Natural Gas and Clean Water
New York Times - editorial
22 March 2011
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a House subcommittee recently that
a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing could be the
“Achilles’ heel” that kills the natural gas industry. Like many others,
Mr. Salazar sees natural gas, which America has in great abundance, as
cleaner and more climate-friendly than coal or oil and a useful
transition to alternative fuels. But he also fears, as we do, that
public support for drilling will diminish unless the industry and its
state and federal regulators do a better job of making sure the gas
does no harm to drinking water.
Hydraulic fracturing involves blasting water, sand and chemicals into
underground rock formations to unlock the gas they contain. The
technique has been around for many years and has been used, mostly
without incident, in hundreds of thousands of natural gas wells. But
the risks have multiplied as the wells are drilled deeper and stretched
vertically and horizontally to get at remote deposits. A single well
can cough up a million gallons of wastewater laced with carcinogens
like benzene and radioactive elements like radium.
The technique has become especially controversial in Pennsylvania, the
epicenter of a big push for natural gas locked in the Marcellus Shale,
a formation stretching from West Virginia to upstate New York. Ian
Urbina’s recent series in The Times found that conventional wastewater
treatment plants in Pennsylvania could not prevent radioactive
contaminants from entering rivers that provide drinking water for
millions of people. The series also identified many instances of poor
regulation.
At the urging of Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency has
begun an investigation of hydraulic fracturing’s effect on the
environment. An earlier E.P.A. study in 2004 was superficial and skewed
toward industry. The oil and gas companies provided much of the
underlying data, and there were few onsite inspections. This time the
study must involve rigorous field testing. It must also be thorough and
transparent.
There is a message here for New York State as well. Albany has been
dithering for years over whether to allow increased hydraulic
fracturing, and under what conditions and rules, in New York’s portion
of the Marcellus Shale. The state’s Department of Environmental
Conservation is nearing the end of a revised environmental impact
statement that is due on June 1.
Given all the new information, this is a ridiculously short time frame.
The department — which hasn’t even finished processing comments from a
2009 study — needs to get it right. We would hope that it prohibits
drilling altogether in two watersheds that supply millions of people
with unfiltered drinking water, while imposing the strictest possible
drilling standards elsewhere. The two watersheds are the New York City
watershed, which covers one million acres north and west of the city
and provides drinking water to 8.2 million people, and the smaller
Skaneateles Lake watershed near Syracuse.
The issue here is not whether the country should be drilling for
natural gas, which is an important source of energy as well as jobs in
places like Pennsylvania and New York. The issue is whether it can be
done safely.