Drilling moratorium urged

By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau

August 07, 2008 04:00 am

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COOPERSTOWN _ A crowd of county residents worried about the consequences of natural-gas drilling dominated the first two hours of Wednesday's meeting of the Otsego County Board of Representatives.

Several speakers asked the board to impose a moratorium on drilling until laws are enacted to protect water resources and other municipal interests, such as roads.

The comments came during the board's public comment period, in which representatives listen but do not answer questions.

Attorney Mary Jo Long, an Afton town council member, said her research indicates that counties can impose moratoria for legitimate governmental purposes.

Outside the meeting, county attorney James Konstanty disagreed, saying any moratorium on drilling would have to come from the state.

Long said a moratorium on drilling would allow time for testing reservoirs and wells before gas drilling becomes widespread. If chemicals used in drilling later contaminate drinking water, baseline studies could help residents and municipalities in litigation, she noted.

During a moratorium, she said, emergency services personnel could be apprised of the risks that gas exploration may entail.

``This is an industry and there will be industrial accidents,'' she said. ``You don't put out gas fires with water.''

Caroline Town Supervisor Don Barber, the Democratic candidate for the 51st District state Senate seat, called for a statewide moratorium on drilling two months ago. At Wednesday's meeting, he renewed the call, saying the state Department of Environmental Conservation is not adequately staffed to monitor the large number of wells that may soon be drilled in the region.

About two weeks ago, Gov. David Paterson signed a bill allowing more wells to be drilled on land parcels, but also ordering the DEC to update its drilling regulations to safeguard the public. Barber called this move bittersweet, saying ``the gas rush can be either a boom or bust, depending on how it is managed.''

Dr. Charles Hudson of Cooperstown called for a study on gas drilling to be done by a public health authority, and James Herman of Hartwick spoke of studies linking gas drilling with endocrine disruption.

Colleen Blacklock of Oneonta noted that drillers commonly add chemicals to the water they pump into gas wells to fracture rock, but do not disclose what's in the mix. Paul Mendelsohn of Cherry Valley said that without knowing which chemicals to search for, residents could pay up to $30,000 to have their wells tested.

Michael Whaling of Sharon Springs said the lack of drilling oversight ``is the local version of the Bush-Cheney energy policy,'' and James Andela of Richfield called for a local energy authority to regulate drilling to benefit the area.

After the public comment period, geologist Don Zaengle of Worcester apprised the board on the richness of the Marcellus, Utica and other shales that underlie the area.

Zaengle, who is associated with Elmira lawyer Christopher Denton, predicted that some landowners will make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on the natural gas in the ground, but he cautioned they should never sign a company's prepared lease.

``Those leases are hideous, ridiculous,'' he said.

The documents are written to secure the best deal for the drillers, Zaengle said, and may have dire, unforeseen consequences for the lessor, such as tying up land for generations and allowing uses a property owner never contemplated, he said.

``With all due respect, I don't think we can stop drilling, but we can get ready for it,'' he said.

The northeastern U.S. has trillions of dollars worth of gas embedded in shale, and drillers have the means to extract a portion of it, he said. A technique likely to be used here is drilling a vertical well and then branching off from it horizontally as far as 10,000 feet, he said.

Drillers have learned techniques in other areas of the world that they will employ here, he said.

``They're very good at what they do. The gas business is every bit as high tech as NASA,'' Zaengle said.