Part of Understanding Government’s mission is to examine the way federal and state agencies cooperate on issues of national importance, or — as in this article by GIMBY reporter Jane Johnston — don’t.

Newburgh, NY, Nov. 20, 2008 — Millions of gallon of water, laced with carcinogenic and other toxic chemicals, are pumped deep into the earth at pressures great enough to break solid rock and release natural gas stored in pockets. The process is called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Politicians with an eye for economic development cheer for the gas and the hoped for prosperity it will bring; also pleased are some property owners who have received fat signing bonuses for drilling leases. But what becomes of those millions of gallons of now contaminated water? If left in the ground, could they affect the groundwater supply? What about spillage or leakage from above-ground storage tanks? This scenario has alarmed people in many states in the past few years, and New York State now faces its own dilemmas with the prospect of drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation in Sullivan County.

Earlier this month, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) received its first application from a company, Chesapeake, to withdraw water from the Delaware River in the maximum amount of 999,999 gallons a day.

According to Sullivan County’s The River Reporter, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has made four commitments on gas drilling: it will be “subject to a thorough environmental review,” the DEC will receive information on the chemicals used in the process, it will look at the storage safety of the large amounts of contaminated water used, and it will examine where, ultimately that water will be disposed.

One agency not involved in the oversight process is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That’s due to an exemption gas drilling received from the Safe Drinking Water Act buried in the massive Energy Policy Act of 2005. This legislative loophole put the burden of jurisdictional regulation onto the individual states.

Problems seen in other states could make their way to the New York and Pennsylvania region. For example, ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten reports on how natural gas drilling may be endangering U.S. water supplies, in particular in states such as Colorado and Wyoming that have seen an increase in fracking. Lustgarten describes cases of contaminated well water, a woman who developed a rare adrenal tumor, a nurse who nearly died of organ failure when exposed to fracking chemicals, reproductive abnormalities in farm animals, and a house in Ohio that exploded from methane pushed up in the fracking process.

On November 19, Congressman Maurice Hinchey vowed “to aggressively press for the passage” of a bill he co-sponsored with Colorado representatives Diana DeGette and John Salazar. House Res. 7231 is “a bill to repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act.” This would put the EPA back in the regulatory picture. The bill was introduced this September and is now before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“It’s imperative that we safeguard our drinking water from any chemicals associated with natural gas drilling,” Hinchey said. “I understand the desire to expand natural gas development across the country, but we must do so carefully and intelligently. I’m encouraged that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is working to safeguard our water resources in New York, particularly in the New York City Watershed and Delaware River Basin. However, we must ensure that drinking water in all states is protected from toxic chemicals associated with hydraulic fracturing. We must avoid a situation in which a generation or less from now, people shake their heads and wonder how our government could have been so short-sighted and foolish to exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

Although it has no official regulatory role at present, the EPA is keeping an eye on the unfolding situation. EPA spokesman John Senn, speaking from agency’s New York City office, said “We’re working with the State [government] and other partners to make sure that provisions to protect New York City’s water supply and watershed are maintained and strengthened… the EPA is keeping abreast of the state review of these issues.”

In the meantime, New York State is proceeding with its own regulatory steps. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will hold a public meeting at Sullivan County Community College’s Loch Sheldrake Campus on December 4, where they will accept verbal comments on a draft document, the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement. New York already has a Generic Environmental Impact Statement from 1992 that covers gas well permits; the Supplemental GEIS focuses on topics specific to the hydraulic fracturing process.

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