Guest Viewpoint: Sidestepping gas-drilling review is a bad idea
Jun. 28, 2012 |
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Written by
Ross M. Horowitz
In some complex projects, a smaller-scale demonstration project may make
sense if it includes complete restoration in case the results are negative
and the project is cancelled.
However, in the case of fracking for natural gas, such a demonstration
project (as is being proposed in the Southern Tier) is a Trojan horse. Why?
Because given the size of the region proposed for eventually fracking the
Marcellus and Utica shales and the likely time period involved of decades to a
century, there is too great a disparity between the size of the
demonstration project and the scale of the eventual project.
So, the main reason for such a limited demonstration project is to once
and for all remove any consideration of cumulative effects in the mitigation
process required in the revised draft SGEIS by all those concerned — Gov.
Andrew Cuomo, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Joseph
Martens, members of the advisory panel and any members of the state
Legislature who would endorse this proposal.
The cumulative effects ignored by any such demonstration project include
many life-and-death topics already noted, such as aquifer pollution, air
pollution, methane effects on climate change, and health effects on all age
groups, nearby and downwind.
However, since the Southern Tier is a political entity and not a
physically isolated area, the cumulative effects of the area's
industrialization
because of fracking on economic activity, including agriculture and related
social issues, can be expected to spread north to the Finger Lakes and then
north to the cities from Buffalo eastward to Utica and beyond.
To the best of my knowledge, there have been no creditable studies showing
the current regional interdependence of south/north economic activity.
Hence, there are no creditable estimates of damage and risks that will need to
be mitigated from cumulative effects on the regional socio-economic
activity from this perspective.
Further, the experience in Pennsylvania suggests that the physical and
social infrastructure damage from the demonstration project will not be able
to be repaired, certainly not with tax dollars.
Since there is no provision in the 2011 revised draft SGEIS for such a
demonstration project, the public responses have not addressed this issue. So
in addition to the demonstration project inherently negating consideration
of cumulative effects, it is clearly an attempt to sidestep the DEC's
review process, to ignore Executive Order No.41 and to avoid the review
process
under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. For what and for whom?
New York deserves better.
Horowitz is an Ithaca resident.
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
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Shelley, at [email protected].
