Government regulators opened the door to natural gas drilling inside the Marcellus Shale watershed, which supplies drinking water to some 15 million people, including nine million New Yorkers. Stretching from New York to Kentucky, the shale is believed to hold some of the world’s largest deposits of natural gas.
Proponents say the drilling will boost the nation’s economic recovery and reduce dependence on foreign oil. But environmentalists are warning the drilling could contaminate New York’s water supply as it has in other states. The proposed regulations are now open for public comment until the end of the next month, followed by a final decision early next year.
The Marcellus Shale is about a 6,000- to 9,000-foot-deep layer of 600-million-year-old shale that is trapped in an enormous amount of natural gas. They’ve always known this. But until they developed horizontal drilling and essentially drilling by fracturing, they weren’t able to get the drilling out.
The problem that the natural gas that is derived in environmentally benign ways is a terrific fuel. Shale fracking to obtain natural gas has so many environmental impacts that the cost to the environment and the cost to the rural economy outweigh the benefits of the natural gas, as we are currently doing it. So the real question at stake, from an economic point of view, is, are we going to subsidize, through externalizing environmental costs, the fracking of natural gas formations, or are we going to try and develop a more sustainable natural gas policy?
New York City’s water system currently works by it’s a surface water system that collects rainfall and runoff from an area about the size of the state of Delaware. Unlike most of the systems in the world, this water is so pure that we don’t have to filter it. We merely have to treat it with chlorine and do some other statements. And this saves the City of New York billions and billions of dollars and gives it the world—the quality for which it is famous worldwide. So, and the Marcellus—and natural gas drilling in the New York City watershed would completely transform that. The bill for New York City would be billions of dollars annually.
Drilling can be safe if you have enough safeguards. Those safeguards have to be site-specific. Drilling in a watershed is not acceptable, because—let’s say you just have one percent accident rate. you’ve got a major problem for drinking water, because these fracking fluids are so toxic.
there hasn’t been a lot of deep well pollution. But these contaminants get spilled, lost, midnight disposal. Dunkard Creek, which is an indisputable case of fracking fluid trashing an entire water system. But it’s the frequency that matters.
Discussion: Albert Appleton
Albert Appleton, Former commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and former director of the New York City Water and Sewer System. Teaches courses in sustainability and economics at Hunter College and Cooper Union.
– from democracynow.org
Corporates have 2 advantages. 1. They get gas. 2. If drilling pollutes watershed they can sell more bottled water.