New York is stuck in a prolonged stalemate on fracking and, while the future is fraught with uncertainty, the current impasse may be the clearest measure to date of how close we are to winning.
The February 2013 regulatory showdown in which the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) failed to finalize its fracking regulations has led to eight months of apparent quiet deliberation. Originally, the delay was predicated on the completion of a health review of fracking, which was to be made public “in a matter of weeks” by Department of Health Commissioner Nirav Shah. Instead, half a year has gone by with only an occasional statement from various administration officials that the matter is still being investigated, but now on an indefinite timelindfe.
The industry has claimed that the Governor is in a state of paralysis — unable to choose between the desires of oil and gas interests and the growing number of New Yorkers who see fracking as an environmentally destructive Ponzi scheme. But it is difficult to look at the external events of the past eight months and not see the wisdom of the governor’s precaution. He’s not paralyzed with fear; he’s just being practical with the facts he’s given. The lessons learned from the shale gas bust in Pennsylvania, dismal assessments of DEC staffing oversight, emerging information about public health risks, and continuing stories of environmental ruin from the country’s gas fields has made any advancement of fracking a political impossibility.
Let’s review.
By the start of 2013, the Pennsylvania fracking boom went bust, with production declining by more than half of the 2010 peak. Many parts of Pennsylvania that ramped up housing and community infrastructure to accommodate workers and businesses ancillary to the fracking industry suffered with the exodus of the drilling rigs, leaving an even deeper scar of joblessness and debt. Landowners with leases saw royalty checks dwindle to nothing and multiple energy companies “pulled up their stakes” to rededicate their efforts to oil production elsewhere.
The initial investment mechanisms designed to stimulate drilling in Marcellus shale also drove overproduction, and the resulting low gas prices will likely endure long after the majority of New York mineral leases expire. New geological estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey challenged original projections of shale gas reserves, indicating future employment numbers and supply will be diminished when gas prices finally rebound.
Conversely, a new report by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center shows that jobs in the clean energy sector have grown by 24 % since 2011, with nearly 80,000 people in Massachusetts directly employed in the new green economy. That’s more than twice the number of natural gas jobs created in Pennsylvania during the entire fracking boom. Take-away message for Cuomo: the fiscal downside of fracking is too great and should not supplant other forms of job creation that support lasting economic development in the communities that need it the most.
In the past two years, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s online database, more than 300,000 tons of potentially radioactive fracking waste has been dumped in New York landfills and on roadways from Pennsylvania drilling sites. Much of this waste should be considered hazardous because of its chemical and radiological profile, but due to federal and state preemptions and loopholes, facilities designed to take municipal garbage alone have no restrictions on taking this dangerous refuse.
The resulting exposures to workers and host communities receiving waters of the processed leachate represent a potential public health crisis that will only be compounded by other emerging health issues associated with fracking. The Cuomo administration, in its public health analysis, has undoubtedly come across a multitude of new research linking the exposure pathways of fracking chemicals to low birth weight, chronic respiratory ailments, neuropathies and other serious medical conditions. Take-away message for Cuomo: New York should not be Pennsylvania’s dumping ground, and the lack of proper waste remediation facilities represents a severe limitation to drilling in New York. The compounding health effects of fracking make the decision to move forward increasingly uncomfortable when the goal is to revitalize upstate communities—not poison them.
In July, the oil and gas lobby was successful in using its power to force the EPA to reverse previous contamination determinations in Dimock, Pa., leaving many families in the nine-square-mile area stranded, with poisoned water and little recourse. Some victims agreed to finally sell their homes to Cabot Oil and put the bitter experience behind them. Incredibly, in spite of their repeated denials of any responsibility for contamination, Cabot Oil elected to tear down these homes rather than attempt to sell or occupy the despoiled properties themselves. Take- away message for Cuomo: proper oversight will be impossible if the industry has undue influence over regulators which, at this point, seems inevitable with an understaffed and under-funded DEC.
In late August, the New York State Court of Appeals agreed to hear arguments on whether local governments can ban gas drilling within their borders. Every court that has had the opportunity to address this issue has upheld the power of local governments to limit the use of land for oil and gas development, and there is every expectation that the highest court will solidify home rule rights once and for all. Take away message for Cuomo: While affirming home rule could lead to a convenient policy of drilling where it is politically acceptable, it will also lead to larger uncertainty for energy companies unwilling to take financial risks that are based on the whims of a local town board. This ruling alone could kill fracking in New York and Cuomo may not want to upstage its impact with a policy move of his own.
In September, the catastrophic flooding along Colorado’s eastern slope also besieged tens of thousands of gas wells, breaking gathering lines and dispersing hundreds of thousands of gallons of fracking chemicals, oil and brine across a vast area of the front range—potentially contaminating grazing land, prairie ecosystems and agricultural communities. Take-away message for Cuomo: as a governor who has witnessed the devastation of Super storms Irene, Lee and Sandy, the new trends of the climate crisis leave little room for oil and gas development that is safe from natural disasters.
Governor Cuomo, in his deliberation on fracking, has sided with precaution based upon the information he has received from the industry and public alike. But there are new developments outside of the state that may force his hand to irrationally move forward.
Recently, the Democratic governors of Illinois and California have blindly rushed into the fracking fray at the same time the New York environmental review process has come to a complete standstill. Both California and Illinois passed new laws that authorize fracking programs, but unlike New York, they have done so without any supporting review or analysis that would suggest that the new rules for drilling could be effective. The take-away message for everyone is that fracking is easier to permit when you don’t know anything about it. It is bewildering to many that Governor Jerry Brown of California signed a legislative fracking package that took less time to approve than the Cuomo administration has spent in contemplation of the public health risks alone.
One could interpret the recent capitulations of Illinois and California as a harbinger of how Cuomo will approach fracking in the future. There is no doubt the industry will use the comparison to pressure Cuomo. But the past five years of unprecedented citizen involvement in the debate has given the governor a support base—if he chooses to embrace it—that can act as an antidote to the influence of the gas industry. Thus far it is hard to argue that the prolonged review of fracking has harmed his political stature in any way. The majority of New Yorkers are behind him on this one.
Environmental victories are never as permanent as our defeats. Even if no final decision on fracking appears to be on the distant horizon—which should be considered a small win—it is hard to feel comfortable when there is still so much to lose.
The fact that the industry has chosen to place all its efforts now in building pipeline infrastructure, expanding storage and export facilities, and challenging restrictive drilling rules in court suggests they still have hope that one day, if they wait out the current leadership, New York will still be ripe for exploitation.
That is why every effort is being made now to thwart their efforts and expand the clean energy economy, so that the final decision day for fracking may never need to come.