OtegoNY.com

Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis hasn’t actually been doing a brilliant job of protecting NY State from the predatory Natural Gas Industry, but even though he is not a strong link, he was a link. But now the Governor Paterson has been convinced to even can him for the absurdly trumped-up charge of “insubordination.”

Yeah, he had the guts to say that the recent layoffs of over 200 DEC staff would seriously weaken the agency’s ability to protect New York’s environment. But who the hell cares about heath, safety, quality of life or the environment, when there are the profits of parasitic out-of-state corporations and their suck-ups to protect?

This from the Adironack Daily Enterprise:

“Many of our programs are hanging by a thread,” stated the memo, which was reported by the Albany Times Union on Tuesday. “The public would be shocked to learn how thin we are in many areas. DEC is in the weakest position that it has been since it was created 40 years ago.”

The memo warned that fewer polluted sites would be cleaned, stocking of game fish could be halted, and fewer regulators would be available to oversee the expected natural gas drilling boom in the Marcellus Shale that extends into southern New York.

So much for the the gas pusher’s claims that “You have to let the DEC do their jobs.” There go over 200 more DEC jobs that won’t be done.

It’s strange (but sadly predictable) that there will always be a portion of the population that will be fooled by people who see black as white, wrong as right (as well as  horizontal as vertical.) At every meeting where there have been pro-gas proponents, I’ve heard, “NY has the most regulations, staff, blah, blah, blah…” But we know that these are the same people who want to reduce that.

What was meager before is being reduced to woefully insufficient.

It’s no comfort to me and other anti-fracking people to know that all the pro-gas folks will regret what they are proposing some time in the future. I wish they could see that it’s not worth selling out now for a promise. But many people just don’t really think or care about the future, or the consequences of an irrational belief in “free money.”

Read the coverage at the Albany Times Union.

Take action!

This is from an e-mail from Walter Hang. It’s

Call and email Paterson to decry his efforts to cut critical environmental and health regulatory programs. Gutting DEC makes a mockery of his promise to make sure Marcellus Shale Gas Hydrofracking is done safely.  This is the last straw. Demand the draft SGEIS to be withdrawn.  Pour it on.  This is a golden opportunity.

Governor David Paterson

• 518-474-8390 (o)
• governor@chamber.state.ny.us

Please bcc: info@toxicstargeting.com so we can maintain a record of all contacts.

The coalitions of landowners who have fallen for the gas-industries propaganda like to say that high-density, high-pressure, horizontal hydraulic fracturing extraction natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale is “highly regulated.” Of course that is baloney. The regulations are meaningless when you can’t enforce them, and the gas industry laughs at them.

Big companies outsource to smaller companies, most of which are from out of state and somehow just don’t feel beholden to the interests of the locals or our area. If the big companies have certain screenings for their employees (and that is a big “if”), they can always hire smaller companies to do the dirty work. If the smaller companies are not rigorous in screening their employees, the bigger ones feel insulated against responsibility. This is what’s called “plausible deniability.” It works against the interests of the suckers who think the industry regulations are sufficient. It also works against everyone in the communities that are affected.

It’s sort of how the mafia works. Lenny the Shark contacts Joey the Fish who hires Sammy the Clam to hit Elmer the Yokel. Sammy is caught, but doesn’t rat on Joey. We all know that Lenny knew what he was doing, and is responsible. But just try to pin it on him.

It’s also similar to terrorist cells. Smaller groups are sacrificed to do the dirty work, but you can’t trace it back to the source. In our case you can trace it back, but convoluted laws and exemptions from laws protect the real perpetrators.

So what is happens when a small company hires someone who screws up? What happens when the person who screws up disappears from the scene? What happens if the company has been cited for violations before, but it keeps operating the without much accountability? What good are the regulations? Not much good, it appears.

Read this story about how 5J Oilfields Services violated permits several times in March of this year.

The tractor trailer, driven for 5J Oilfield Services, LLC out of Texas, was in violation of its permit and weighed in at nearly 53,000 pounds over the limit. The driver was fined more than $16,000 and released.

A $16,000 fine to the gas industry is a joke. That’s less than their lobbyists spend influencing local government officials and industry collaborators all over NY state in the time it takes to rent hotel space for a supposed “information conference”.

Less than 24 hours later, police stopped two more trucks from the same company at that same location after people called in traffic complaints.

Is there no end to this?

Then read about how a few months later how this Texas company’s truck ran off the road while speeding through Owego, NY, shearing off several telephone poles and a guardrail before resting the cab in a stormwater drainage ditch near a Family Practice office, and cut of local power to the area, including a nursing home, for hours.

The driver left the scene and wasn’t found by the police until hours later, after an extensive search. He was charged with fleeing the scene of a property damage accident, Driving While Intoxicated, imprudent speed, and criminal mischief 4th degree. According to Owego Police officer Brett Kobylarcz, Mohr was arrested and remanded to the Tioga County Jail in lieu of $5,000 cash or $10,000 property bond. (Another joke!)  (Thanks to Wendy Post at the Owego Pennysaver for her coverage of this incident.)

How serious is this industry? Just look at the website of the company they outsource to. Is it a sham?

After all of the egregious BS this industry hands out, and after we’ve all seen how lax regulations work (or don’t work) from the Gulf of Mexico to Wall Street, how is it that some flunky from the gas coalitions still think anyone will take them seriously when they try to pretend that the “DEC and a good lease will protect us?”

This letter is being reproduced from Catskill Citizens for Clean Energy.

Tell Paterson to Remove Grannis!

Under Commissioner Pete Grannis, the NYS DEC has concealed the Department’s shoddy safety record and misled the public about what’s really in fracking fluid.which is found on the home page of the website:  http://catskillcitizens.org/.

Throughout 2008, when the gas industry was actively leasing land for shale gas extraction, the DEC misled the public by refusing to acknowledge that high-volume hydraulic fracturing of horizontal shale gas wells would be significantly different than previous gas drilling operations in New York State. Director Field’s mantra that hydraulic fracturing “has been going on in New York for decades”1 seemed deliberately designed to lull the public into thinking that the Marcellus Shale gas play would resemble the low-volume fracturing operations that we had seen in the past.  Numerous inquiries to the Division of Mineral Resources prompted unsigned responses claiming that nothing new or different would be involved.

Also in 2008, the DEC succeeded in pushing a new well-spacing bill though the state legislature with little debate and scant public scrutiny. Although this “departmental” bill”2 was explicitly designed to facilitate the drilling of gigantic horizontal wells  which threaten to radically alter the landscape of western New York, Commissioner  Grannis  disingenuously characterized it as “a technical program bill [that] had nothing to do with anything related to environmental protections.”3   Instead he claimed it was “designed to protect adjacent landowners”.4

This bill was quickly moved out of Committee and passed late at night, on the last day of the legislative session.  Some lawmakers later complained that they weren’t even aware of the bill’s existence until hours before they were to vote on it. 5   Elected officials in New York City, and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, also felt blindsided by the swift enactment of this law which had enormous implications for the integrity of the city’s watershed.6

At a time when New Yorkers were just becoming aware of the dangers posed by toxic chemicals used in fracking fluid, the DEC misled the public by asserting that “Marcellus shale fracing operations in New York State use fresh water, sand, nitrogen and a diluted soapy solution to fracture the shale. These frac fluids do not contain benzene, toluene or xylene.“7   This May 2008 email from the DEC failed to mention any of the toxic chemicals used in fracking fluids except to say three dangerous chemicals were not used in New York.  Of course we now know that the DEC was not telling the truth – fracking fluids contain dozens of chemicals including benzene, toluene and xylene.8

Perhaps most frustrating of all, New Yorkers have had to listen to Commissioner Grannis and Director Field parrot the industry line that there has not been “one instance of drinking water contamination in over one million frack jobs”.9

All over the country water wells have exploded or been rendered unusable because they have been contaminated by fracking fluid, methane or total dissolved solids due to nearby fracking operations. It’s bad enough to hear industry flacks claim that none of these case count as contamination, but it’s outrageous to hear this absurd claim coming from the very people who should be studying these environmental disasters, and trying to find a way to avoid repeating them in New York.

This manifest indifference to the harm caused by drilling accidents is infuriating.  On at least one occasion, Mr. Field falsely dismissed an accident in Brookfield, New York as one where “a bit got stuck and muddied up a bunch of water wells.”10   This is a false and remarkably insensitive description of an incident in which some water wells were completely destroyed and others were left unusable for months on end.11

1. Director Field speaking at a public meeting in Liberty, New York July 1, 2008.

2. Commissioner Grannis testifying before the New York City Council Commission on Environmental Protection.  September 10, 2008.  Page 44 of the transcript.

3. Ibid.  Page 45 of the transcript.

4. Ibid.  Page 47 of the transcript.

5.  ”This issue came to my attention when a bill regarding well spacing appeared before the Assembly for a vote with very little time to review the issue.”  Testimony of Assembly Member Deborah Glick before the New York City Council Commission on Environmental Protection.  September 10, 2008.  Page 87 of the transcript.

6. See the remarks of Committee on Environmental Protection Chair James Gennaro.  Transcript of hearing, September 10, 2008.

7.   In a email message dated 5/28/2008 2:50:28 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

dmnog@gw.dec.state.ny.us wrote:   “Industry has used horizontal well drilling in New York since the late 1980s. Hydraulic fracturing has been commonly and safely used in New York State for decades. Marcellus shale fracing operations in New York State use fresh water, sand, nitrogen and a diluted soapy solution to fracture the shale. These frac fluids do not contain benzene, toluene or xylene.”

8. Draft SGEIS pp 5.34-5.66.

9. Director Field speaking at a public meeting in Liberty, New York July 1, 2008.

See also this exchange between Commissioner Grannis and Assemblyman Jim Bacalles before the New York State Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation, October 15, 2009

ASSEMBLYMAN JIM BACALLES:  Pete, you mentioned that we have been fracing gas wells for a long time …But are you aware of anywhere where a drinking well or any kind of watershed has been affected by that drilling that’s been going on for 20 years or so?

MR. GRANNIS: We are not Jim. We have no reports of, you know, there are accidental spills that take place on the sites, but we have no reports of water contamination associated with.

Page 79 of transcript

10.  Director Field speaking at a public meeting in Liberty, New York July 1, 2008.

11. The following articles originally appeared in the Syracuse Post:

SOME STILL WAIT FOR THEIR WATER BROOKFIELD SUPERVISOR SAYS MANY PROBLEMS WITH WELLS REMAIN UNSOLVED.  Alaina Potrikus Staff writer

Nearly three months after an accident at a natural gas drilling site caused some backyard water wells to turn into geysers, some North Brookfield residents are still relying on bottled water to meet their daily needs.

Tell Paterson to Remove Grannis!

Under Commissioner Pete Grannis, the NYS DEC has concealed the Department’s shoddy safety record and misled the public about what’s really in fracking fluid.

Note from Brian: I’ve written about the lies about “vertical is the same as horizontal,” and “they’ve been doing this for years,” and “there has never been any contamination.” You’d really have to be as dense as a fence post to still buy that stuff, but still people will believe anything if they are offered “free money” to believe it. It’s like the tooth fairy.

You can read more about it at these posts:

http://otegony.com/they-dont-even-lie-well

http://otegony.com/spinning-the-truth-about-horizontal-fracturing