NYC says Catskill gas drilling risks are too great

Breitbart (AP) ^ | December 23, 2009 | Mary Esch

[Cheap_Hessian]

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York City's Department of Environmental Protection called on state officials Wednesday to ban natural gas drilling in the Catskills watershed, saying it would pose too great a risk to the city's upstate drinking water system.

The DEP took that position in response to the state Department of Environmental Conservation's draft regulations on gas drilling in New York's portion of the Marcellus Shale region, which includes parts of the Catskills where reservoirs supply drinking water for 9 million people.

The state is taking public comments on its 800-plus page draft until Dec. 31. The city DEP had withheld comment pending its own lengthy review of the potential risks of gas exploration using hydraulic fracturing, which blasts millions of gallons of chemical-laced water deep into the shale to release trapped gas.

Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation's largest natural gas producers and the only leaseholder in the watershed region, has said it won't drill there because of opposition from politicians and environmental groups. But opponents have continued to call for a ban, saying the company's word isn't good enough.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

I believe the term is: “Let ‘em freeze in the dark”.

[FrdmLvr]

Just think: some day in the near future, we can sit around all day marveling at the magnificance of the pristine wilderness from our caves and huts...that is if we’re not too busy hauling water from the nearby streams and lakes, raising our own crops and basically subsisting in a hunting and gathering society. Whatever we do, we must not drill!!!!!

[jeffc]

When the surrounding states start making mega-bucks off this bonanza, NY state will pay a federal judge to force those states to share the wealth with NY. This will allow NY to get the $$ without facing any political consequences from the enviro-nazis.

[decimon]

NYC would be negligent to not protect its water supply. Chesapeake energy should have to post a bond or secure insurance against the cost of correcting any contamination of reservoirs. If it can’t then no drilling.

[stboz]

Turn their gas off right now....and wait.....

[Rumplemeyer]

Strange that there were no complaints about disturbing the gas bearing rock when the Catskill and Delaware Aqueducts were constructed through these very same formations, some of the longest tunnels and deepest shafts in North America, all to bring water to NYC.
One of the biggest safety problems on the project was the presence of natural gas in the tunnels.

[razorback-bert]

I am betting Chesapeake can’t afford to drill anywhere.

[blackminorca]

This is BS= the well sights are in Steuben county and west - far away from the catskills where the reservoirs are.

Also, the NYC water is surface water and not well water - there will be virtually no surface contamination.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Drill Baby Drill. Lots of great Ordovician/Devonian fossils in them thar shales. Eurypterids (Sea Scorpians), Trilobite, fish precursors, Democrats (Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Harkin, Boxer, Kucinich).

[finnsheep]

NYC’s aqueduct that goes beneath the town of Wawarsing, NY is leaking up to 36 million gallons of water a day, flooding Wawarsing from beneath. If NYC cared much about water, they would fix that aqueduct.

Instead NYC along with the Delaware River Basin Commission is imposing a looney ban on Marcellus Shale drilling. The DRBC says drilling uses too much water. The very - over a mile - deep wells do require a couple million gallons of water on a one time basis and some of that is reusable. By my calculations the amount of clean water lost in a few months undermining Wawarsing would be enough to drill most of the wells possibile in the Catskills and Northeast PA.