Look closer at this clean energy
http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion/look-closer-at-this-clean-energy/10965/
April 24, 2011 at 6:00 am by Jay Jochnowitz, Editorial page editor
Opinion: Getting natural gas out of the ground turns out to be pretty dirty business. Energy shouldn’t come at the price of drinkable water and clean air.
The natural gas industry likes to portray its product as abundant, domestic and clean. Perhaps it thinks two out of three isn’t bad.
We don’t. Nor should Congress and the government agencies entrusted with protecting our drinking water and environment.
Time and again lately, we’ve received fresh warnings that mining this source of energy is far from a clean process, despite the industry’s often artfully parsed claim that the method of choice — horizontal hydraulic fracturing — is safe.
The process involves drilling deep underground, down and horizontally, and pumping in millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to crack the rock and release trapped gas. The industry is using fracking to tap portions of the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich rock formation that lies under six states, including New York. The state has yet to issue permits while it drafts regulations.
Among the latest rebuttals to the industry’s claim of safety:
Thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water spewed into a stream last week from a well in Bradford County, Pa. Homeowners and farmers don’t know if their water is safe now for people and animals. This follows well contaminations elsewhere in the state, which embraced the rush to drill.
While the industry likes to note that chemicals are only a tiny fraction of the fracking mixture, a congressional investigation found that it added up to 866 million gallons, including hazardous and carcinogenic compounds, pumped into wells in at least 13 states from 2005 to 2009. And while underground, the water can become radioactive. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has told Pennsylvania to test drinking water for radium.
Pennsylvania officials have halted the disposal of drilling wastewater through treatment plants that discharge into rivers and streams that provide drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. The plants, it turns out, aren’t equipped to remove the pollutants.
A Cornell University study concluded that fracking contributes to global warming even more than coal or oil burning by releasing methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The industry — which has sought to block release of methane emission data — dismissed the peer-reviewed study as lacking credibility.
New York has prudently held off issuing drilling permits at least until regulations are finished this summer. We urge the state, once again, to continue its moratorium until the EPA finishes a study into the safety of hydraulic fracturing, most likely next year. That study, focusing on water, should be expanded to air quality in light of the Cornell report.
Likewise, the interstate Delaware River Basin Commission, which controls a watershed that spans New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, and supplies water for millions including New York City residents, should wait for the EPA study, too, before issuing its own drilling regulations. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman should follow through on his threat to sue the commission if it doesn’t take the time for a proper environmental study.
Finally, Congress needs to fix mistakes it made in 2005 to exempt hydrofracking from federal clean air and water standards. Lawmakers need to let the agency charged with protecting the environment do its job in regulating an industry that has proven to be anything but clean.