SGEIS Comment

Earlier this week, my wife and I attended a letter-writing workshop at Capresso on Main St. Dave Hutchison, a retired Hartwick College geology professor, provided information and strategies for making effective comments on the DEC's current draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS). This is, as I understand it, the State's statement regarding whether hydrofracking is safe or not. It's a 1,500 page document, so it's pretty complex. At the end of the day, however, the draft indicates that hydrofracking can be safe if proper precautions are in place.

Here's the letter I wrote today, and will send to Gov. Cuomo and the DEC:

I am a newly-elected County Representative. During the next few years, I'll be asked to take action, on behalf of my constituents, on the topic of hydrofracking here in Otsego County.

I've made a tremendous effort to understand this process and its effects on the landscape where it occurs. I have found no source of information that suggests that it will be as safe as we need it to be.

In Otsego County, our natural resources – beautiful countryside, pristine lakes and rivers, clean air and water – are the economic engines that support so many of our citizens in the tourism industry. We cannot lose this, and the drilling rigs, pumping stations, buffalo tanks and endless heavy truck traffic will change our world forever.

But more importantly, we – and every other community located above the shale deposits – have not been shown any evidence at all that our water will be safe if drilling proceeds. In fact, we're being convinced of the opposite. Exempting the NYC and Syracuse watersheds from drilling suggests that you are already concerned about the danger (and arguments about different treatment processes are not convincing, as the chemicals causing the concerns are not necessarily removed by other municipal water systems). And the news from Pavillion, Wyoming, where groundwater has clearly been contaminated by hydrofracking, simply helps to make the case.

There is no technology currently available that will guarantee the safety of our watersheds in the presence of hydraulic fracturing. We need a guarantee, not assurances that it is 'reasonable safe.' There is no remedy for contamination – you can't go back and 'clean up' a watershed or aquifer – and so I must request that you take action to suspend the granting of drilling leases statewide until technology is developed which can guarantee that our water will not be compromised.

Here's the distinction I think needs to be made: hydrofracking must be 100% guaranteed safe for it to be safe at all, because we can't go back and fix it. And there's no way it can be made safe given current technology. Case closed.