Marcellus Drilling News sees a growing chorus of voices from New York City who believe the city’s water supply, 90% of which comes from the Catskill/Delaware watershed area in Upstate, is directly threatened by drilling activity in the Marcellus. And they are becoming vocal in their demands to stop the drilling before it even starts.
Some demand no drilling only in the watershed region itself (take note landowners in those counties). Others want a blanket ban throughout the state. From a recent article in The Villager covering a forum held in New York City:
Worried about an imminent threat to the Catskill/Delaware watershed, which supplies New York City with 90 percent of its water, Community Board 2 [C.B. 2] last week voted unanimously to demand a ban on drilling for natural gas in New York State.
And this:
“We can’t let the bad economy and people wanting to cash in on natural gas provoke wholesale drilling,” said Queens Councilmember James Gennaro at a March 18 forum held by the C.B. 2 Environmental Committee at Judson Church. “We can’t be the generation that loses New York City’s water supply to the lure of natural gas,” said Gennaro, who is a trained geologist.
Gennaro is the sponsor of City Council legislation calling on the state Legislature, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Governor Paterson to prohibit drilling for natural gas within the watershed’s boundaries in Delaware, Greene, Ulster and Sullivan Counties.
The article quotes a parade of officials and heads of environmental groups in NYC that are opposed to any and all drilling in New York. Will the growing chorus of protests make a difference? Perhaps. Landowners need to make their voices heard just as loudly to counter the din that will come from Downstate. Contact Governor Paterson and your state representatives in the Assembly and Senate.
An aside: No one is in favor of contaminating the water supply, least of all our own! The issue of what chemicals are used and in what concentrations is an important one and must be dealt with fairly. Energy companies would do well to diffuse the issue by revealing at least general information about the chemicals they use. However, a blanket ban on all drilling is nonsensical. The problem is, there’s a lot of nonsensical things that happen in our great state. So we must be vigilant to protect our rights as landowners. Let’s not let “the mob” (little “m”) dictate what we can and cannot do with our land. We still have a (precious) few rights left, among them the right to own property. We can protect the water supply and still drill safely in the Marcellus. Let’s figure it out.
Read the full article: No fracking way! C.B. 2 forum warns about water
The Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline project called the Enhancement by Compression (ExC) increases horsepower at three compression stations–two in New York and one in Connecticut–by an extra 125 MMcf/d, flowing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England (see Despite Antis’ Best Efforts, More NatGas Coming to New England). The ExC project is supposed to begin construction in spring 2023 and be placed in service by November of 2023. Yesterday, in a surprise move, the five commissioners of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to approve the project. It’s a miracle!
Talen Energy Corp. subsidiary NorthEast Gas Generation owns two natural gas-fired electric generation plants–one in Athens (Greene County), NY, and one in Charlton (Worcester County), MA. Yesterday Talen/NorthEast filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the third time NorthEast has filed since 2014. The current plan is to hand over ownership to the company’s debtholders.