BREAKING NEWS: DEC Attempts End Run Around Natural Gas Drilling Concerns — from Catskill Mountainkeeper
At first glance it appears as if the State’s announcement today to offer separate reviews of gas drilling in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds is being done to protect the drinking water of New York City and Syracuse.
However, in reading the DEC’s statement closely, it is clear that they are not offering any special protections to these cities but are instead saying that the rules to determine permitting for gas drilling will be different in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds than in the rest of New York State.
The DEC statement said that gas drilling in the watersheds will NOT be regulated by the rules in the GEIS and that each individual well in the watersheds will need to go through an environmental review.
They did not say that drilling is banned in the watershed and they did not say that each individual well permit in the watersheds would need a supplemental impact study. Based on what they did say, the regulations governing permitting for gas drilling using hydrofracking in the watersheds will be different, which means that those regulations could even be less rigorous that those they would cover the rest of New York State.
There is no way to know the motivations or thinking behind the DEC’s statement, however:
It appears as if the DEC is trying to give the impression that there won’t be drilling in the watersheds to remove political pressure from New York City officials.
It also appears as if the DEC decided to exclude the watersheds from their final GEIS so that they won’t have to address the comments from the comprehensive scientific study that was prepared by the New York City DEP as part of their review of the Draft DGEIS. We would like the DEC to clarify whether or not they will analyze these comments as part of their review process.
Whatever their motives, this announcement does nothing to further protect the people of New York State from health and environmental threats posed by industrial gas drilling.
Ramsay Adams, Executive Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper said, “This is an attempt to take the watershed issue off the table without actually dealing with it, to fast- track drilling for the rest of us. And it’s not even protecting the watersheds. It’s bad on both levels. It’s a really unfortunate turn of events, because it doesn’t address any of the fundamental problems.”
Catskill Mountainkeeper calls on Governor Paterson and DEC Commissioner Grannis to hold up the issuance of any final report until all the scientific evidence (including the results of the recently commissioned report by the EPA) can be thoroughly reviewed and evaluated AND a second draft is issued so the public has the opportunity to review and comment. The stakes are too high and the potential danger is too great to do otherwise.
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