News Details - Council of Governments Informs Public About Natural Gas Drilling

At an information meeting sponsored by the Tompkins County Council of Governments (TCCOG), citizens were told that the state’s proposed program to regulate natural gas drilling is complex, but that members of the public should not hesitate to make their voices heard on the issue and how gas drilling could affect the Tompkins County area. Tompkins County is a member of the Council of Governments.

About 300 people attended tonight’s information session, which came two weeks before a formal public hearing in Ithaca November 19, also sponsored by TCCOG, where the public will be invited to make formal verbal comments and provide written statements that TCCOG will submit to the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS). The more than 800-page document is the State’s plan to regulate drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale underlying Tompkins County and surrounding regions. The DEC has now extended the public comment deadline to December 31, 2009.

Tompkins County Planning and Public Works Commissioner Ed Marx, whose department’s review of the document is still in process, cautioned that while it in some areas includes thorough analysis of technical issues related to drilling with the hydraulic fracturing technique, it often stops short of specifying mitigation and enforcement requirements, is ambiguous and confusing, tends to rely heavily on industry self-policing, and pays “no serious attention” to cumulative impacts. Provisions on mitigating damage to features such as water resources, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, visual resources, noise, and community character, he said, are filled with suggestions, not requirements.

Local public interest environmental attorney Helen Slottje echoed the message that the DEC document is “more notable for what it does not contain than for what it does contain,” lacks standard rules and regulations, and improperly makes municipalities and individuals responsible for protecting themselves from adverse effects the drilling could produce.

Briefing attendees on the state’s environmental quality review process and the dSGEIS document, David Kay, of Cornell University’s Community and Rural Development Institute, characterized the review as a “quasi-judicial” rather than a political process, but both speakers and many attending predicted political action will be required to force changes as the issue moves forward. County Legislator Pam Mackesey told the gathering, “In the end, it will be a political issue, and we will have to stand up to make Albany listen to us.”

The dSGEIS is available online at http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/47554.html, and hard copies have been made available for public use at the Town of Ithaca offices, the Caroline Library, Brookton's Market in Brooktondale, Tompkins County Public Library, and the City Clerk's office in Ithaca City Hall.

The November 19 public hearing will take place, beginning at 7:00 p.m., at Ithaca’s State Theatre, 107 W. State Street. For information on other methods of submitting comments to the DEC before December 31, 2009, visit http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58440.html.

11-05-2009