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Feature- Delaware River Basin Commission Hears Comments On Drilling Concerns In Wayne County
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By Sandy Long, River Reporter MATAMORAS, PA — Despite the highly divisive issue at stake—consideration of permits related to natural gas extraction in Wayne County—people on both sides of the debate found some common ground in their desire to see the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) increase its efforts to improve the safety of the process before permitting it to multiply throughout the Delaware River Basin. Under consideration are two permits sought by Stone Energy for approval of the Matoushek #1 Well Pad Site and the withdrawal of up to 700,000 gallons of water per day from the West Branch of the Lackawaxen River in Mount Pleasant. The DRBC received oral comments from 76 individuals who braved winter weather to testify at the February 24 hearing in Matamoras. While 71 people opposed approval of the permits without additional studies, five commented in favor of moving ahead, with most urging the DRBC to assure the safety of the process. Approximately 300 people attended.
Those commenting included full-time and part-time residents of the region, business owners, people living downstream from the targeted drilling areas and others. Some traveled up to three hours by bus to register comments. Several from the Southeastern PA coal mining region cited the lingering environmental legacy of rust-colored streams, desolate landscapes, health impacts and ongoing poverty that has ensued from that resource extraction process. Others called the process safe and lauded its potential economic benefits.
Noting that the Stone applications represent the first permits being issued in the Delaware River Basin, Congressman Joe Sestak (PA-07) submitted written comments stating that the DRBC’s decision will establish guidelines for the future of natural gas development in the region.
“I strongly encourage the DRBC to defer any permits for drilling in unconventional shale plays, including these, until Pennsylvania passes the regulations and the legislation necessary to protect the environment and to ensure people’s rights to their health and property,” wrote Sestak. “The DRBC should give itself the time to finish developing its natural-gas-specific regulations. In addition, a comprehensive analysis should be completed of the cumulative effects on the impacts of natural gas related projects, including gas wells, water withdrawals, and treatment facilities.”
The hearing opened with a presentation on the provisions of the proposed dockets. Objections were raised regarding the absence of DRBC executive director Carol Collier and all but one of the commissioners. Collier was scheduled to attend the original hearing date on February 11, but the rescheduled date conflicted with a previous commitment. She said DRBC staff have briefed her and that she will also read the hearing transcript. Collier added that New York State would have sent a representative if not for the severe travel restrictions due to the state budget. Sue Weaver, who represents the State of Pennsylvania and Governor Rendell as a commissioner and is Chief of the Water Use Planning Division at PA Department of Environmental Protection, was present.
Several concerns were cited repeatedly, including calls for cumulative and environmental impact studies. Members of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS) spoke first. “Permitting one well at a time, without regarding the cumulative effects of hundreds of thousands of wells in the area, along with water withdrawals, compressors, pipelines and trucks, does not take the total industrialization of the rural area into account,” said Bernie Handler.
James Barth added, “Executive director Carol Collier promised to deliver a comprehensive study and to formulate uniform regulations for the entire basin. Until that is accomplished, the commissioners should declare a moratorium. Your job is to prevent contamination, not permit and manage it.”
NYH2O member Monica Hunken sang her remarks to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive."
Those speaking in favor of approving the permits included Orange County, NY landowner Eric Hupka, a member of a hunting club that has leased its land. “Our country is in desperate need of alternatives to get us away from oil,” he said. “Natural gas will do that. Our states are desperately in need of revenue. Taxes from gas production will provide this. Our local economies are hurting. Gas production will help our businesses, provide funding for our school systems and improve our roads and infrastructure.”
Ted Korb, a Texas Township, Wayne County property owner said the lease his small hunting club signed helped to save its 1,100 acres from development. “I don’t know how much longer the club would have survived. We were thinking about what it was worth in the real estate market. The economic end of this means more to me right now, though not more than water. We’re all saying no, but we need to come up with suggestions for other ways to do this. I’m not 100 percent sure that it’s the right thing, but right now, we desperately need this resource.”
Marian Schweighofer, executive director of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance spoke in support of the Stone permits. “The DRBC compact says that economic opportunity will not be taken away from PA residents and property owners. By not allowing this process to go forward in a responsible manner, it would be a taking of something that property owners own. It’s called inverse condemnation, especially if people are not being paid for what is taken from them.”
Pleasant Mount property owner Clarke Pitcairn said he signed a lease on the property where he has raised five children since 1987. “We have to look for new sources of energy, not foreign sources. There are some fracking practices that aren’t good, but using state-of-the-art technology, it can be done safely.”
Lee Hartman, a resident of Wayne County and chairman of the Delaware River Committee of the PA Council of Trout Unlimited (PATU), which represents 12,000 members, said that over 90 percent of the Wayne County watershed is classified as high quality or exceptional value. PATU is requesting a moratorium until a scientific review of hydraulic fracturing is completed to determine the long-and short-term effects it will have, said Hartman.
“The West Branch of the Lackawaxen River is a tributary classified as a high-quality cold-water wild-trout stream,” he said. “The request to withdraw water from this tiny tributary would significantly impact the low-volume stream, could impair hydrologic functions and could also impact important components of life cycles of its fish sufficient to cause death and/or damage to its ecosystem.”
Robert Stanfield, a retired petroleum engineer with close to 40 years in the industry, said that while he supports the recovery of natural gas, it must be done responsibly. He charged that the record for gas drilling in Pennsylvania “leaves much to be desired,” and advocated that “real-time monitoring” become part of the permitting process.
Larry Menkes of Bucks County called the matter a “tragedy of the commons,” which occurs when the costs of individualized use of a resource are shifted to the community. “We privatize the profits and we commonize the costs. I have heard that it will cost the taxpayers of PA upwards of $3 billion a year for the commonized costs of fracking for natural gas.”
Cliff Westfall, a full-time resident of New Jersey and a part-time resident of Wayne County, urged the DRBC to reject the permits. “These applications are premature, given that the commission has given no opportunity for public comment on its promised comprehensive regulations, nor even any indication what the substance of those regulations will be. In the absence of any standard of review by which to judge applications, it is difficult to see how agency approval could avoid being arbitrary and capricious in this instance.”
After listening to many of the comments, William Dohe, who traveled from Easton, PA, noted, “Even the folks in support of permitting have asked for scientific and safe processes. We have the opportunity to do some good planning now.”
Comments may be submitted until 5:00 p.m. on March 12. Details are available at the DRBC website. A presentation given by DRBC staff at the hearing can also be viewed at this link.
According to DRBC deputy executive director Robert Tudor, the next meeting in which commissioners could act on the draft dockets is May 5 but, if they choose to deliberate longer, there may be no action on that date. Reprinted from the March 4 issue of River Reporter
NewsClip: Gas Drilling Spurs Pollution Fears
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3/8/2010 |
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