NY Fracking Decision Delayed - But Permits Might be Issued Anyway?

New York landowners hoping to cash in on gas leases will have to wait a few more weeks for the final decision on whether to allow high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. That’s because a key health impact study won’t be completed by this week’s deadline.  

Today NY Dept. of Health Commissioner Dr. Nirav Shah, sent a letter to Dept. of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens saying: we need more time to finish the health review.

The Department of Health review asks whether the final draft SGEIS (Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement) adequately identifies potential public health impacts of high-volume horizontal hydro-fracking. It also considers whether DEC needs to add mitigation measures beyond those already proposed in the SGEIS.

The decision to permit fracking “involves complex questions about the impact of the process on public health,” Shah wrote in his letter to Martens. “The time to ensure the impacts on public health are properly considered is before a state permits drilling.”

According to Shah, the DOH review focuses on the relationship of hydro-fracking to the health impacts of drinking water contamination, air quality and community impacts. His department is reviewing recent studies published by the scientific community including:

• The US EPA hydraulic fracturing study (EPA published a 278 page progress report a few weeks ago)
• The Geisinger Health Systems study in PA (plans to analyze health records for asthma and other respiratory diseases, accidents and injuries, and birth outcomes)
• A University of Pennsylvania study in collaboration with scientists from Columbia, Johns Hopkins and the University of North Carolina.

 Shah concluded with a reminder that “…the Governor's instruction has been to let the science determine the outcome.”

With the health review incomplete, the DEC will not be able to issue the thousand-page-plus environmental impact statement tomorrow – a requirement to meet a Feb. 27 deadline for its regulations. Missing that deadline could mean that DEC would have to reintroduce the fracking rules, a process that would re-open then to public comment.

But maybe not, says DEC Commissioner Martens. In response, Martens reiterated that he would not issue a final SGEIS until the health review is complete. He admitted that, indeed, the proposed high-volume hydraulic fracturing regulations cannot be finalized until the SGEIS is complete.

But, says Martens, “this does not mean that the issuance of permits for high-volume hydraulic fracturing would be delayed.” IF the Health Review determines that the SGEIS adequately addresses health concerns, and IF Martens adopts the SGEIS on that basis, then “DEC can accept and process high-volume hydraulic fracturing permit applications 10 days after issuance of the SGEIS.”  If, on the other hand, the health review determines that there are health concerns that still need to be addressed, DEC won’t issue permits.

It all sounds very “iffy”. Meanwhile, lawyers on both sides of the issue are sharpening their pencils…

Video Field Trip to Well at night

Intrepid video-journalist Vera Scroggins headed out with her camera to record what it sounds like when a well is drilled close to a road. The well she photographed is on Bush Road, in Bridgewater Township, just down the road apiece from Montrose (Susquehanna County, PA). The operator is Carrizo, the very same outfit that started exploratory drilling in Owego, NY (Tioga County).

Now, the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has put out some new regulations for high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing - but the new rules do not upgrade or replace the old rules.
The new regs. specify that there will be no drilling:

• within 500 feet of a residential water well, domestic supply spring or water well or spring used to supply water for livestock or crops;
• within 500 feet of an inhabited dwelling or place of assembly;
• within a primary aquifer and a 500-foot buffer from the boundary of a primary aquifer;
• within a 100-year floodplain;
• and within 2,000 feet of any public water supply including reservoir, natural lake or mane-made impoundment (except those constructed for fresh water storage associated with fracking).

The new regulations don't address distance from roads (they remain 75 feet) nor do they address setbacks from barns, fields or pastures.

So if you live near a well, this is what you'll likely hear all day and all night for at least a few weeks.

4000 Pages and Counting...

New York’s “much-anticipated report on high-volume hydraulic fracturing” continues to grow, reports Jon Campbell. It’s about 4,000 pages and the review process has yet to be completed.

Back in September the “Revised draft” of the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) weighed in at about 1,537 pages – that’s including the appendices. But a couple days ago Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens told Campbell that the agency had already compiled “a couple thousand” pages of responses to issues raised during the public comment periods.

There is still more work to be done, he said, and there is no firm timetable on when a final report may be released. Till then, high-volume hydrofracking is on hold in New York until it is complete.

Or at least until Labor Day, speculates Fred LeBrun in recent commentary in the Times Union.

On the other hand, it could take well into next year. There are a number of practical considerations before drilling becomes reality. First, it could take weeks, even months for operators to apply or reapply for permits under whatever new plan takes shape. Then there are some legislative barriers: just how does a state go about permitting drilling when the permitting agency is understaffed and underfunded?

Then there are the economic barriers: a weak market and gas prices lower than ever.

Still, it seems Gov Andrew Cuomo still has a fracking plan on the table. Journalist Tom Wilber posts an excellent summary of  major points including when and where wells could be drilled, home rule considerations and a few niggling complications in the SGEIS, such as green completions which require pipelines and infrastructure to be in place prior to drilling. Oh yeah, and a needed but ignored health impact study.

One sticking point in the whole deal is funding. How does DEC permit, inspect and oversee shale gas development without boots on the ground. According to Wilber, the legislative fight to fund increased environmental enforcement will be epic.

Wilber would call it critical. “The best regulations in the world mean little if there are no resources to ensure their enforcement,” he writes. But go, read it for yourself. It is well worth the extra click.

Will Science Determine NY Drilling Policy?

When it comes to fracking, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly and publicly pledged to “let the science and the facts make the determination, not emotion and not politics.”

And who could be more scientific and less emotional than the US Geological Survey? Dusty Horwitt, Senior Counsel for the Environmental Working Group recently reviewed comments the USGS sent in response to the most recent revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) for high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing in shales. 

The plan is flawed, say the federal scientists. And allowing drilling and fracking would endanger water supplies of rural and urban residents.

In the SGEIS the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) proposes that a 500-foot buffer is sufficient to protect water sources and aquifers.

USGS disagrees. A 500-foot buffer around aquifers that supply major municipal water systems may provide only partial protection to these aquifers, they say. Likewise, a 500-foot buffer for private water wells and springs affords only limited protection and doesn’t take local geology, hydrology nor topography into account.  Water quality changes can occur at significant distance from a disturbance – especially if a domestic well is located below a well pad – and USGS suggests that in some cases state regulators need to be thinking in terms of miles, not feet.

Federal scientists also criticized the SGEIS for under-representing number and extent of natural faults in the region where shale gas drilling would occur. USGS pointed out that drilling and hydraulic fracturing directly beneath faults could potentially allow contaminant to flow upward into underground aquifers. They pointed out that there are generally far more natural faults in bedrock overlying the Marcellus Shale than other places.

   

USGS also criticized what they perceive as a lack of detailed information on underground freshwater sources. The depths of underground drinking water sources are not well documented – these must be established so that drilling companies can design casing and cementing to prevent migration of gas or saltwater into underground drinking water supplies. NY State doesn’t require drilling companies to map underground fresh water and salt water sources before they drill – and that information is critical to the design and installation of effective casing and cementing. You can read more here.

18,000 and Counting

That's how many comments NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has received so far on its Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing in Marcellus and other shales. Keep the tallyman counting, though because the deadline for comments is another three days away - January 11. And there's plenty more comments to come. In fact, the Tioga County Landowners Group is holding a rally in Candor on Tuesday morning to talk about jobs and drilling - and according to Nick Schoonover, that group and affiliated groups have collected another 10,000 comments that they'll be delivering to DEC on Wednesday.

They're not the only ones. Pro-drinking water activists and others are holding comment-writing parties to encourage citizens to participate in the process.

Can DEC adequately monitor NYS drilling?

Used with permission

One of the things DEC stresses in its newest edition of the draft SGEIS is that the well casings will protect our water from any contamination.

OK, but folks who find old wells wonder just how committed DEC is to keeping that promise. After all, there’s loads of wells across the state that haven’t been properly plugged and abandoned.

Back in 1984 Chesapeake drilled this well into the Queenston formation in the town of Sennett, NY just east of Auburn. DEC has been notified that this well should be plugged and abandoned. But the question remains: why did the DEC and Chesapeake allow the condition of this well to degrade to this extent? And how many more wells are out there like this?

The person who sent me this photo has asked DEC for more information about whether and how this well has been abandoned, and what sort of testing – above and below ground- has been done.

He’s also posted a full DEC file on this well – photographs he took at the Avon DEC office. You can see more photos and documents at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~springport/pictures385/potter_web/

DEC issues Draft Regulations for Fracking

This morning the DEC issued their draft regulations for high-volume hydraulic fracturing and announced a series of four public hearings.

 The draft regulations, says DEC Commissioner Joe Martens, “are based on the proposed requirements contained in the agency’s revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement released earlier this month.”

Martens said that public review of the proposed regulations “is an important part of the environmental impact statement process. The comments from the 2009 public comment period proved insightful and helped inform the revised SGEIS.” He assured the public that the DEC is looking forward to continued oral and written comments during this round.

The draft regulations are supposed to create a legal framework for implementing the proposed mitigation measures published in the revised dSGEIS. The public comment period on the draft regulations begins today and runs concurrently with the public comment period on the dSGEIS, which ends Dec. 12.

In addition for the drilling rules, DEC also released the proposed State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) General Permit (GP) for Stormwater Discharges associated with high-volume hydraulic fracturing.

 Four Hearings:

Each public hearing will have an afternoon session from 1 – 4 pm and an evening session from 6-9 pm. Comments will be accepted in written and oral format at the hearings.

Here’s where the hearings will be:

• Nov. 16: Dansville Middle School Auditorium, 31 Clara Barton St., Dansville, NY 14437
• Nov. 17: The Forum Theatre, 236 Washington Street, Binghamton, NY, 13901
• Nov. 29: Sullivan County Community College, Seelig Theatre, 112 College Rd, Loch   Sheldrake, NY 12759  
• Nov. 30: Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street, New York, NY, 10007

Once the comment period is complete, DEC will review the comments and prepare responses to be released with the final SGEIS and final regulations.  No permits for high-volume hydraulic fracturing will be issued until the SGEIS is finalized and DEC issues the required Findings Statement.

 How to submit comments:

Via the Web at http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/76838.html

By mail to Attn: dSGEIS Comments; New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; 625 Broadway; Albany, NY 12233-6510

For More Info:

On the dSGEIS: http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/75370.html;

On the proposed State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) General Permit (GP) for Stormwater Discharges along with its fact sheet: http://www.dec.ny.gov/permits/77251.html;

On the proposed regulations: http://www.dec.ny.gov/regulations/77353.html

NY Hydrofracking Rules Scheduled for Release Wed. Aug 31

Time to sharpen your pencils and get your thinking caps on. According to press reports the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation will finally release the SGEIS (Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement) for high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing on Wednesday, the very last day of August. That 1,000+ page document should include all the sections that were labeled "to come" in the previously released (July 8) version. It should include socio-economic data but also some environmental information that was lacking from last month's draft.

Wednesday will also be the day residents learn exactly how long the comment period will be and whether the DEC will hold any public hearings. According to press reports, Governor Cuomo thinks 60 days is plenty long to read and respond to a 1100 or so page document.

Check DEC's website for the latest info, postings or versions of the SGEIS.

DEC Finds SGEIS a bit Tougher than Expected

Before leaving office, former NY Governor David Paterson directed NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to complete the SGEIS for high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing in shale by June 1. Yesterday Joe Martens, new head of DEC, told AP that DEC staff would meet twice each week starting in April and "through the summer" to complete the final rules.

The SGEIS is the "Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement" that will supplement current gas drilling regulations with new rules for fracking in shale formations. The 809-page first draft was published in Sept. 2009 and opened for comments. More than 13,000 industry groups, environmental groups, lobbyists, municipal representatives and residents sent comments to DEC, and the agency is still trying to sift through the mountain of paper (and email).

Martens told AP that Paterson's June 1 date was more a guideline and less a deadline. He said the work would likely continue through the summer and verified that there will indeed be a public comment period of at least 30 days. Maybe longer, because the revisions are extensive and Martens feels they may need to allow more time for comments.

As for pressure to hurry on the permits, Martens told AP that DEC "will only deal with the number of permits that we have the staff to handle." He promised that if the agency can only process 10 permits a year, then that's what they'll do - even if 150 applications are sitting in the queue.

PA to Cabot: Plug wells, Provide water, Pay up - oh, and no drilling until you do

Yesterday, April 15, the PA DEP took aggressive action against Cabot Oil & Gas in an attempt to enforce environmental laws meant to protect the public. DEP ordered Cabot to plug three wells within the next 40 days. These wells are believed to be the source of migrating gas that has contaminated groundwater and the drinking water supplies of 14 homes in the region. Cabot must also install permanent treatment systems in those homes within 30 days.

In addition, DEP Secretary John Hanger said DEP is immediately suspending review of all Cabot’s pending permit applications for new drilling activities statewide until it fulfills its obligations. Furthermore, DEP is prohibiting Cabot from drilling any new wells for at least one year in the Dimock Township area. 

“Cabot had every opportunity to correct these violations but failed to do so," said Hangar, referring to Cabot’s failure to abide by the terms of a November 2009 consent order and agreement with DEP. Instead, he said, "the company ignored its responsibilities to safeguard citizens and to protect the natural resources there." During recent inspections, DEP identified five additional defective Cabot gas wells and another home water supply that has been affected by gas migration, bringing to 14 the number of impacted water supplies in the Dimock area.

Cabot paid a $240,000 fine that was deposited into PA's well-plugging account. Now Cabot is obliged to pay $30,000 per month beginning in May - until DEP has determined that the company has met its obligations under the 2009 order.

“Companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale have the legal responsibility to design and construct their wells to keep all gas contained within the wells and to prevent gas from moving into fresh groundwater. These standards are not mere suggestions or recommendations,” Hanger said.

What NY needs to learn from PA's experience is that we need strong regulations and vigilant inspections of all aspects of the natural gas industry. Just this week DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis admitted his agency is understaffed and overworked as they try to develop the regulations for high-volume hydrofracking & horizontal drilling for Marcellus Shale. And residents at a meeting down in Athens Monday night said, "New Yorkers should learn from our mistakes." They were a bit miffed at being the guinea pigs for Marcellus drilling, but sincere in their hope that their northern neighbor would end up with better environmental safeguards.

EPA tells DEC to conduct more thorough review on Marcellus Drilling

Yesterday, December 30, Region 2 of the EPA sent 17 pages of formal comments to NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regarding proposed rules for drilling in Marcellus and shales. According to the EPA, the DEC needs to review and expand their analysis on the cumulative and indirect impacts in the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS). In addition, says the EPA, "greater emphasis needs to be placed on the potential health impacts that may be associated with gas drilling and hydrofracturing."

EPA is particularly concerned about the potential risks gas drilling poses to the New York City watershed. Despite the mitigation measures proposed in the SGEIS, EPA questions whether drilling in the NYC watershed is consistent with the long-term maintenance of the unfiltered water supply.

In addition, EPA lists a number of other issues of particular concern: water supply, water quality, wastewater treatment, local and regional air quality and management of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) disturbed during drilling. The EPA monitors plans for disposal of water and brine containing NORM. In their comments, however, EPA notes that NORM concentrations in production brine of Marcellus wells have the potential to far exceed the Maximum Contamination Limits (MCLs) specified in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). So if brine is going to go through pre-treatments and end up eventually discharged into somebody's drinking water, EPA wants New York to figure out how to meet the federal regulatory levels. They also question the inconsistency of reporting concentration levels; levels of some radionuclides are reported in pico-Curies per gram (pCi/g) while others are reported in parts per million (ppm). Using ppm as an analytical tool could "significantly underestimate the uranium concentrations," says EPA.

The EPA also notes that the dSGEIS supplements the existing 1992 GEIS. But in the 17 years since the GEIS was written, the "existing environment and conditions in New York State have changed significantly". Reliance on the original GEIS as a "baseline" does not take into account the cumulative impacts fom habitat fragmentation and other impacts that may have occurred during the intervening years.

How to protect Bridges and Roads once Gas Drilling begins?

That's the question that town board members and highway superintendents have been puzzling out for the past few months. Highway superintendents from towns across our county have been meeting with town and county attorneys to discuss everything from crafting road laws to developing road use agreements.

The problem: once the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) adopts their rules for drilling in Marcellus and other shales, the drilling rigs will begin to move into NY in earnest. While no one knows how many wells to expect - the estimates range from 2,000 to 4,000 - there are 10 permit applications pending in my town alone. And we expect more..... lots more.

The concern is that the truck traffic associated with construction of the well pad and the drilling operations will damage local roads, leaving the taxpayer stuck with the bill. It's happened in other towns - one town is coping with over $300,000 in damages and another a mere $80,000 or so - and our town has experienced some road damage already. So now, before the heavy trucks come, is the time to hammer out the details.

Which is why earlier this week our town highway supervisor sat down with a group of town council members, planning board members, and citizens to go over language for a potential "road use agreement". The idea behind a road use agreement is that drilling companies and municipalities agree on truck routes prior to any well pad construction or drilling activity. It also lays out expectations for maintenance and reimbursement for road damage.

The DEC suggests in their supplementary Generic Environmental Impact Statement - the draft of the rules for drilling in Marcellus - that gas companies ought to consider local road use agreements. They don't require it.

But maybe they should. According to the DEC's own document it could take as many as 8900 truck trips to construct the drilling site and drill and frack a multi-well pad with 8 wells. These aren't pick-up trucks either; they're 18-wheelers weighted down with tons of equipment, chemicals or water.

Our highway super would like to give each gas company a list of acceptable truck routes. After all, who knows more about the roads than the guy who patches them and plows them? He also suggested that gas companies should complete a survey of all roads they will use prior to any activities.

One point he stressed is that gravel and seasonal roads cannot withstand the structural and functional damage that would result from heavy vehicle use.So if the gas companies are going to be driving out in the boonies - which pretty much describes most of the area around here - they will need to make improvements to the roads so their heavy trucks won't get bogged down. (Go to any talk on drilling in these parts and there's the obligatory slide of the bulldozer pulling an 18-wheeler up a very muddy, rutted rural road.)

Bridges and culverts are also an issue. Our town has 10 bridges that are large enough to be inspected by the state and, according to one town councilman (who served as highway superintendent years ago), it would take a minimum of  $1 million to repair one of those bridges.

“It’s not the weight," he says. Rather, it's the combination of weight and frequency of trips that damage a bridges. His solution: have drilling companies build truck by-passes. "That's a relatively inexpensive and quick solution,” he said. 

Just how many truck trips does it take to build a well?   

  

In chapter 6 of the SGEIS (section 11) DEC estimates the number of truck trips required for a multi-well pad ( 8-wells) in the Marcellus:

Drill pad & road construction equipment   10 – 45 trucks

Drilling rig                                                 60 trucks

Drilling fluid & materials                             200 – 400 trucks

Drilling equipment (casing, etc)                  200 – 400 trucks

Completion rig                                          30 trucks

Completion fluids & materials                    80 – 160 trucks

Completion equipment (pipe, wellhead)    10 trucks

Hydraulic fracture equipment                    300 – 400 trucks

Hydraulic fracture water                           3200 – 4800 tankers

Hydraulic fracture sand                             160 – 200 trucks

Flowback water removal                          1600 – 2400 tankers

Radioactivity Present in Marcellus Brines

When you buy a home in upstate NY, one of the things you do as a matter of course is test for radon. That's because many of the rock layers beneath our homes contain naturally occurring radioactive material - "NORM" for short. And for years the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has held the view that normal disturbances of NORM-rock, such as mining and drilling, do not generally pose a threat to workers or the general public.

But recent tests of brine from Marcellus wells may change that.  In October 2008 and April 2009 the DEC submitted 13 brine samples from twelve Marcellus wells that were actively producing gas last year. Test results came back with higher than expected levels of NORM. Some brines had levels of radium-226 as high as 250 times the allowable level for discharge into the environment and thousands of times higher than the maximum allowed in drinking water. 

Radioactivity in Shale

Radioactivity in Marcellus shale, present as trace elements uranium-238, thorium-232, radium-222, radium-226, and radium-228, is not uniform; it varies from place to place. Over time these radioactive particles decay, with half-lives anywhere from 4 days to 1600 years. And while some exposure to radiation is unavoidable - we're all exposed to a certain amount of background radiation - it doesn't necessarily mean it's harmless.

Exposure to some radionuclides – even at low levels – can cause bone cancer, stomach and lung cancers and other health problems. Radon gas, long known to be associated with Marcellus shale, has been shown to be the primary cause of lung cancer among people who have never smoked.

So the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established guidelines for certain radionuclides: the maximum contaminant level of radium in drinking water as 5 picocuries per liter (pCi/L), for uranium is 30 pCi/L and for the total alpha emitters is 15 pCi/L. They've also established levels that can be put into the environment: the maximum level of radium-226 allowed to be discharged in wastewater is 60 pCi/L and the maximum levels in soil are 5 pCi/g on the surface and 15 pCi/g in subsurface soils.

But in some of the Marcellus brines,  DEC found levels of radium-226 ranging up to 16,030 pCi/L - more than 3200 times higher than the allowable levels in groundwater and 267 times higher than what’s allowed to be discharged into streams. 

Radioactive Waste

These higher-than-expected levels of radionuclides does present a problem, given that the current waste treatment option for gas well brines is to transport them to a public wastewater treatment facility. And this past summer the New York State Department of Health (DOH) raised those concerns. According to a report by ProPublica, the DOH sent a letter to DEC warning of public health issues related to disposing of the drilling waste. Wastewater treatment plants will need to do more thorough testing before accepting drilling fluids, noted DOH, and workers may need to be monitored for radiation in much the same way as workers at nuclear facilities.

Four of the twelve or so active Marcellus wells in NY are operated by Fortuna, and all four of those wells are located in the little town of Orange, in Schuyler County. Given the relatively low volume of wastewater of the current vertical wells - compared to what’s expected from the horizontal Marcellus wells - and given the lack of local industrial wastewater treatment facilities, it is unclear how the gas companies expect to deal with disposal of Marcellus brines.

But one thing is certain: the DEC has not set out any rules regulating radionuclides. Instead, they will run another series of tests, says DEC spokesman Yancey Roy. Rick Kessey, an engineer at Fortuna, agrees that more tests are needed. The DEC’s test results aren’t wrong, Kessey said, but they do seem “out of whack” with previous tests.

Meanwhile, the Marcellus wastewater has to go somewhere. In the past, DEC has allowed brine to be spread on roads to help melt snow and keep down the dust. But public comments at DEC hearings and the recent Marcellus Shale summit held in Owego earlier this week indicate that people aren't comfortable with the idea of "hot salt" on their roads.

There's another problem, too, says Roy. The DEC is concerned about the potential buildup of radioactivity in scale inside casings, pipes and other drilling equipment. That equipment may have to be monitored, Roy said. In addition, the DEC is concerned about potential accumulation of NORM in the sludge from treated wastewater. Radioactive waste can’t be dumped in any municipal landfill in New York State, so that means shipping the waste to Utah, Idaho or other western states that have licensed disposal facilities. 

You can read the results of the brine tests yourself in Appendix 13 of the DEC’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement -click on Appendices part 1.
added December 21: You can read more about radioactivity in brines in this article from Broader View Weekly.

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".