Insight: NY water at risk from lack of natgas inspectors?
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York state may have enough natural gas to spark an energy boom, but it could lack the inspectors needed to ensure drilling won’t foul its other prized resource — water.
Home to a portion of the Marcellus shale formation, the country’s richest natural gas deposit, New York is mulling plans to end a year-long moratorium on drilling. The ban was put in place due to concerns that a new extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminates water wells.
But the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has only 14 well inspectors to oversee 13,000 wells. With staff and budget constraints, the agency will struggle to keep up with the flood of drilling applications expected from companies keen to develop untapped reserves should the state lift its ban.
Neighboring Pennsylvania, whose natural gas production has rocketed in recent years thanks to drilling in its slice of the Marcellus, has 202 workers charged with oil and gas inspections for more than 22,000 wells. Eighty-eight of these staffers specialize in actual well inspection.
“Clearly 14 well inspectors is woefully short, they are going to need a lot more,” said Timothy Considine, a professor of energy economics at the University of Wyoming and an advocate for drilling in New York.
“The drilling activity in New York could rival Pennsylvania and the requirements for inspections would be pretty significant.”
In a draft environmental impact statement this month, the DEC recommended that drilling go ahead with tight regulations, including keeping gas wells away from precious aquifers that supply fresh drinking water for more than 8 million New York City residents and millions more in other cities in the state.
If the ban is lifted, the DEC expects an average of 1,600 drilling applications per year over 30 years, with busy years attracting up to 2,500 applications, it said in its report. Leases could be handed out as early as January 2012.
Fracking involves blasting shale rock with millions of gallons of chemical-laced water to release natural gas trapped in shale rock. While fracking has unlocked huge reserves of natural gas across the United States, environmentalists say the process contaminates water supplies.
Problems of soured water wells or flammable tap water in Pennsylvania have been attributed to methane migration from gas wells due to shoddy casing and cementing, two key areas that well inspectors would check.
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Tags: climate change, ecofriendly, environment, global warning, greenComments Off
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