Delaware County

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    Downstate New Yorkers Demand Total Ban on Drilling in Upstate’s Marcellus Shale

    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

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    Central New York Starting to Heat Up with Marcellus Drilling

    A recent article published in The Oneonta Star covered two gas drilling “forums” that were conducted in Otsego County by the anti-drilling group Sustainable Otsego. The article is a lazy, biased view of a complicated issue–but there’s no surprise there. The mainstream media is not an impartial, investigative source of information as it once was. For example, the “reporter” didn’t bother to interview people attending the forums, but instead interviewed the people presenting the biased material. Go figure.

    Amidst the standard talking points and mountain of…(ahem) less than objective information (ahem)…in the article, are a few nuggets of useful intelligence on drilling activities in the central region of New York State. Forthwith:

    According to geologists, Otsego, Delaware and Chenango counties are potentially rich in gas deposited in the Marcellus Shale formation below ground. Groups representing landowners and gas company representatives have said the findings may make some landowners wealthy.

    On how much land has been leased in Otsego County:

    The Otsego County Conservation Association reports that 8.7 percent of acreage in Otsego County is leased for natural gas drilling, according to a media release from the group issued Monday. The rate is up from 7 percent reported previously by OCCA.

    OCCA said since the beginning of the year, an additional 204 parcels have been signed, totaling 12,190 acres. Parcels now under lease contract number 839, with total acreage rising to 54,443 acres.

    And on test wells:

    Test wells several thousand feet deep have already been drilled in Springfield and Cherry Valley.

    And this on applications for new drilling:

    The DEC has received 31 applications for horizontal drilling wells, [Yancey] Roy [DEC spokesman] said, and the breakdown by county is Delaware 23; Tioga, four; Chenango two, and Chemung, two.

    Read the full article: Gas drilling forums wrap up