the Town of Reading, New York. The storage facility will utilize existing caverns in the Syracuse salt formation created by US Salt and its predecessors' salt production operations. 

As proposed, a maximum of 2.10 million barrels (88.20 million gallons) of LPG will be stored in these caverns seasonally, displacing some of the brine currently filling them, and will be withdrawn by displacement of propane by brine when demand occurs during the heating season and displacement of butane by brine during the gasoline blending season. During storage operations, the brine displaced by LPG will be stored and contained in a 14 acre lined surface impoundment with a capacity of 2.19 million barrels (91.98 million gallons) on the hillside immediately east of the junction of Routes 14 and 14A. 

The facility will connect to the existing Teppco LPG interstate pipeline, and will ship LPG by truck via NYS Routes 14/14A and rail to the existing Norfolk and Southern Railroad. As proposed, the project involves construction of a new rail and truck LPG transfer facility, consisting of a 6 rail siding capable of allowing loading/unloading of 24 rail cars within 12 hours, and a truck loading station capable of loading 4 trucks per hour. The rail/truck loading facility is capable of being operated on a 24 hour basis 365 days a year. Construction will also include surface works consisting of truck and rail loading terminals, LPG storage tanks, offices and other distribution facilities, and stormwater control structures. 

A draft scope is available for review and written comment by involved and interested agencies and the public. Copies of the draft scope can be obtained from the contact person listed below and on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) website at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/permits/6061.html. The end of the comment period on the draft scope is January 31, 2011.

For more information about this please contact David L. Bimber at 585-225-3401 or dlbimber@gw.dec.state.ny.us.

Patriot Water still seeks special use permit

Last Tuesday, February 23, Andy Blocksom tried to convince the Town of Owego Planning Board of the merits of Patriot Water Treatment's request for a special use permit for floodplain development. When the votes were tallied, he came up one short. The board voted 3 to 2 in favor of recommending the permit, but apparently they needed four to make a majority.

As a result, they cannot recommend action for the Zoning Board of Appeals - which is where Blocksom will be arguing his case on March 10.

Though I was not at the planning board meeting, one of my citizen-journalist colleagues took loads of good notes.  According to Frank, more than 100 local residents showed up to hear the the ruminations of the town planning board, filling up the seats and lining the walls of the auditorium.

Prior to the vote, planning board chairman Robert Rieg explained that the board has the responsibility to approve or disapprove proposed site plans. However, because the proposed Patriot Water Treatment facility lies within the 100 current year flood plain, a special use permit is required. That permit must be approved by the zoning board. 

So, explained Rieg, the planning board could only provide a recommendation to the zoning board. If the zoning board approves the special use permit, Rieg said, then the planning board would address Patriot’s site plan.

But, Rieg emphasized, prior to any planning board decision on a site plan, a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) must be completed, with either the zoning board or planning board taking on lead agency status. 

As in the Feb. 17 meeting,  Blocksom, assisted this time by civil engineer David Marnicki and attorney Sarah Campbell, answered questions about frack water storage at the facility. Planning board members asked for specifications on the water holding tanks, fresh water impoundment, specifics about treated water leaving the facility and how water was tested and monitored throughout the treatment process. They also asked about qualifications for employees operating the treatment facility as well as plans for entrance and egress for trucks hauling wastewater to the facility.

Even though it was not a public hearing, Rieg opened the meeting for public comment.  He noted that since the October meeting, the planning board had received 25 e-mails and letters commenting on the proposed project. 

Echoing discussion from the previous week, residents raised concerns about truck traffic. Some people commented that four trips inbound means four trips out, a total of eight truck trips per hour along the road. This is a lot of noise and toxic exhaust, they pointed out. Residents did not seem impressed by Blocksom’s description of how the tanks of material would be moved in an imminent flooding situation. They didn't like the idea of having  a facility that treats hazardous waste located in the flood plains and so close to wetlands.

At the end of the night Rieg told Blocksom, “Maybe your process has potential, but you picked a lousy site."

What’s next:  On Wednesday, March 10 the Town of Owego Zoning Board of Appeals will hold a special meeting to consider Patriot Water Treatment’s application for a special use permit for floodplain development. The meeting will be held at 7 pm in the Hubbard Auditorium (56 Main Street). Patriot Water Treatment is the only item on the agenda. For more information please contact the Town of Owego planning department at 687-0123 ext. 6.

Chesapeake Scraps Plans for Disposal Well in Wine Country

 photo of Heron Hill Winery, just a few miles south of Pulteney along the Keuka Lake wine Trail.

Today Chesapeake Appalachia LLC officially and formally withdrew their permit applications for converting the Bergstresser well into a class II underground injection (disposal) well.

In letters to the US EPA and the NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) William Fowler, writing for Chesapeake, states that Chesapeake has "determined that we no longer require" the permits needed for turning the old gas well into a disposal well for drilling wastewater. Their main reason - they told the EPA - is their "enhanced operational capability to reuse/recycle water produced from development of natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale.

But to NY's DEC Chesapeake says their decision is based "primarily in the fact that the state will not allow completion of Marcellus Shale wells" until the SGEIS is completed. And, Fowler adds, once Marcellus wells are drilled in NY Chesapeake will "evaluate the need for any supplemental disposal facilities".

One thing Chesapeake is adamant about: their decision to take their permits off the table has nothing to do with the disposal facility posing a threat to the environment. Nor does it have anything to do with the very vocal opposition to the project.

Ha! say the 400 to 500 folks who tried to find seats in the Pulteney Fire Hall just 9 days ago. Ha! says Congressman Eric Massa who, today, congratulated the families of the Finger Lakes on their victory.

"The concerned citizens of the Finger Lakes showed everyone that a strong grassroots movement can defy all odds and emerge victorious," Massa said in comments to the press this morning. Some politicians may try to swoop in and take credit for today's news, Massa said, but this victory clearly belongs to the people who fought to protect their homes. And Jeff and Jodi Andrysick shouldered much of the work: they organized petitions for a moratorium as well as the two meetings in the Pulteney Fire Hall.

But the residents of Pulteney - and indeed residents across upstate NY - need to worry about more than just this single well. Conversion of an old gas well into an injection well will set a precedent in NY, warns Walter Hang, president of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting. “If this disposal well is successfully built, it will only be the first of many," he told the gathering at the Fire Hall on the 7th.

Hang's words echo those of Penn State Cooperative Extension agent Tom Murphy. During a webinar last month, Murphy said that old Trenton-Black River wells make ideal underground injection wells. He believes that gas companies will continue to drill into Trenton-Black River because once they extract the gas, the TBR wells give companies a place to dump their Marcellus waste.

There are currently 112 active Trenton and Black River wells in New York State. Most of these are located in Steuben County (where Pulteney is located), but more than 40 are located in Chemung County, just a left turn and down the road from me. While the wells are labeled "active" on the DEC website, clicking on their production records reveals that - at least a few of the wells - aren't lining anyone's pockets with income. To a company desperate for disposal options, these wells look like holes in the ground just waiting for frackwater.

Right now now one's drilling horizontal Marcellus wells in NY, but once they get the go-ahead and the Marcellus drilling takes off, the question of what to do with the millions of gallons of wastewater will become more acute. 

While gas companies eye depleted Trenton-Black River wells as potential disposal sites, environmental activist and lawyer Rachel Treichler says, "No community is a proper site for a deep injection well disposing of toxic fluids." There are, she says, too many reports of contamination and earthquakes from these types of wells. 

Right now, Treichler says, the gas industry has no adequate means of dealing with the toxic wastewater produced by hydrofracking in the Marcellus shale. So, she adds, the New York legislature should not allow hydrofracking in the state.

So, even as people celebrate Pulteney's victory the rest of us need to keep an eye on the neighborhood gas wells. 

Superbowl Sunday: Pulteney 400* - Chesapeake 0

On Superbowl Sunday close to 400* people crowded into the Pulteney Fire Hall to protest Chesapeake’s plans for converting a natural gas well into a disposal well for frackwater and brine. People vied for leaning-space against the wall and unlucky late-comers lined up four-deep in the lobby, just beyond the notice warning “maximum occupancy 278 persons”.

They were there for a two-hour forum on fracking, geology, and disposal wells. And it was pretty clear that no one was in favor of becoming the dumping site for Marcellus frackwater and brine.

It took a few days but Chesapeake finally responded. In a one-line e-mail to the Corning Leader, Matt Sheppard, Chesapeake’s senior director of corporate development wrote, “Our enhanced water re-use techniques have greatly diminished the need for us to dispose of produced water, therefore, we have no intention of pursuing the injection well in Pulteney, N.Y."

Sounds great until you realize that Chesapeake has not said they will withdraw their application for an underground injection well. So it's still on the table.....

At issue: conversion of a natural gas well into a disposal well for Chesapeake to dump wastewater from their Marcellus and other gas wells in NY and PA. The well in question is the Bergstresser well, drilled 6700 feet into the Trenton-Black River formation about 13 years ago. It's not producing natural gas anymore, but it is deep enough that it would make an ideal place for disposal of brine and frack water.

Only one problem: the good people of Pulteney, NY don't want it. The tiny town of Pulteney overlooks the most western shore of Keuka Lake; it's a scenic area best known for its wineries and summer tourists. And as far as the residents are concerned, the heart of wine country is not a good place for toxic waste disposal.

Not only that, the county road is twisty and turny and steep in places. The folks who drive those roads are concerned that the increased truck traffic will damage their roads. If Chesapeake's numbers are any indication, there will be plenty of trucks traveling the rural roads. 

According to their application, Chesapeake plans to inject up to 181,440 gallons of wastewater a day into the well. They haven't done any actual testing - but are basing this figure on data from injection wells in other locations.

Given that the average brine-tankers hold close to 5,000 gallons, that means 35 or more trucks will drive the country roads hauling that wastewater -  70 truck trips in and out of the disposal facility every day for the next ten years. 

But wait! There's more! To handle that amount of wastewater, Chesapeake plans to build six concrete unloading bays. Trucks will dock at the bays and pump wastewater into one of six 1,000-barrel (42,000 gallon) above-ground storage tanks. Pipes will connect the tanks to a filtration vessel, and from there the wastewater will be pumped into the injection well.

In addition, Chesapeake noted that they may need to add corrosion inhibitors and biocides to the wastewater. So they will store chemicals on site as well. But if Chesapeake hopes to drive those trucks up Route 76 to Pulteney, they'll have a few roadblocks.

One of those roadblocks is junior Congressman Eric Massa who expressed outrage at the idea of placing a drilling wastewater disposal well so close to a lake. They're not going to frack wells in the NYC watershed, Massa said. "What does NYC have that we don't?"

Massa promised to do everything in his power to stop the project. Including, he said, laying down on the road in front of the trucks.

For now it looks like Massa won't need to get his suitcoat dirty, though, because Chesapeake seems to be cowed by the intensity of the protest against the project. At least for now, the folks of Pulteney are the winning team.

* as of 2/12/2010: organizers of the event estimate there may have been as many as 540 at the Fire Hall last Sunday.

There's more than Marcellus beneath our feet

(Trenton Black River well  drilled on Nobles Hill, Van Etten; photo by Rusty Keeler) 

Even as the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) drafted the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) and collected more than 10,000 comments, the Minerals Division continued to issue drilling permits. Last year gas companies submitted 289 permit applications to the DEC and the agency issued 240 permits for drilling gas wells. That’s about half of the number of permits they approved in 2008, but a clear indication that if a company wants to drill for gas, DEC is open for business.

Just last month DEC issued two well for Trenton-Black River wells in the town of Big Flats – and it looks as though more permits will be issued soon. Last week, the residents of Van Etten learned that Epsilon Energy has applied for three Oriskany well permits in their town.

Sandy Florian, a representative from Western Land Services, dropped into the Van Etten town board meeting to inform them that Epsilon had applied for the permits plus another just over the border in Barton. The wells won't be fracked, he assured the town councilors.

  Dave Matz, vice president of operations at Epsilon, verified that fracking was not contemplated "at this time". He said they would have to evaluate it once they got drilling.Matz expects DEC to issue the permits soon, possibly by next week. But the actual drilling won't start for another month - first they have to construct the well pads. Once the drilling starts, each well should take about five to seven days to drill, Matz said.

These half-dozen wells are just the tip of the iceberg, though. Florian told the Van Etten town board that Epsilon intends to submit applications for 40 additional wells across Erin, Van Etten and Barton. Matz, however, wouldn’t confirm that number. “We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

Concerned citizens + 24 hours + internet access = crowded town hall meeting

(photo of the Pulteney Town Board meeting by David Walczak)
On Tuesday, January 12 not many people in the Finger Lakes region knew that Chesapeake Appalachia LLC had submitted an application to convert a natural gas well into a disposal well for gas drilling wastewater. But 24 hours later the news had been sent to list-serves across the region and by the time the Pulteney town supervisor gaveled the town meeting to order on Wednesday, 60 people had managed to cram into the meeting room and another 20 or so packed the vestibule just outside.

At issue: Conversion of the Bergstrasser 1 natural gas well into a disposal well. The Bergstrasser well, drilled in 1997 to tap gas trapped within the Trenton-Black River formation, is located just northeast of the intersection of Armstrong Road and County Route 78 in the town of Pulteney – less than one mile west, and uphill, from Keuka Lake. The area is home to a number of vineyards and wineries, and is not only part of the wine trail but a tourist attraction.

Chesapeake sent an Environmental Assessment form to NY Department of Environmental Conservation on October 2, around the same time they filed an application for a UIC (Underground Injection Control) well permit with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to reports from those who attended the Pulteney Town Board meeting last Wednesday, January 13, Town Supervisor Bill Weber made it clear that the town had only learned of the proposal some two weeks ago the DEC asked him to let the DEC be the lead agency on the SEQRA review of the project. Without consulting the rest of the town board, Weber gave DEC the nod to take over as lead agency. His reasoning: the town board would have reached the same decision. 

Weber also said that the town has no involvement with the project – the town will only be involved when Chesapeake applies for a special use permit, and that had not been done yet. He assured people that the town Planning Board will schedule public hearings. Weber also mentioned that because he has leases with Chesapeake he will recuse himself from any decision-making processes on the application.

What Weber neglected to say was that he had been corresponding with ALL Consulting, who was completing the environmental assessments for Chesapeake. On September 23, Weber sent Steve Dutnell of ALL Consulting an e-mail letter noting that this was bound to be a hot topic and warning Dutnell to “get all your EPA and NYS DEC permits in place” before approaching the town for the necessary special permits.

Turning old Trenton-Black River wells into disposal wells may just be the trend of the future. Last year Fortuna received a permit from DEC to test the Mallula well in Van Etten, to see if it would be suitable for use as an injection well. Public outrage has kept the injectivity tests from happening, though the permit to conduct the testing may be renewed every 6 months over the next four years.

As more wells are drilled in the region – especially if the number of Marcellus wells is anywhere near the thousands anticipated – wastewater disposal will become an increasingly critical issue. While dumping salt water down old gas wells looks like a good solution to the DEC and the EPA, it looks like a lousy solution to residents who worry about contamination of their drinking water wells.

Drilling goes on without Marcellus

Just because the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) hasn't been granting permits for drilling in Marcellus doesn't mean that there's no gas drilling going on in the state. Last year gas companies submitted 289 permit applications. DEC issued 240 permits for gas wells – about half of the number they permitted in 2008. But the fact remains that DEC is continuing to issue permits under the 1992 GEIS.

As if to underscore this, there are two well permits that have recently been issued for Trenton-Black River wells in the town of Big Flats, and two more pending. One of these is for a well in the town of Dryden. On October 19, Anschutz Exploration Corporation submitted an application to drill the "Cook 1" well, just south of where Irish Settlement Road intersects Route 13. 

The DEC may not be concerned about the impact of this well, but the neighbors are. One is Joe

Osmeloski. He lives just north – and downhill- from the proposed well site and is concerned that drilling activities may contaminate the two streams that border his horse farm.

The streams originate in Yellow Barn State Forest and flow very close to the proposed drilling site before they reach Joe's farm. “My horses drink from those streams," he said.

Drilling into the Trenton-Black River formation doesn't use as much water as Marcellus wells, and it doesn't involve the same kind of hydro-fracking. But drillers do use drilling muds and chemicals reduce friction on the drill-bits and inhibit bacterial growth in the drilling mud. They also inject a weak solution of hydrochloric acid into the rock to dissolve any residual limestone in the formation and "stimulate" gas production.

But that doesn't comfort Joe. "They [drillers] only have to be 50 feet from a stream. Fifty feet is absurd! ” He worries that, should the streams be contaminated, he will lose his livelihood and the farm he has worked so hard to build over the past two decades.

Meanwhile, drilling companies are already filing permit applications for horizontal Marcellus wells. The DEC has a bit of work to do before finalizing the rules for high-volume hydro-fracking in the tight shales - they've still got to read through the 10,000 or more comments on the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) before issuing final rules. But the rush for permit applications has begun. There are already 10 applications for Marcellus wells in Candor and another 12 pending for the wee town of Erin.

The Wells in Our Back Yard

Just because they can't drill in Marcellus doesn't mean that there's no gas activity in upstate NY. In fact, just last month the Dryden town council members learned that the Anschutz Exploration Corporation has applied for a permit to drill a well into the Trenton-Black River formation.

"This came as a complete surprise," says councilman Jason Leifer. There are no active wells in the town, though there have been a half-dozen dry holes drilled in the past few years.

Trenton-Black River wells are drilled deep - about 10,000 feet down into the dolomitic limestone that underlies the layers and layers of (possibly more productive) Marcellus and Utica shales. They are relatively new wells, like the Stoscheck well above (drilled in 2006). They are drilled with the latest technology and the wellheads, tanks and gathering lines are shiny.

But not all the wells in this area are bright and shiny. Even fairly young ones drilled only a decade ago don't age well in our northeastern winters.

This is the Koabel well located just off Rumsey Hill Rd in Van Etten (Chemung County) NY. Drilling started in June of 1997 and by July 18 the well was completed.

The Koabel well goes down 3732 feet to tap into the Oriskany formation. Folks who used to get royalty checks say that they haven't seen any money from the well for the past four or five years, and they figured that the well had been plugged and abandoned. But according to the DEC website it's still an active well, producing gas - though at a level too low to provide enough energy to fuel a single home for one day.

The tanks look worse for the wear: corroded, flaking, and not terribly reliable.

Then there's the gathering pipeline that connects the Koabel well with another well uphill of it, and carries the gas down to an even larger pipeline. It's been said that a thrifty farmer can repair his tractor using chewing gum and baling twine, but one would hope that a pipeline ostensibly carrying gas from producing wells might receive a bit more TLC than this.

Can Towns Protect their Aquifers from Gas Drilling Impacts?

I live in a small town in upstate NY, a town whose water supply is dependent upon groundwater. Groundwater, as it turns out, that is intimately connected with the rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and ephemeral wetlands that abound in the forests and hills surrounding us. A couple weeks ago Steve Winkley, a source water protection specialist from the New York Rural Water Association, met with village, town and county officials to discuss sole source aquifers and how we might protect our water supply.

Winkley listed a number of reasons communities create source water protection plans: to eliminate or reduce potential contamination threats; to ensure long-term sustainability of the system; to minimize impacts from external sources; and to plan for contingencies in event of an emergency. While the village is interested in maintaining the long-term viability of their municipal wells, the town is interested in minimizing potential impacts from imminent industrial gas drilling.

A watershed protection plan would focus on the Catatonk Creek aquifer and the watershed that feeds into the system - but first the town and village need more information about the source water. Being a rural area, the "public water system" includes two village wells, the two or three cafe's in town, a recreational camp and a couple mobile home parks.

A "public water system" is defined as one that provides water to at least 25 people, and receives certain protections in the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) proposed rules for drilling Marcellus and other shales. But most people in town get their water from individual drinking water wells - and according to Winkley there are at least 2600 sprinkled throughout the hills and valleys of the town. He estimates that 71 percent of the people - or more -  get their water from the Catatonk Creek aquifer.

But the aquifer is not simply a single layer of water flowing beneath the ground. While some drinking wells tap into a shallow layer that runs as deep as 30 feet, others tap into the deeper layer that is 50 to 130 feet down. It is the shallow wells that are more at risk from contamination.

Right now the risk of contamination comes from close proximity to septic systems and surface spills. But Winkley is concerned about potential impacts of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on the aquifer. Proposed wells located within 1,000 feet of a municipal water supply would normally trigger an individual environmental impact statement (EIS). However, he noted, that doesn’t include community systems such as the local mobile home parks.

Winkley listed measures for the community to consider with respect to protecting source water: land-use regulations (zoning), wellhead protection laws, easements, and water monitoring and testing. He emphasized that when towns contemplate industrial activity, such as drilling, they need to remember that all water sources are connected. Streams flowing from the hills recharge the aquifer, and the recharge areas are important places to protect.

Meanwhile, two towns in Colorado - the town of Palisade and the city of Grand Junction - collaborated with a gas company to develop a watershed protection plan. They were concerned about risks to surface water from construction (roads, well pads, and pipelines), storm water runoff, and spills of drilling fluids, fracking chemicals or brine. Potential groundwater risks included percolation of contaminants from surface spills, leaky casings, and other below-ground accidents.

You can read their watershed protection plan here, but the key provisions include:

• Baseline studies- to define and map streams, lakes, springs, ponds and other sensitive source water-related areas.
• Clustered Development Well Pad Spacing – by clustering development there will be fewer roads, pipelines and other impacts on the environment as well as reduced traffic. 
• Emergency Response Plan – the gas company will prepare an emergency response plan and provide training for local emergency squad
• Use of Closed Loop drilling systems instead of reserve pits
• A commitment to using “green” hydraulic fracturing procedures, processes and materials. This means that fracking chemicals used in the watershed area will be “biodegradable, non-toxic, neutral pH, residual free, non-corrosive, non-polluting, and non-hazardous in the forms and concentrations being used.” No known carcinogens will be used.

Fragmenting the Agricultural Landscape one Well at a Time

For most of the farmers in our area - upstate NY perched atop the Marcellus - oil and gas leases have been part of the business since their grandfathers pounded in the first fenceposts. But with a huge reservoir of natural gas beneath their hayfields and forests, and bonus payments heading north of $5500/acre, leasing has become the number one rural land-use issue says Brett Chedzoy, a regional forester with Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Chedzoy, who is also a farmer, speaks from experience. His  livestock operations have been interrupted not once, but twice for  gas pipeline construction projects. Without proper lease protections, farm and forest owners face potential losses in terms of timber, wildlife habitat and other property uses, he says.

If a gas company wants to use your land for a drilling pad or as a right-of-way for a pipeline, they ought to pay fair value for all timber removed from your land, Chedzoy says. Even young successional forests have value. An 8-inch tree may have current value only as firewood, but if left for another 50 years it would have significant value as a saw log.

The problem, Chedzoy says, is that too often energy companies use bulldozers to clear land. That leaves downed trees mixed with stones and debris - unacceptable to a mill or to someone using a chainsaw. Instead, trees should be cut by an experienced logging crew and stacked in an accessible location

As with fields, forest owners need to protect their topsoil, restore drainages, and control erosion. Once construction is completed, the soil needs to be de-compacted. Then the topsoil should be replaced and – especially if the area will be maintained by brush-hogging – make sure that the rocks and stones are picked out. Unfortunately, some farmers say that even when these items are outlined in their leases, the gas companies are not following their directives.

Pipeline Right-of-Ways

Access roads and well-pads are not the only threat to agriculture. According to Chedzoy pipeline right-of-ways (ROWs) are the number-one entry point for invasive species. Once you take out the trees, you create an “edge” – an opening preferred by such invasive species as European buckthorn, multifloral rose, privet, several Asian species of honeysuckle, burning bush, Japanese barberry, autumn olive, swallowwort, Oriental bittersweet, and garlic mustard.

The problem with invasive species is that they interfere with native plants and degrade the wildlife habitat. Take buckthorn, for example. It displaces other berry-producing shrubs such as Viburnums and blackberries. and the buckthorn fruit isn't very nutritious for the animals; it causes them to vomit the fruit without digesting any nutrients. This is great for buckthorn dispersal, but not very beneficial for the wildlife.

Invasive plants also affect the quality of the forest. The more competitive invasive plants may shade or crowd out the existing seedlings and saplings, changing the character of the woods. Or, like garlic mustard, they may produce chemicals that inhibit seed germination.

Pipeline right-of-ways also create other problems for forest owners. Landowners needing access to their forests for timber harvest will want to make sure there are permanent crossings for skidders and other heavy equipment. Otherwise forest owners wanting to sell a few trees may find themselves required to provide a “timber bridge”.

Trespass liability has become an issue as well. Many forest owners have complained that pipeline ROWs become conduits for ATV and snowmobile traffic.

Cumulative impacts

David Behm, NY Ag and Markets Farmland Protection Program Manager, is concerned about preserving agricultural land for future generations. He wonders whether conservation easements will be strong enough to protect farmland in the face of the anticipated natural gas rush.

A conservation easement is a legal document that is written in the form of a deed. It permanently restricts the future development of a piece of property for the purpose of preserving or maintaining the scenic, open, historic, agricultural, or natural condition, character or significance of that property. And, Behm explains, it can be modified to allow a well.

Thing is, while a single well on a farm doesn’t seem like a huge impact, Behm is concerned about the cumulative impacts of gas development on a given agricultural landscape over time. He believes that access roads to well sites will fragment the agricultural land. 

"Anytime there’s a road dividing a field, agricultural land is at risk," Behm says. He is particularly concerned about access roads that cut off a couple acres from a larger field – those smaller pieces are at risk for development, Behm says. You can read more about forest and ag-land issues here.

Concerned New Yorkers to Governor: Withdraw the SGEIS

This is a busy time for board members and other municipal officials in Upstate NY. They've got til the end of December to submit their comments on the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) regarding horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in Marcellus and other shales. This is not a trivial pursuit; the Town of Danby's comments spread over 20 pages.

But even as public officials try to beat the comment deadline, thousands of others are calling on Governor Paterson to withdraw the SGEIS.  Last week over 100 people attending a meeting in Ithaca signed on to the letter, and they're hoping to get another couple thousand over these next few days.

Their reason? The SGEIS presumes that the 1992 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for oil and gas drilling - a document that took over a decade to produce - adequately protects human health and the environment.

But it doesn't, says Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting. The current regulations fail to adequately safeguard citizens against impacts on water quality, land use, economic and cultural resources and wildlife - and he has 270 cases of spills and accidents to prove it.

Regulations for current gas wells aren't protective enough and the industrial nature of drilling in the Marcellus will create multiple opportunities for even more environmental problems. The SGEIS would allow huge impoundments for flowback and brine - and already PA's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has slapped a couple corporate wrists for poorly engineered impoundment structures.

Then there's the problem of wastewater. “Where will it go?” Hang asks. Public wastewater treatment plants in NY aren't equipped to deal with the high levels of dissolved solids in the brines. Nor are public treatment plants set up to deal with the radioactivity expected to be in Marcellus brines. Instead, NY drillers have been transporting millions of gallons of brine and well wastewater to Pennsylvania and Ohio. But at the last DEC hearing in Corning a Pennsylvania man said, "don't send it to us. We don't want it."

“The bottom line,” says Hang, “is that the [NY] government is not safeguarding your public health and safety. That's why he is actively circulating the petition that asks Governor Paterson to withdraw the SGEIS. "That action will allow the de-facto moratorium on drilling permits to continue," Hang says, and a continued moratorium will allow towns and citizens more time to push for stronger environmental cleanup protections.

As of last Monday, nearly 2,000 people and organizations had signed on to the letter. Now it's your turn. Anyone concerned about the flaws in the proposed rules (even folks outside NY) can read the letter and sign on right here. And if you can get a few celebrities to sign on, so much the better!

You'll also find an interactive map and the profile of 270 oil and gas spills at that site. And check out the facebook page "no fracking way".
 

Citizens Sue Village over Schlumberger Project

Since July, and throughout three public hearings, residents of Horseheads, NY and the surrounding area have been asking the village elders to conduct a more thorough environmental review of the proposed Schlumberger building project. 

Last winter Schlumberger Technology Corporation plunked down a chunk of change for 88 acres in the Horseheads Industrial Center. It is an area zoned for light industry and manufacturing and contains warehouses and distribution centers. There is also another gas field service industry on the site - a company that provides equipment needed for drilling.

Schlumberger hopes to construct a 400,000 square foot facility to store fracking chemicals and explosives needed for gas field development. And they claim that their facility will bring 300 to 400 jobs to the area.

But residents are concerned that local municipal officials have embraced potential economic gain at the cost of potential environmental contamination. During the public hearings they repeatedly expressed their concern to village board members that it seemed like the project was a “done deal”. They begged the town board to conduct a more complete environmental review.

In particular, residents raised questions about stormwater permits, air quality and the impact of increased truck traffic on adjacent schools and residential neighborhoods.

At one point the Horseheads Village board seemed to agree; during their review of Part I of the environmental assessment (at their September 30 meeting) they  determined that the Schlumberger facility could potentially impact ground and surface water quality, air quality, wildlife and public health and safety. Less than a week later, the Village determined that there was no need for further environmental review, and on October 15 they issued a “negative declaration.”

This decision cleared the way for site plan approval and outraged many local residents. Outraged them so much that on November 12 a group calling itself People for a Healthy Environment filed a lawsuit against the Village. They claim that approval of the Schlumberger project was “illegal, arbitrary and capricious” and ask that the project be halted until more a complete environmental review can be done.

Horseheads Village didn’t just give a deaf ear to the people. They – and Schlumberger –also ignored demands from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to cease activity on the site until certain requirements had been met.

Since summer Schlumberger has been operating on the site, with permission of the Village. They have a temporary structure, chemical storage silos as well as trucks parked on the site. Still, Schlumberger insists that what they are doing is not "construction" and therefore requires no permits.

The NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is not amused. On September 30 the DEC issued a Notice of Violation to Schlumberger for failure to obtain proper permits for stormwater discharges. You see, stormwater from the Schlumberger site discharges into a NY state freshwater wetland and into Catherine Creek, which eventually spills into Seneca Lake – precisely the concern raised by residents at board meetings and public hearings.

DEC directed Schlumberger to: discontinue all chemical and material storage; discontinue all construction support, maintenance and storage operations; and discontinue all storage and maintenance for vehicles providing oil and gas field services.

Schlumberger’s response was to continue their activities at the site. Until recently. It took another letter from DEC, but according to Peter Lent, regional permit administrator for DEC, as of November 13 Schlumberger is honoring the cease work directive.

In the meantime they are trying to get a stormwater permit for their temporary site.

It won’t be easy. In an 8-page letter to Schlumberger, DEC listed a number of things Schlumberger needs to clarify before a permit will be issued. Schlumberger needs to make sure chemicals are stored correctly; an October 15 inspection revealed a tarpaulin roof leaking water onto chemicals stored on pallets. It also cited chemical and additives dust on the storage building floor.

DEC has also requested Schlumberger to be more forthcoming about the chemicals stored on site. Instead of lumping them together in a broad category, such as “dry additives” they will need to list the components of the mixture.

 As for the citizen lawsuit, the group expects a response from village officials sometime in December.

You can read about the October public hearing here . You can read more articles about Schlumberger here.

Hydrofracking inspires great harmony

A buncha local musicians pooled their resources (no compulsory integration required) and came up with a hummable ditty. Will Fudeman, an Ithaca singer/songwriter  takes his tongue from his cheek long enough to sing his new song about what's coming down the pike for us in upstate NY.

He begins, "Pardon me sir, I wonder if you might be willing to sign a lease. Your money troubles will cease..."

Helping Will are Tom Sieling (harmonica) Colleen Kattau (vocal) and John Simon (off-camera-guitar)