200,000 Fracking Comments !

Over 200,000 comments were delivered to the DEC’s bunker in Albany courtesy of the Yoko, Sandra & Sean Delivery Service. (See story below) Bravo to all concerned !

Now time to sue the DEC for trying to turn the Empire State into a fracking banana republic.

Here is the breakdown of who helped gather the 200,000 responses. Plus thousands more from individuals, organizations and elected officials. To put this in perspective – this is over 300 times the number of responses the DEC got on the Sept. 2011 draft of the proposed drilling regulations. And 3 X the number of responses they received on the environmental regulations, the dSGEIS. 

Citizens Action New York: 1844
Food and Water Watch: 15,333
Signon.org: 13,335
CREDO: 76,158
Catskill Citizens: 23,924
Sierra Club: 4600
350.org: 2400
Working Families Party: 4000
Artists Against Fracking (Causes): 21,921
Artists Against Fracking (web): 425
In hand: 2107
New Yorkers Against Fracking create your own: 1054
New Yorkers Against Fracking simple: 1188
Center for Biological Diversity: 3350
Greenpeace: 3637
Earth Justice: 3602

Conspicuously absent :  the Environmental Defense Frauds, who were bought off.

Plus thousands of hits to the SourceWatch site. If you thought there was something peculiar about the DEC proposing drilling regulations without holding a public hearing – you were right, that was illegal – along with several other procedural and technical errors flagged by Team Slottje. 

Activists attack fracking plan with 200K comments on final day

With one deadline past and another imminent, staffers at New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation attempting to resolve New York’s fracking conundrum find themselves in a familiar position: under pressure. On the final day for public comment on draft regulations for development of shale gas reserves under upstate New York, members of a well-organized anti-fracking campaign delivered more than 200,000 written comments. Activists carted boxes into the agency’s headquarters in Albany hours before the 5 p.m. deadline. DEC staffers now have 50 days to process and respond to this latest deluge of criticism before they can finalize a plan.

Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono join response at DEC headquartersFollowing the direction of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens, officials have been attempting to complete policy for shale gas development in New York. The focus is on high volume hydraulic fracturing, known commonly as fracking – a process to shatter subterranean mantels of bedrock with pressurized chemical solution to release oil and gas. Advances in fracking technology are enabling exploitation of reserves that were previously inaccessible, and also raising concerns about social and environmental impacts from a new era of mineral extraction on a scale previously unseen. Until New York’s policy is complete, permits to develop the Utica and Marcellus shales extending under upstate New York are on hold.

As of Monday, the DEC had received 1,373 comments, said Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the agency. Today’s special delivery capped off a week of protests that served as a political show of force by both grass roots and institutional fracking opponents, lead by activists well versed in the procedural, political, and scientific aspects of the hotly debated issue. On Monday, Climate Change headliner Bill McKibben spoke on the hazards of fossil fuel extraction and consumption and global warming in front of a sold-out crowd in The Egg, a 1,500-seat performing arts venue in Rockefeller Plaza. On Tuesday, more than 1,500 chanting protesters with signs and banners crammed a quarter-mile stretch of the plaza’s underground concourse, which connects the state Capitol and Legislative Office Building to the convention center where governor Cuomo delivered his State of the State address. The demonstration included an appearance and performance by 93-year-old folk legend Pete Seeger.

Today, the comments were delivered to the DEC with a delegation that included Sandra Steingraber, a biologist, activist and author who has been tutoring followers on the technical aspects of the regulations and encouraging them to respond, and Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, who are among celebrities who have served as figureheads for the movement.

While there is bound to be a percentage of comments that are redundant or irrelevant, the agency will still have to read them, sort them, and respond appropriately by Feb. 27. That means that staffers will have to read and sort some 4,000 comments a day. That’s 400 an hour, six a minute, and one every 10 seconds. That’s assuming a 70-hour workweek with no breaks to answer the phone, eat or go to the bathroom. And then there are the ones that will require thoughtful analysis and perhaps, if taken in good faith, warrant change to the draft document. In addition to the boxes of comments, the agency will have to respond to  “some very detailed technical comments” from environmental groups, including the National Resource Defense Council, Earthjustice, Riverkeeper, Catskill Mountainkeeper, and Sierra Club being submitted this afternoon, said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney with Earth Justice.

“Failure to comply with these requirements is grounds for legal challenge,” Goldberg said.  The sheer volume of responses will pose a significant logistical problem for the agency, which faces a Feb. 27 deadline to respond to all of them before finalizing regulations. The agency issued the draft regulations on Nov. 29 to qualify for a 90-day extension to keep the rule making process from expiring. By law, the agency also had to allow a 30-day period — from Dec. 12 until today — for public comment. If the regulations are not finalized by Feb. 27, the agency will have to restart the rule making process and reopen it for public comment.

The regulations, however, are just one piece of New York’s monumental and unprecedented policy overhaul to try to come to terms with shale gas development. The regulations represent the battle of today. A larger and more critical piece, and surely to become the battle of tomorrow, is a review of environmental and health impacts on which the regulations are based. That review, called the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS), has been in draft form since 2008 and there is no deadline for its completion. In theory, the state could begin issuing permits for shale development after the final version of the SGEIS is released, even if the regulations are not finalized.

That also would provoke an all out effort, including lawsuits, by the coalition of groups leading the anti-fracking campaign who have faulted the process every step of the way. A salient complaint is that the regulations were issued prior to the final SGEIS on which they were based, forcing the public to evaluate regulations without access to the SGEIS and relevant health and environmental considerations.

In response to a request from leaders of environmental groups, and in anticipation of law suits, Martens announced last fall that the state was hiring outside consultants to review the work of the DEC to ensure that it had sufficiently accounted for public health impacts of fracking. Like the final SGEIS, the scope and results of that review have not been made public.

Even as the regulations are being developed, Cuomo’s administration has indicated through prepared statements that it is undecided on whether it will allow shale gas development. It is a subject that Cuomo rarely addresses publically. He did not mention it in this week’s State of the State address, even though fracking represents the biggest environmental policy fight in the state’s recent history.

John Campbell, Gannett’s Albany reporter, reported today that if DEC officials intend to finalize the regulations by Feb. 27, administrative law requires them to release the final SGEIS (which includes a summary of the health assessment) at least 10 days prior. A mid-February release of the SGEIS would be a clear sign that the agency intends to push forward with its plan to open New York of shale gas development. That would be a clear victory for those who have been supporting development for economic reasons. If the agency lets that window pass, it would signal the opposite.

24,000 from Catskill Citizens and thousands more from groups & individuals. Bravo !

Fremont Center, NY Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, a grassroots organization that doesn’t have a single paid staff member, or even an office, once again proved to be “the little engine that could.” In a drive begun the day after Christmas, it collected 23,924 written comments critical of New York State’s draft fracking regulations. “This has been a team effort.” said Catskill Citizens member Jill Wiener. “Stop the Frack Attack, Frack Action, Gasland and many others were instrumental in expanding our reach by promoting our Action Alert”.

To encourage public comments, Catskill Citizens created sample letters that could be personalized before submission to the Department of Environmental Conservation – the  department responsible for the proposed High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing Regulations. Each letter was printed and sealed in a separate envelope for hand delivery to the DEC. Catskill Citizen Tom Wilinsky, who took on the daunting task of formatting each and every letter for printing, admitted, “I was delighted with the overwhelming public response, but I have to admit I was relieved when the Public Comment period drew to a close.”

The growing opposition to fracking in New York State can be seen in the ever increasing number of comments submitted to the DEC. In 2009, a draft version of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement elicited 14,000 comments. Three years later a revised draft SGEIS received more than 65,000 mostly negative comments, including more than 10,000 submitted by Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy. This time around the DEC can expect more than 2000,000 comments criticizing its proposed fracking regulations.

Get those comments in  !  Online or postmarked snail mail by 5 today. 

A guide on how to respond to New York’s fracking regulations is on SourceWatch. 

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=NY_Fracking_Regulations

Short URL –  http://tinyurl.com/FrackingRegulations

Comments from Lou Allstadt, Keith Schue, Dr. Ron Bishop and others  are here

From the New York League of Women Voters here

Seneca Lake Association’s comments are terrific, here

Here are examples of some snail mail responses to use as guides. 

Snail must be postmarked by 5 PM Friday January 11th 

Quicker to submit comments online – 

http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/76838.html

To the NY Assembly Hearing on January 10th

http://www.scribd.com/doc/118508538/Assembly-DEC-Regulations

On the lack of protections for landowners and the general public

http://www.scribd.com/doc/116960614/Response-to-Proposed-New-York-Fracking-Regulations

On air pollution –  http://www.scribd.com/doc/117440914/Fracking-Air-Pollution

On the lack of protections for property rights –  

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117527641/No-Protection-for-Surface-Property-Rights

On lack of protections from shale gas industrial infrastructure 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117619711/No-Regulations-on-Gas-Infrastructure

Most New York aquifers are unprotected

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117412293/Fracking-New-York-Aquifers

On fracking state lakes, forests and parks 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117565414/No-Fracking-State-Lands

On frack fluids and non-disclosure of fracking chemicals 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117698600/Frack-Fluid-Regulations

The DEC fails to cite any science as the basis for the proposed regulations 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117952461/Proposed-Regs-Not-Based-on-Science

The DEC thinks it’s supposed to promote fracking, not regulate it  

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117939802/Proposed-Regs-Do-Not-Follow-ECL-23D

DEC does not follow the state’s declared policy on environmental conservation :

Environmental Conservation

 
  § 1-0101. Declaration of policy.
    1.  The  quality  of our environment is fundamental to our concern for
  the quality of life. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the State
  of New York to conserve, improve and protect its natural  resources  and
  environment  and  to  prevent,  abate  and  control  water, land and air
  pollution, in order to enhance the health, safety  and  welfare  of  the
  people of the state and their overall economic and social well being.
    2.  It  shall  further  be  the  policy  of  the  state to improve and
  coordinate the environmental plans, functions, powers  and  programs  of
  the  state,  in  cooperation with the federal government, regions, local
  governments, other public and private organizations  and  the  concerned
  individual,  and  to  develop  and  manage the basic resources of water,
  land, and air to the end that the state may fulfill  its  responsibility
  as trustee of the environment for the present and future generations.
    3.  It  shall  further  be the policy of the state to foster, promote,
  create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can thrive  in
  harmony  with each other, and achieve social, economic and technological
  progress for present and future generations by:
    a.  Assuring  surroundings  which  are  healthful  and   aesthetically
  pleasing;
    b.  Guaranteeing  that  the  widest  range  of  beneficial uses of the
  environment is attained without risk to health  or  safety,  unnecessary
  degradation or other undesirable or unintended  consequences;
    c.  Promoting  patterns  of  development and technology which minimize
  adverse impact on the environment;
    d. Preserving the unique qualities of special resources  such  as  the
  Adirondack and Catskill forest preserves;
    e. Providing that care is taken for the air, water and other resources
  that  are  shared  with  the  other states of the United States and with
  Canada in the manner of a good neighbor.

In order to understand how to respond to the proposed drilling regulations, it’s important to understand what they are: a legal document that addresses drilling regulations. They are not a comprehensive set of environmental regulations – that is the SGEIS, which missed its deadline on November 29th – when these drilling regulations were pushed out the door – ready or not, but the DEC. Fewer than 700 responses were received on the September 2011 draft of these regs., and many of those comments were by the frackers that drafted them in the first place. That needs to change, you need to respond to these regs. since, absent a land use ordinance in your town, they may govern where a well can be drilled – which is just about anywhere. Read on.

To understand who’s behind the proposed drilling regulations and to inform your responses to them, it would help to read them from the point of view of who they were written for and who wrote them. That’s right, you have to think like a fracking landman and a fracking lobbyist. What would they want in New York’s fracking regulations ? As few impediments as possibile. Meaning, as few restrictions on where wells can be drilled – which equates to as few protections for surface uses, property lines and water sources as possible. That is in fact what these drilling regulations achieve – they eliminate gas well setbacks from property lines  and reduce the number of land uses and water bodies protected from drilling down to literally a handful of 5, the only ones specifically listed in Section 560.4.

If a surface use or water body is not listed in Section 560.4, it is not probably not protected. Mentioning it elsewhere in the regulations or in the SGEIS or SPEDES will not suffice – unless it is covered by a carve-out in the SGEIS. If it is not listed in 560.4, it is not adequately protected from HVHF wells. It’s DEC double talk.

“560.4 Setbacks

(a) No well pad or portion of a well pad may be located:

(1) within 500 feet from a residential water well, domestic supply spring or water well or spring used as a water supply for livestock or crops;

Note that no other water source is mentioned here. Not rivers, streams, ponds, or lakes. No other water bodies have specific protections in the regulations – with three exceptions shown below as (3), (4), and (5). Note also that there is no scientific evidence to indicate that a 500 foot setback will be sufficient to keep a water well or spring from being gassed.

“(2) within 500 feet from an inhabited dwelling”

Five hundred feet is insufficient to protect a residence from the negative impacts of a HVHF well. The regulations themselves provide some useful scenarios of why 500 feet is inadequate. For instance, under 556.2 (b) a HVHF may be vented for up to 120 hours – 5 days. That is more than enough time to gas whatever or whoever is 500 feet downwind of the drilling site.  The proposed setbacks are at the low end of the range in the US. Horizontal fracking causes ‘micro-quakes’ which can easily damage foundations within 500 feet of the well.

“Dwelling” is not defined in the regulations or the ECL, but is synonymous with “residence.” “Inhabited” is not defined in the regulations, but clearly a house or apartment building under construction or remodeling is not “inhabited.”  “Inhabited dwellings” does not include hospitals, schools, warehouses, barns, factories, stores, daycare centers, parks, gas stations, power plants, propane storage tanks, or offices – none of which are designated as protected uses under the proposed regulations.

“or place of assembly;”

“Place of assembly” is not defined in the regulations or the ECL. But a “place of assembly” is usually defined as a public auditorium, theater, church, restaurant, etc. Which means, there is no specific gas well setback in the regulations from an office building, hospital, grocery store, school yard, playing field, public park, etc. Which means that a HVHF shale well can be drilled next to any of them, without a setback – per 560.4.

Or drill next to them and then under them. There are no setback from property lines. The “spacing unit” setbacks in Section 553 are for subterranean – mineral– rights, not surface rights. So if the the surface owner does not own the mineral rights, the well setback for the spacing unit could be on their property. Their are no protections if the surface owner was pushed into the well under Compulsory Integration

The DEC may claim that “we would never allow a well to be drilled next to a hospital (or bank or warehouse). If so, then they should have no problem naming those uses in 560.4. Should they ?

“(3) within a primary aquifer and a 500-foot buffer from the boundary of a primary aquifer;”

Five hundred feet is close enough to gas most aquifers. There is no setback for Principal Aquifers, which much of Upstate relies on for drinking water. which provide drinking water for most of Upstate. Nor is there any “science” involved in this distinction between principal and primary aquifers, other than political science.

“(4) within a 100-year floodplain; and”

After Irene and Sandy, a “100 year floodplain” ain’t what it used to be.  The 100 year floodplain needs to be updated in New York state before any HVHF are issued.

“(5) within 2,000 feet of any public water supply (municipal or otherwise, or the boundaries of any public water supply reservoir, natural lake or man-made impoundment (except engineered impoundments constructed for fresh water storage associated with fracturing operations).”

The setback does not preclude a HVHF well from being drilled under any of these water sources. There are no setbacks for any other bodies of water – a lake, river, or stream – all of which can be drilled next to and drilled under. Or a wetland – which is not a listed protected area.  Unless a water body is named in 560.4, they do not have the protections afforded the water bodies that are named. 

“(b) All distances noted above are measured from the closest edge of the well pad.”

“(c) The department may permit reasonable well location variances to the setback requirements in sections 560.4(a) (1), 560.4(a) (2) and 750-3.3 (a)(6) of this Title.”

Meaning, the Department of Mineral Resources can reduce or waive any of the 560.4 setbacks if the price is right. Which won’t be necessary for school yards, factories, hospitals, rivers, ponds, wetlands, barns, organic farms, vineyards, or daycare centers. Because the setbacks for all of those uses and water sources is already zero.

The regulations are a legal document, crafted by the DEC’s lawyers, primarily to facilitate fracking by minimizing impediments in the form of specific protections. Would help to keep that big picture in mind when you respond to the regulations. If a well is close enough to a land use or water source for you to fret about “water testing” or “disclosure of frack fluids” or “the number of casings used”, then it is too fracking close – and a specific protection is called for in 560.4.