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GAS DRILLING IN THE CATSKILLS
NOTE: The following is a compilation of available information edited and written by the Catskill Mountainkeeper in order to help educate the public.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a ruling on where gas drilling can go forward and under what conditions it can operate. Catskill Mountainkeeper is in the process of reviewing the ruling and will soon issue an analysis of what is being proposed.
It is unclear if gas drilling as it is now being practiced is safe under any conditions.
Gas drilling with the new technology in high volume fracturing has only been operating a year and a half in neighboring Pennsylvania and already there have been horrific accidents that have had disastrous consequences – water has been contaminated, whole ecosystems have been destroyed and there have been methane gas explosions in homes. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON GAS DRILLING ACCIDENTS
BACKGROUND
The Catskills are a prime drilling location for natural gas because it sits on top of the Marcellus Shale field, the Utica Shale field and three other target formations. These are enormous, subterranean layers of rock between 6000 – 8000 feet below the surface that run east from the Catskills, south from the Mohawk Valley to West Virginia and west through Pennsylvania and Ohio. The pores and fractures of the shale contain natural gas. Geologists have known about the gas here for years but with new technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, recovering the gas has become cost effective. Land men, representatives of large gas companies, have been traversing our area over the last few years, buying up development leases with the rights to drill for natural gas.
What the gas companies do not want us to know are the dire environmental and social problems that come along with gas drilling. Experts have warned of depletion of water aquifers, the contamination of ground-water, soil and air with potentially toxic materials, the introduction of normally occurring radioactive material (NORMS) found in many geological formations which can be brought to the surface on drilling equipment and in fluids and the inability of local wastewater treatment facilities to dispose of the amount of waste involved in large scale drilling.
The disposal of wastewater will be one of the most significant problems facing our local municipalities in the coming years. In the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation report of March 2008 titled, Wastewater Infrastructure Needs of New York State: they report:
“The conservative cost estimate of repairing, replacing, and updating New York’s municipal wastewater infrastructure is $36.2 billion over the next 20 years.” Note: This estimate did not include any provision for disposing of the wastewater from gas drilling.
In communities around the country where there has been extensive drilling there has been tremendous stress on community’s infrastructures, severe health problems, a sharp drop in property values and many other hazards including an incidence of earthquakes from highly altering the subsurface layers of rock.
BOOM AND BUST
The gas industry works in cycles. These cycles are called boom and bust because the resources that the industry is exploiting are finite resources. Once the gas is extracted, the companies move out. While booms increase a town’s capital base in the short term they also impact natural local systems like the ground water, open space/wilderness and air quality and most of all they are not sustainable. When the gas companies stop drilling the towns are left with ravaged landscapes that can no longer support the original economy. In the Catskills that means we will lose our land and natural beauty. CLICK HERE TO HEAR ONE WYOMING RESIDENT’S STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE BOOM.
THE PROCESS
The process of getting the gas out the shale is a highly industrial undertaking which includes numerous truckloads of equipment, chemicals, sand and water along with generators, pumps, drilling rigs and hoists. In addition to the drill, the site contains a large holding pond for the contaminated waste products from the process. The wells run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and produce exhaust fumes and noise – the sound of a drill is comparable to the sound of a jet engine. When gas is found there can be a release of the various gases in the formation.
Hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) is a technique used to create fractures in the shale to allow gas to travel more easily from the rock pores where the gas is trapped, to the production well. In order to create fractures a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is pumped into the rock under high pressure. When the fluid can no longer be absorbed the pressure causes the formation to crack or fracture and allows the gas to flow through the fractures to the well. Some of the fracturing fluids are pumped out of the well and into surface holding pits or tanks but studies have shown that anywhere between 20-40% of fracking fluids may remain underground.
The process of fracking requires millions of gallons of water, which are drawn from area lakes and rivers and transported in large 18 wheeler trucks over local roads. Each million gallons of water in fracking fluid includes 40,000 lbs. of chemicals. Therefore, conservatively, if each individual fracking uses3,000,000 to 6,000,000 gallons of water there will be anywhere from 120,000 lbs. up to 240,000 lbs. of chemicals. There are reports of some fracking operations taking up to 8,000,000 gallons - that’s 320,000 lbs. of chemicals that will be shipped over our local roads to be mixed onsite with the 800 tractor trailer loads of water. If 70% is recovered from the well that is 5,600,000 gallons of contaminated water to be shipped to a wastewater facility in 560 tractor trailers. This is one well, one fracking operation. There are multiple frackings done at one well and possibly hundreds or thousands of wells across the state. (This is based on a tractor trailer load carrying 10,000 gallons a load.)
AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH THREAT OF PARTICULAR CONCERN IN OUR AREA
Of particular concern in the Catskills is the effect of toxic chemicals getting into the aquifer (the underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials -gravel, sand, silt or clay- from which groundwater can be extracted using water wells.)
As Ralph Heath, a respected USGS geologist, wrote in 1964: “…..In most places ground water occurs in and moves through an intricate network of very small openings. Remarkably few wells drilling in New York fail to penetrate at least a few of these openings."
New York City officials have asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to establish a one-mile protective perimeter around each of the city’s six major Catskill reservoirs and connecting infrastructure because they fear that drilling could contaminate the city’s drinking water. New York is one of four major cities in the United States with a special permit allowing its drinking water to go unfiltered. If the special permit was revoked the city would have to build a treatment facility that could cost nearly $10 billion which is roughly what the state estimated it would earn from gas development over the next decade.
The identities of the toxic chemicals used in hydrofracking are protected by the gas companies as business “trade secrets”. Gas companies have so far successfully claimed that revealing the chemicals they use would cause them to lose competitive advantages. The gas companies have also fought tirelessly to exempt the process of hydraulic fracturing from federal government regulation. They say that the costs would cripple their business and that the state regulations are already strong. These assertions have been widely disputed by commissions and groups who point to inconsistent and inadequate state regulations and question the cost estimates to regulate that are advanced by the gas companies.
So far the gas companies have been successful and the drilling processes are exempted from many of the federal environmental laws created to safeguard public water — including the Safe Drinking Water Act. This lack of regulation has been excused by our national priorities to control climate change and become energy independent since burning gas emits less greenhouse gas than burning oil. However, getting gas out of the ground is anything but clean - there can no excuse for not having regulations to monitor our water and air. The gas company’s assertions that hydraulic fracturing is safe run counter to the thousands of documented cases of the contamination of drinking water supplies, streams and aquifers and even residential wells across the country where there has been intensive drilling. At the very least hydraulic fracturing requires further comprehensive study to determine the relative risk and best practices.
In spite of the fact that gas companies have not revealed the chemicals they use, scientists have identified almost 300 chemicals that are used in the fracking process. They include carcinogens (chemicals capable of inducing cancer in humans after prolonged or excessive exposure), reproductive toxicants (which interfere with sexual functioning and the reproductive ability of exposed individuals from puberty throughout adulthood), arsenic (suspected cause of many types of cancer), hydrogen sulfide (a broad-spectrum poison, particularly destructive to the nervous system and mercury (a highly toxic neurotoxin which attacks the central nervous system and is corrosive to the gastro-intestinal organs).
THREAT TO OUR WILDLIFE
Not only do these chemicals affect humans, they also affect fish, birds, and wildlife. Wildlife is also in danger from the destruction of forests when wells are built. The Catskills and adjacent lands in Pennsylvania contain some of the largest contiguous forest blocks east of the Mississippi River. This area acts as an important species corridor between the Catskill Park, the Shawangunk Ridge, the Hudson Highlands and the Poconos. Multiple endangered and special concern species have a vibrant habitat here. The number of roads and increased heavy truck traffic and cleared swaths for pipelines to connect the drilling pads to the Millennium pipeline will dissect these import forest blocks and corridor.
THREAT TO OUR LANDOWNERS
The greatest threat to landowners in our region is to those who are close to the Millennium Pipeline which will be the main outlet for all of the natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Valley and Catskills. The 30” wide pipeline will run 182 miles from Corning, NY, through the Southern Tier and to the Hudson River Valley region and terminate at Ramapo in Rockland County, NY. In New York it goes through the counties of Steuben, Chemung, Tioga, Broome, Delaware, Sullivan, Orange and Rockland.
Drilling is already heavily underway in close-by Pennsylvania. Drilling sites and gravel pits are popping up in a seemingly random pattern alongside houses, farms and churches; pipelines and access roads are zigzagging across the landscape; there are holding ponds overflowing with what is very likely chemically contaminated wastewater and dozens of large freight trucks lining up in fields.
Whether gas drilling will ultimately take place in the New York State Catskill region or what its impact will be on people, the environment and our infrastructure are still not established as absolute facts. However, it’s very clear that gas drilling poses very serious hazards to our way of life. The Catskill Mountainkeeper is advocating for clear understanding of gas drilling’s impact and strict regulations to control it if it does happen. We are fighting to preserve the long term health of the Catskill region. Please join us in this fight.
CLICK HERE FOR OUR NATURAL GAS DRILLING ARCHIVE - THIS IS AN EXTENSIVE DOCUMENT WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE MARCELLUS SHALE DEVELOPMENT DATING BACK 2 YEARS
The Catskill Mountainkeeper needs your help TODAY!
· Register your opposition – Click here to sign a petition
· Contribute to us so we can continue to lead the fight – Click here to give
· Get involved, it’s your Catskills – Click here to volunteer
RESOURCES
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation “Wastewater Infrastructure Needs of New York State”, March 2008
“Drilling process causes water supply alarm” by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPblica 11/17/08
“Chemicals in the hydrofracking process”: the River Reporter in Narrowsburg, NY, 12/4/08
“Activist: Drilling in N.Y. needs scrutiny: by Stacey Shackford, The Ithaca Journal; 6/24/09
“What is Groundwater?” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation