Enfield residents speak out on hydrofracking_11-30-11

December 1, 2011

Shaleshock Media : Enfield_11-30-11.

1-Intro: Enfield Residents Speak Out on hydrofrackingThursday, December 01, 2011 1:02 AM

Part 1 of 3 Enfield Board Seeks Input on Fracking Ban The Enfield Town Board heard residents’ opinions about enacting a ban on hydrofracking at a public meeting on Thursday, November 30, 2011 at the Enfield Elementary School. Over 200 showed up and 74 spoke. The meeting was called by the board to hear from residents on all sides regarding a ban or moratorium, and related issues such as road and aquifer protection. Only two spoke in opposition to a ban. This follows a November 17th meeting at which attorneys strongly recommended that the Town enact a ban or a moratorium before the State begins issuing drilling permits, perhaps as soon as early in 2012. According to Town attorney Guy Krogh and Community Environmental Defense Council attorney David Slottje, the Town faces both financial and environmental risks if the Board fails to act quickly. A ban would offer time to enact local laws protecting the Town’s highways, to map the aquifer that supplies water to most of the residents, to identify other critical natural areas, and to await the results of numerous scientific studies now underway to investigate health and safety concerns. Once permits are issued, the attorneys warned, the Town could not enact a ban or moratorium without exposure to gas company lawsuits seeking compensation for lost revenues, perhaps totaling millions of dollars. A coalition of Enfield citizens has presented the Town Board with a petition bearing the signatures of nearly 900 residents and landowners urging the Board to ban high volume slickwater hydraulic fracturing. Although 44% of the land in Enfield is under lease to the gas companies, 28 large landowners and leaseholders were among those who signed the petition. At the Board’s last two meetings, numerous residents spoke about potential adverse impacts on agriculture, public health, the environment, and the rural nature of the Town. Currently in New York State 76 municipalities are moving toward or have enacted bans or moratoria. Locally bans are already in place in Danby, Dryden, Ithaca, and Ulysses, and under consideration in Caroline where candidates supporting a ban won resounding victories in the November elections.Media files Shaleshock-1IntroEnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking368.mp3 (MP3 Format Sound, 2.1 MB) Shaleshock-1IntroEnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking438.mov (QuickTime Movie, 37.3 MB) Shaleshock-1IntroEnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking756.mp4 (MP4 Video, 18.9 MB) Shaleshock-1IntroEnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking882.m4v (MP4 Video, 23.7 MB)2-Speakers 1-30: Enfield Residents Speak Out on hydrofrackingThursday, December 01, 2011 1:20 AM

Part 2 of 3 Enfield Board Seeks Input on Fracking Ban. Video by Cris McConkey. The Enfield Town Board heard residents’ opinions about enacting a ban on hydrofracking at a public meeting on Thursday, November 30, 2011 at the Enfield Elementary School. Over 200 showed up and 74 spoke. The meeting was called by the board to hear from residents on all sides regarding a ban or moratorium, and related issues such as road and aquifer protection. Only two spoke in opposition to a ban. This follows a November 17th meeting at which attorneys strongly recommended that the Town enact a ban or a moratorium before the State begins issuing drilling permits, perhaps as soon as early in 2012. According to Town attorney Guy Krogh and Community Environmental Defense Council attorney David Slottje, the Town faces both financial and environmental risks if the Board fails to act quickly. A ban would offer time to enact local laws protecting the Town’s highways, to map the aquifer that supplies water to most of the residents, to identify other critical natural areas, and to await the results of numerous scientific studies now underway to investigate health and safety concerns. Once permits are issued, the attorneys warned, the Town could not enact a ban or moratorium without exposure to gas company lawsuits seeking compensation for lost revenues, perhaps totaling millions of dollars. A coalition of Enfield citizens has presented the Town Board with a petition bearing the signatures of nearly 900 residents and landowners urging the Board to ban high volume slickwater hydraulic fracturing. Although 44% of the land in Enfield is under lease to the gas companies, 28 large landowners and leaseholders were among those who signed the petition. At the Board’s last two meetings, numerous residents spoke about potential adverse impacts on agriculture, public health, the environment, and the rural nature of the Town. Currently in New York State 76 municipalities are moving toward or have enacted bans or moratoria. Locally bans are already in place in Danby, Dryden, Ithaca, and Ulysses, and under consideration in Caroline where candidates supporting a ban won resounding victories in the November elections.Media files Shaleshock-2Speakers130EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking118.mp3 (MP3 Format Sound, 42.6 MB) Shaleshock-2Speakers130EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking423.mov (QuickTime Movie, 731 MB) Shaleshock-2Speakers130EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking910.mp4 (MP4 Video, 266 MB) Shaleshock-2Speakers130EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking455.m4v (MP4 Video, 347 MB)3-Speakers 31-74: Enfield Residents Speak Out on hydrofrackingThursday, December 01, 2011 1:20 AM

Part 1 of 3 Enfield Board Seeks Input on Fracking Ban. Video by Cris McConkey. The Enfield Town Board heard residents’ opinions about enacting a ban on hydrofracking at a public meeting on Thursday, November 30, 2011 at the Enfield Elementary School. Over 200 showed up and 74 spoke. The meeting was called by the board to hear from residents on all sides regarding a ban or moratorium, and related issues such as road and aquifer protection. Only two spoke in opposition to a ban. This follows a November 17th meeting at which attorneys strongly recommended that the Town enact a ban or a moratorium before the State begins issuing drilling permits, perhaps as soon as early in 2012. According to Town attorney Guy Krogh and Community Environmental Defense Council attorney David Slottje, the Town faces both financial and environmental risks if the Board fails to act quickly. A ban would offer time to enact local laws protecting the Town’s highways, to map the aquifer that supplies water to most of the residents, to identify other critical natural areas, and to await the results of numerous scientific studies now underway to investigate health and safety concerns. Once permits are issued, the attorneys warned, the Town could not enact a ban or moratorium without exposure to gas company lawsuits seeking compensation for lost revenues, perhaps totaling millions of dollars. A coalition of Enfield citizens has presented the Town Board with a petition bearing the signatures of nearly 900 residents and landowners urging the Board to ban high volume slickwater hydraulic fracturing. Although 44% of the land in Enfield is under lease to the gas companies, 28 large landowners and leaseholders were among those who signed the petition. At the Board’s last two meetings, numerous residents spoke about potential adverse impacts on agriculture, public health, the environment, and the rural nature of the Town. Currently in New York State 76 municipalities are moving toward or have enacted bans or moratoria. Locally bans are already in place in Danby, Dryden, Ithaca, and Ulysses, and under consideration in Caroline where candidates supporting a ban won resounding victories in the November elections.Media files Shaleshock-3Speakers3174EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking731.mp3 (MP3 Format Sound, 44.4 MB) Shaleshock-3Speakers3174EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking423.mov (QuickTime Movie, 766 MB) Shaleshock-3Speakers3174EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking248.mp4 (MP4 Video, 290 MB) Shaleshock-3Speakers3174EnfieldResidentsSpeakOutOnHydrofracking238.m4v (MP4 Video, 377 MB)

Filed under Bans, Community Impacts Tagged with , , ,

NY state next battleground over fracking

November 29, 2011

Newsday: NY state next battleground over fracking
By TED PHILLIPS:
Nov 27, 2011
 
For Robert and Christine Applegate, the 40-acre farm in upstate Virgil, near Cortland, where they raise chickens and grow vegetables including broccoli and eggplant to sell at the local farmers market, is the property they’ve always dreamed of owning.
 
They fear that the push to permit hydrofracking — the pumping of millions of gallons of water underground to force the release of natural gas — in New York could destroy their land, pollute their drinking water and turn the countryside into an industrial landscape.
 
“We go out and work all day and all you hear is the wind,” said Robert Applegate, 64, a retired teacher whose property borders land he said has been leased to a fracking company. “For each one of those wells they’re talking about 8,000 truck trips. There’s the roar of the compression station if there’s a well anywhere near the house. I’m told that it drives you crazy.”
 
But Don Niver of nearby Cortlandville, a facilities manager at an asphalt company, says drilling can be done safely, and he hopes to make a modest amount of money by leasing his land to the energy companies.
 
“I’m kind of wishfully thinking that maybe down the road my children might benefit from it,” said Niver, 47.
 
The debate over the natural gas extraction process called high-volume horizontal fracturing, or fracking, is pitting neighbor against neighbor across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions of New York.
 
 
 
Steady revenue eyed
 
Energy companies are eyeing steady revenue, while some residents of economically depressed communities are hoping to collect royalties from gas revenue and see an influx of jobs. A study for the state Department of Environmental Conservation suggested that fracking could provide 6,200 to 37,000 jobs in the peak 30th year of production, depending on how much gas can be extracted, and generate $31 million to $185 million in state personal income taxes. The estimates were derived from industry projections.
 
But the prospect of widespread drilling has sparked opposition from environmentalists and other residents who fear air pollution, water contamination and the industrialization of rural areas. Governments also would have to spend money on bridge and road improvements to accommodate truck and equipment traffic needed to support drilling.
 
As the battle rages on the airwaves and in courts and town halls, the state has embarked on a regulatory path to gain the income that fracking generates while avoiding the mistakes of Pennsylvania and other parts of the country.
 
Pennsylvania’s problems with well construction and equipment failure have led to methane gas seeping into water supplies. While dissolved methane is not classified as a health hazard, the gas could cause asphyxiation and explosions in enclosed spaces, according to a study published this year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
 
Chemical spills also have occurred. In September 2009, about 8,000 gallons of liquid gel at the site of a Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. gas well in Dimock Township spilled into Stevens Creek, killing fish and polluting a wetland, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The wetland was flushed with water, and the gel mixture was pumped to storage tanks.
 
Shale formations deep in the earth contain pockets of natural gas that can’t be tapped economically by conventional methods. Hydraulic fracturing pumps millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals, some of them toxic, into the shale to release the gas. The gas, along with some of the water and chemicals, rises to the surface.
 
The Marcellus shale formation stretches across Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. It holds an estimated 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that can be extracted, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Based on Henry Hubb spot natural gas prices last week, that would be worth $244.14 billion. U.S. households used 4.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2010.
 
In New York, the Marcellus and Utica shales lie under the state’s western and central regions, the Southern Tier, the Catskills and parts of the Hudson Valley. The USGS has not estimated how much gas can be recovered from the Utica shale.
 
The gas industry says fracking poses no threat to water supplies because the fracturing occurs deep below them. But reports of water contamination and chemical spills in other states have set off alarms in New York. The state released a draft environmental impact statement in 2009, and last December, then-Gov. David A. Paterson issued a seven-month moratorium on fracking and called for a new environmental study. Energy companies are waiting for the state to complete new regulations and issue drilling permits.
 
“There are far more questions than answers even at this stage of the game,” said Robert Moore, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, which lobbies for stronger environmental laws, and a member of a state advisory panel on fracking.
 
“We’re still struggling with what are the negative consequences associated with hydrofracking . . . Are they really outweighed by the perceived benefits in terms of jobs and revenues for state and local governments?” Moore said.
 
 
 
Concern about wastewater
 
One concern is what happens to the mix of water and chemicals that will come out of the wells. “We’re talking about billions of gallons of wastewater being generated,” Moore said. “We know most municipal sewage plants are not set up to adequately treat this stuff.”
 
Mark Boling, executive vice president and general counsel for Houston-based Southwestern Energy, a natural gas producer, said environmentalists and the industry have become engaged in a kind of trench warfare that doesn’t help the public understand the safety issues.
 
“It is very difficult to actually sit down and have a healthy debate with someone and say, ‘Listen, you need to look at the science,’ when in their hearts the emotion is there saying this is going to ruin my water, this is going to hurt the land that I love,’ ” he said.
 
Boling conceded that the gas companies have been slow to disclose the chemicals they use and to address concerns about problems such as methane gas migration into water supplies.
 
In September, the state issued a new environmental impact study and proposed regulations that would ban fracking from the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. The public comment period ends Dec. 12 and final regulations could come next year. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has left it to the advisory panel, the DEC and the public hearing process to recommend how government agencies should monitor hydrofracking and enforce regulations.
 
“I know that the temperature is high,” Cuomo said last month. “Let’s get the facts. Let the science and the facts make the determination, not emotion and not politics.”
 
State Sen. Greg Ball (R-Brewster) said regulations can be effective, but New York shouldn’t rush into rules. “I don’t want to see what happened on farms and with private property owners in Pennsylvania happen in New York State,” he said.
 
Ball is pushing legislation that would increase protections for property owners so drilling companies would have to pay market value for properties that sustain damage.
 
Other officials also have warned that local governments could see millions of dollars in increased costs for bridge and road repairs. The early stages of developing a single well pad — a site from which multiple wells can be drilled — would involve 1,148 trips by heavy trucks and 831 by light trucks, according to the state revised draft environmental impact statement.
 
But Sen. Tom Libous (R-Binghamton), Senate deputy majority leader, said a gas drilling boom would bring jobs to an area that has seen companies disappear or downsize. “We’re a struggling region here in upstate New York,” he said. “I just don’t see another emerging industry coming our way.”
 
 

 

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Lebanon Board Adopts 2012 Budget, Authorizes Road Repair Agreement

November 28, 2011

Lebanon Board Adopts 2012 Budget, Authorizes Road Repair Agreement.

The tax rate represents about a 2-percent increase over the 2011 tax rate of $4.266, due to a drop of $2.2 million in assessed valuation tied principally to natural gas production.

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North Dakota Oil Boom Creates Camps of Men – NYTimes.com

November 26, 2011

North Dakota Oil Boom Creates Camps of Men – NYTimes.com.

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Assemblywoman Lifton’s Amicus Brief in Anschutz vs Town of Dryden

November 16, 2011

index.pdf (application/pdf Object).

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Guest Viewpoint: Home rule must protect from perils of fracking | Press & Sun-Bulletin | pressconnects.com

November 16, 2011

Guest Viewpoint: Home rule must protect from perils of fracking | Press & Sun-Bulletin | pressconnects.com.

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Pennsylvania farmers who signed drilling leases to speak in Skaneateles | syracuse.com

November 12, 2011

Pennsylvania farmers who signed drilling leases to speak in Skaneateles | syracuse.com.

 

Pennsylvania farmers who signed drilling leases to speak in Skaneateles

Published: Friday, November 11, 2011, 11:16 PM     Updated: Friday, November 11, 2011, 11:19 PM
Catie O'Toole / The Post-Standard By Catie O’Toole / The Post-Standard

Skaneateles, NY — Two Pennsylvania dairy farmers will speak Wednesday night about their experiences after signing leases for natural gas drilling by hydraulic fracturing.

Dairy farmers Carol French and Carolyn Knapp will present “Hydrofracking: The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly” at 7 p.m. at the Skaneateles First Presbyterian Church, 97 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles. French and Knapp will discuss their observations of hydrofracking in their community.

“They will address the benefits, the negatives, lease negotiations and the effects of intensive fracking on the air, water, roads, quality of life, health of people and livestock, and land values in Bradford County,” according to a news release.

Bradford County is the second “most fracked” county in Pennsylvania. The county is in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains region. French and Knapp will answer questions. The public is invited to attend.

The presentation is sponsored by the Skaneateles branch of the American Association of University Women. For more information, contact Skaneateles AAUW President Kathy Gorr at gorrlaw@yahoo.com or 685-6545.

Contact Catie O’Toole cotoole@syracuse.com or 470-2134.

Related topics: Hydrofracking, Marcellus Shale


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Gas Drilling Tools for Municipalities

November 10, 2011

Gas Drilling Tools for Municipalities.  Tompkins Co. Planning

Click on “Municipal Tools” for a comprehensive list of measures that municipalities need to take to address impacts of shale gas drilling.

 

Jobs and BusinessRural ResourcesWater ResourcesNatural FeaturesEnergy and ClimateCommunity PlanningPlanning ToolsAdvisory BoardsStaff
  

Municipal Tools for Addressing Potential Gas Drilling Impacts

The information presented here is the result of a yearlong collaboration between the Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG) and Tompkins County Planning Department.  The TCCOG Gas Drilling Task Force has met regularly since May 2010 and has been discussing how municipalities can address issues related to gas drilling.  An additional planner position, supported by Park Foundation funding, was added to the Planning Department staff to assist with this effort.

Even though NYSDEC regulates the well pads and drilling processes, there are a number of other uses that could only be regulated by municipalities including such uses as truck terminals that may cause traffic congestion, dust, and so on.  Municipalities can require such uses to be located only in industrially zoned areas or use the site plan review process to ensure compatibility with adjacent uses.

In order to begin to understand the potential impacts that natural gas extraction and ancillary uses might have on  communities, we encourage municipalities to take the following steps:

  • Educate your municipal board and the public on the HVHF process and potential land use impacts.
  • Determine how and where the DEC will permit gas drilling based on the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
  • Assess where gas drilling could take place in your community based on lease patterns, although this could change over time.
  • Utilize the Municipal Tools list and prioritize a review of current plans, laws and regulations or the adoption of new plans, laws and regulations, as applicable to your community.

Scroll through the Municipal Tools and you’ll find these topics:

  • Review Your Comprehensive Plan
  • Review Zoning Ordinance
  • Review Site Plan Regulations
  • Apply Special Use Permits to Certain Uses
  • Roads Protection
  • Designate Critical Environmental Areas (CEA)
  • Aquifer Protection Regulation
  • Wellhead Protection Regulation
  • Noise, Lighting and Air Standards
  • Viewshed (or Scenic Resource) Overlay District
  • Tree Preservation
  • Adopt Pipeline Regulations
  • Manufactured Home Park (MHP) Regulations
  • Subdivision Regulations
  • Floodplain Regulations
  • Extractive Mining Regulations
  • Construction and Post-Construction Stormwater Runoff Control
  • Illicit Discharge Detection and Elmination Regulations
  • Wetlands
  • Fees

Filed under Community Impacts, Governmental impacts Tagged with , , ,

Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads

November 9, 2011

Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads.

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Fight or Flight: Meet the Residents Taking on Gas Drillers, and Those Packing Their Bags [With Photo Slideshow] | | AlterNet

November 5, 2011

Fight or Flight: Meet the Residents Taking on Gas Drillers, and Those Packing Their Bags [With Photo Slideshow] | | AlterNet.

Filed under Air Pollution, Community Impacts, Local Control, Save the Planet, Water Tagged with , , , ,

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