A trade group for the natural-gas industry is pushing back against the state’s proposed rules for large-scale hydrofracking, saying they would make it “extremely difficult, if not impossible, to site a well pad in New York State.”
In a cover letter for formal comments submitted to the state Department of Environmental Conservation earlier this month, the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York said it was taking a more “adversarial” position against the agency’s proposals because the group’s previous suggestions weren’t given enough consideration.
“These regulations are replete with requirements that have no foundation in science or in the long history of modern drilling in New York State without adverse environmental consequences,” wrote Brad Gill, IOGA’s executive director. “In addition, in a number of instances, the Department has exceeded its regulatory authority, again with no scientific or historical basis for the offensive proposals.”
In his letter, Gill goes as far to suggest the DEC is breaking state law. The State Administrative Procedures Act, which governs how agencies adopt new regulations, requires the agency to take steps to reduce adverse impacts on small businesses; IOGA contends the proposed fracking rules cater to large natural-gas companies rather and that DEC isn’t giving consideration to small, independent operators.
One of the “most glaring issues,” Gill wrote, is a proposal to ban gas wells from being drilled within 300 feet of federally regulated wetlands. He contends the DEC doesn’t have the authority to propose a ban relative to federal wetlands.
Packaged with a number of other setbacks—DEC has proposed restricting where gas wells are drilled in relation to homes, aquifers and other water sources—Gill says it would make it difficult to drill in New York at all.
Gill’s letter and IOGA’s formal comments—which total dozens of pages and includes comments from 2011, as well as a handful of letters from smaller, independent gas companies—can be read below. They were submitted to the DEC on Jan. 11, when the latest comment period closed.
The DEC faces a Feb. 27 deadline to finalize the proposed fracking rules or allow them to expire. If they want to meet that deadline, the agency has to release an extensive, formal environmental review of shale-gas drilling at least 10 days beforehand.
20130111IOGAHVHFRevisedHVHFRegulationsCommentPackageassubmittedtoNYSDEC by Jon Campbell
4 Comments
Finally, something on which I and IOGA agree: the DEC’s proposed regulations are not based on science. I think that is our only point of agreement.
Beyond that, it boggles my mind that IOGA feels the regulations are so strict they could not site a well in NYS. Too bad it is a threat, not a promise.
The environmental review and regulations writing process by the DEC’s Minerals Division has been a bureaucratic mess for years. They have destroyed any semblance of public confidence and still have not fulfilled Executive Order 41. The only viable choices are to enact a permanent ban or continue the moratorium while a proper, scientific, cumulative, comprehensive environmental impact study, including an independent health impact assessment, is completed, so that a final decision can be made on the science, not on politics, industry spin, or greed.
If the IOGA’s argument were not based on the gas industry reality of “we make our own reality” it would be funny. Of course there is no science in the proposed regulations. Of course the DEC is required to base the regulations on science. Of course there being no science in the regulations is NOT a reason to make the regulations more lax. It is a reason to start over, release the SGEIS, let the public review and comment on that, then release rewritten regulations which have scientific citations. And let the public comment on rational proposed regulations.
NYS needs total concentration on renewable energy going into the future. Enough with polluting, sickening, climate change increasing fossil fuels.
The idea that DEC can honestly review and create reasonable summary responses to 204,000 comments between now and Feb. 27 is just plain silly. If they move that fast, they will signal that, like closing the comment period before unveiling the health impact study and the rest of the revised SGEIS, the process is an illegal sham.
Let the lawsuits begin. If Gov. Cuomo permits this nonsense, he risks the loss of most of his supporters, and he will wind up on the losing end of the lawsuits.
It is clear that neither the regs nor the SGEIS are backed by what is required by law and by DEC’s own procedures. There are no studies referred to, there is no science behind the setbacks and other portions of the regs. IOGA’s shill, Brad Gill, is correct on that point, but then he cleverly says the setbacks should be shorter when studies like the one done by Colorado University’s School of Public Health says they should be greater.
It really is laughable that this company thinks the DEC regulations are so restrictive, when dozens of us have written innumerable letters to the DEC about the inadequacy of their regulations. Of course, it is true, that the DEC regs have no basis in any referenced scientific study or report. That is one of my criticisms, and ironically, also of the drilling company. Bottom line, though, is that the only way to protect New York State from catastrophic environmental devastation is to ban drilling, never mind whether a small or large company.