Annual holiday gas drilling protest at Waldorf Astoria

The Pennsylvania Society 113th Annual Dinner, held at the Waldoff Astoria hotel in Manhattan was met by the now-annual fracking protest, capping off a week in which New York has particularly looked at other states on the environmental situation. The extension on New York’s public commentary period on gas drilling regulations from this Monday to January 11th, gives way to developments this week on the issue that have emerged in Pennsylvania and Wyoming. Yet despite the two major stories on Dimock PA and Pavillion WY in the press recently, environmentalists crashed the Pennsylvania Society gala to charge PA Governor Corbett of corruption, or allowing the gas industry to get away with too much while accepting their campaign donations.

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The gala, which traditionally honors the Pennsylvania governor was sponsored by pro-drilling groups, says David Publow of United for Action. Governor Corbett had received over 1.6 million from the natural gas industry according to Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania. "He tried to make it so the Department of Environmental Protection," (PADEP) "could not issue citations to the gas drillers without political approval," says Publow. He added that Mr. Corbett also tried to limit PADEP communication with the press, and appointed to the head of PADEP Michael Krancer, who had worked for the natural gas industry.

The PADEP has issued hundreds of violations to dozens of companies over the last few years. Some of the larger percentages of these violations include improper construction of wastewater impoundment, discharge of industrial waste and violations of the Pennsylvania Clean Stream Law. Legislation is under consideration in Pennsylvania, which seeks to protect the gas industry from regulation, HB 1950 and SB 100.

Last Tuesday, eyes were on Dimock Pennsylvania, especially regarding the truth of water contamination associated with gas drilling in that town. On the same day of the last public hearing on regulations in New York, which was in Tribecca, Cabot Oil and Gas halted deliveries of fresh water to households in Dimock, which began three years ago when residents complained of water contamination that they attributed to HVHF (high volume hydraulic fracturing). Julie and Craig Sautner from Dimock appeared at the Tribecca press conference before the hearing; days later, busloads of people from New York State and other parts of Pennsylvania flocked to Dimock to deliver fresh water.

In the Sautners' driveway packed with people, hydro-geologist Paul Rubin challenged PADEP's claims that the water in Dimock is now safe to drink. Rubin is president of Hydroquest, an environmental consulting firm, which has been around since 1993. “Unfortunately,” he said, “the State’s determination of whether ground water is contaminated or not has been in comparison with a pretty small and select number of chemicals that have Pennsylvania maximum contaminant level standards.” He said that Cabot provided a set of water analyses, “for our view,” which formed the basis for the State’s determination. The EPA, he said, referred to the same findings in a preliminary assessment.

The problems with the PADEP and EPA conclusions, Rubin said, were that they ignored wells that were known to be affected and “visually obvious MCL violations,” which was a reference to a jug of brown water right next to him. “Cabots own data reveals existing contamination in excess of state MCL water quality standards.” These excesses included iron, manganese, led and arsenic. Water that was sampled hours before, contained excess levels of alluminum and low levels of hexanes, octanes and decanes.

The other big fracking story this week was that EPA released a report stating that toxic chemicals found in drinking water in Pavillion, Wyoming were likely the same chemicals associated with HVHF (high volume hydraulic fracking). However, the EPA insisted that their findings were specific to Pavillion, where well bores go through and deeply below aquifers, and are close to water wells. "They didn't want to make a blanket-statement condemning fracking," said activist David Fischer outside the Waldorf Astoria.

Industry representatives were quick to challenge the EPA's findings to the press (including Bloomberg and AP) by saying that the aquifer was poor or that the EPA purposely collected samples where they knew they would find chemicals such as in a particularly deep water well. The study has been going on for over two years. The findings will be peer reviewed.