OtegoNY.com

This letter appeared as a letter to the editor of the Oneonta Daily Star on Jan. 26, 2009. It is being reprinted here with the author’s permission.

People have right to avoid drilling

As American citizens and taxpayers, we all have individual rights that must be respected. The Bill of Rights includes a number of important freedoms, such as freedom of religion, free speech and press, and the right to bear arms.

Property owners who have already leased land for natural gas drilling argue that they have the right to use their land as they want. However, I would add that no one, be it your neighbors, the oil and gas industry, or the government, should have the right to force you to lease or give up your land, either through eminent domain, or the energy industry’s compulsory integration.

Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say that because all of your neighbors have done one thing, such as lease, that you have to do the same. Under compulsory integration, one is placed in a catch-22. Either you lease against your will, or don’t lease, have any natural gas stolen from you, and pay a percentage to the gas company for the privilege. Alternately, the company pays you a rock-bottom fee for being a hold-out. Glad I live in the land of the free.

To me, natural gas leasing is a lot like smoking. You can smoke all you want on your own time as long as others don’t have to breathe in secondhand smoke because of your decision. You do not have the right to subject others to lung cancer. Likewise, if you drill and they pollute your land, air and water, that is your choice until it destroys other people’s land, air, water and quality of life. Remember, no man is an island. Also, remember that people have got their lawyers on speed dial and have the right to sue you and the gas company. Choose wisely.

Megan Byrnes
Otego

Right on, Megan!

This graphic is from an Idea thought up by Megan Byrnes. I think it says it as well as anything else.
 

How is natural gas drilling like a game?  It is frequently referred to by the oil and gas companies as a “play,” only it is a game in which there is no level playing field, no clear-cut winners, and no ”do-overs” if mistakes are made.

In this game, New York State, by way of the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), is required to be the referee and regulate natural gas wells as they are drilled, yet there are not enough inspectors (currently there are only 19 inspectors to regulate 6,683 pre-existing vertical wells across the entire state), nor is there necessarily money to train and hire more during the state’s budget crisis.  The federal government is primarily a benchwarmer, since the 2005 Energy Policy Act exempts the oil and gas companies (and horizontal drilling, by extension) from the clean water, air, and safe drinking water acts.

There are also at least two divisions, or tiers, in the game of natural gas drilling and extraction; us (i.e. the majority of New York State) and New York City.  In the DEC’s draft scope document for the

Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, or dSGEIS, New York City and its drinking water are provided with a special “1,000 ft. wide protective corridor” around aqueducts and a 1-mile buffer around reservoirs.  In contrast, we are expected to be content with a minimum of 50 ft. from public streams and rivers, 100 ft. from wetlands, and 100 ft. from private homes and water wells. (To give you a visual image, 100 ft. is about 1/3 the size of an average football field.)  Why is the clean drinking water of New York City considered to be more important than our own?

Cities like Oneonta, and larger towns and villages should not be complacent, either.  While the scoping document apparently thinks that municipal water should have more protection than private water wells

(around 1,000 ft.), the DEC and the private gas companies reserve the right to obtain special permits to drill closer if there is a lot of natural gas to be extracted.  Drilling can also take place a short distance from public buildings like schools (150 feet away), and even in densely populated suburbs, as in Fort Worth, Texas.  Airborne pollutants like diesel fumes, methane, and evaporated fracking chemicals from open pits, and 24-hour noise from compressors and drills, recognize no boundaries or exclusive addresses.

So, what can you do to level this “playing field?”  For starters, attend the Department of Environmental Conservation’s scoping hearing on December 2 in the Hunt Union Ballroom at SUCO. (Doors open at 4:30 pm.)  Learn more online and talk to your friends about the issue. Hold off on leasing your land.  Attend your local village and town board meetings and remind them, the DEC, and Governor Patterson who they are working for—not private gas companies, but YOU.  Only by standing up now can we prevent the “Marcellus Gas Play” from turning into a game of Russian Roulette.  Or a New York State version of the movie Erin Brockovich.

Megan Byrnes, Concerned Citizens for Otego

This is from the Scientific American website from November 17, 2008:

In July a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wy. and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

Read the article at the Scientific American .

Please leave a comment about your feelings on the fact that the gas companies are exempted from the Clean Water Act.

Pennsylvania has that covered, but NY is still behind the the eight-ball on this one. The industry is mealy-mouthed about it. They contend that they have to reveal what chemicals they use, but they are not giving them in their entirety, and none of it is made public. 

What’s frequently told to the DEC is the kind of chemical, or generic names, but not the specifics. This is done to conceal what is really going on. Why on earth would anyone trust these people?

I’d like to thank the webmaster at EssentialDissent for letting us embed these video’s his blog that blog.

The following 3 videos are from the meeting called “Health, Land, Law and Natural Gas Production”

Binghamton, NY; October 29, 2008
(please be patient while the videos load – they are pretty long)
 

The videos are “Making Sure We Get It Right”, Part 1 though 3

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

One of the six public hearings on environmental issues associated with natural gas drilling will be at the State University College at Oneonta on Dec. 2.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation had previously announced communities and dates for the series of hearings. Officials recently released specific times and locations.

The Oneonta hearing will be at the Hunt Union Ballroom. The site will open at 4:30 p.m., with the formal meeting beginning at 5:15 p.m. Brief remarks by DEC staff will be followed by public comments starting at 6 p.m.

The meetings were scheduled to give the public an opportunity to participate in the analysis of the potential environmental impacts of high-volume hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells in New York’s natural gas-bearing Marcellus and Utica shale formations, according to the DEC.

Other hearings are Nov. 6 in Allegany, Nov. 12 in Bath, Nov. 13 in Elmira, Nov. 17 in Binghamton and Dec. 4 in Loch Sheldrake.

Although there is a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) covering gas and oil drilling in the state, the DEC determined that a supplement was needed to address issues related to the large volumes of water required to ‘hydrofracture’ the shale to release the gas.

As a first step of its review, DEC recently released a draft scope that proposes issues to be covered in the analysis. The forums give the public the opportunity to review and comment.

In addition to the DEC’s website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/45912.html , copies of the draft scope, a Glossary of Technical Terms and related materials are available at the following area locations:

DEC Region 4, Stamford Sub-office 65561 State Highway 10, Suite 1, Stamford, 652-3722.
Huntington Memorial Library, 62 Chestnut St., Oneonta.
William B. Ogden Free Library, 42 Gardner Place, Walton.
Rogers Education Center, 2721 State Route 80, Sherburne, 674-4017.
Guernsey Public Library, 3 Court St., Norwich.

I’d like to thank all the people who attended, as well as those who ran, the meeting about the gas lease situation tonight. 

There were so many thoughtful questions, and so many intelligent responses from the panel. 

It was also nice to see that even though most of us were impassioned towards a moratorium on gas drilling in our area, that all viewpoints were welcomed. Had this been the case at at the previous meetings at the school (run by the local coalition, who refused to entertain meaningful input from anyone with opposing thoughts) this meeting would not have been necessary. 

It was nice to see so many thoughtful neighbors and friends from other parts of the county at the meeting, as well. 

As was mentioned, we’d love your input on this blog. Feel free to leave comments (of any point of view, but remember, no flaming, and no anonymous comments, please).

And please send in any relevant links you have. I’ll put ‘em all up as soon as I can.

It’s taken us a while, but we have finally organized a presentation addressing concerns about natural gas drilling in our area.  Our meeting will be held at Unatego High School on Wednesday, October 22 at 7 pm.  We hope that you will be able to join us then.
 
Also, we have attached a flyer about the meeting to this e-mail.  Please feel free to copy this for distribution and display in your area.  All communities and interested individuals are welcome to attend.
 
Sincerely,
 
The Concerned Citizens for Otego group