New Yorkers Spar Over U.S. EPA Study of Natural-Gas Fracturing
A U.S. study of hydraulic fracturing, a process using blasts of water and chemicals to free natural gas from shale rock, triggered clashes between New York state supporters and opponents of the technique.
The Environmental Protection Agency should limit its study to the risks that blasting fluid may leak from underground wells and pollute drinking-water supplies, gas-industry representatives and some local officials said at an agency hearing yesterday in Binghamton, New York.
Opponents backed the agency’s plans for a broader review due in 2012 that would also include how much water is consumed by the drilling, also known as fracking, and how to dispose of spent fluids. Gas drilling, which may generate billions of dollars in investment and tax revenue, is on hold in New York while state regulators complete environmental rules.
“We are confident that with proper supervision and regulation in place, we can develop this new industry in our region,” Barbara Fiala, a Democrat who is the county executive in Broome County, about 180 miles (290 kilometers) northwest of New York City’s Times Square, said at the hearing. “All that we ask is that this study be focused and not take forever to complete.”
The EPA hearings, which conclude tomorrow, are the final public meetings on the scope of the agency’s study. More than 100 people signed up to speak yesterday in a four-hour daytime session, and more testimony was scheduled for yesterday evening.
50% of Supply
Gas from shale may amount to 50 percent of the U.S. natural-gas supply by 2035, up from 20 percent today, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
The debate over fracking pits concerns about the environment against prospects for new energy supplies and a potential windfall for landowners and the state government. Lease and royalty payments in New York may be $11 billion to $15 billion and the state may receive as much as $2 billion in taxes on gas drilling from 2011 to 2020, according to a July report prepared for the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington- based oil industry group.
“There is no doubt that extraction of these massive gas reserves will produce great harm to public health and the environment for decades to come if we don’t get it right,” Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan, a Democrat, said at the hearing. “To date I have heard only one consistent refrain from those that want to speed this up: We need the money.”
Marcellus Shale
The Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich rock formation, runs from New York to West Virginia. Since 2008, 1,785 wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania’s portion. New York regulators have placed a moratorium on new gas drilling, and the state Senate voted in August to prohibit new permits until May 15.
The EPA’s new study “needs to be carried out with the utmost care to identify the full range of risks,” said Kate Sinding, senior attorney with the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental organization. “It is no exaggeration to say all eyes, both in the United States and around the world, are on EPA.”
No direct links have been found between groundwater contamination and hydraulic fracturing in New York, said Brad Gill, executive director of the Hamburg, New York-based Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, an industry group whose directors include representatives from Halliburton Co., which produces fracturing fluids, and Talisman Energy Inc.
Wyoming, Pennsylvania
Last month, the EPA told residents of Pavillion, Wyoming, not to drink water after benzene, methane and metals were found in groundwater. Calgary-based EnCana Corp. is the primary gas operator in the area. While testing detected petroleum hydrocarbons in wells and in groundwater, the agency said it couldn’t pinpoint the source of the contamination. Further tests are planned.
Pennsylvania regulators issued a similar warning to residents near Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s gas wells after reports on Sept. 2 of water bubbling in the Susquehanna River near Scranton.
Congress asked the EPA to study the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water, Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington-based policy analysis firm, said in a Sept. 10 research note. EPA’s proposal to study other impacts shows “a broad interpretation of its congressional mandate.”
2004 EPA Study
A 2004 EPA study, which found no impacts on drinking water, led Congress to limit the EPA’s ability to regulate the process, said U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat who represents a district that includes Broome County. That study was influenced by “non-scientific political appointees,” he said at the hearing.
“We cannot and must not move forward with hydraulic fracturing absent an independent scientific analysis,” Hinchey said. “EPA must do all it can to ensure that its scientists and researchers are not influenced by industry or by politics as they were back in 2004.”
David Keefe, a landowner who said he was a former petroleum engineer, said reversing the findings issued by the Bush administration in 2004 means “we would need to redo each EPA study performed under the administration of one political party when the other political party comes into control.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in Binghamton, New York at 1647 or jefstathiou@bloomberg.net.
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