In New York, towns are passing laws right and left to ban hydraulic fracturing. Courts are upholding their ability to do so. On the surface it sounds like self-preservation, but when you look at the facts, it reveals gullibility of historic proportions.
Gripped with irrational fear being fed by opportunist environmental activists -- like Josh Fox and his seemingly rag-tag, but actually well-heeled crew from Gasland and Gasland 2 -- town boards have been led to believe that their drinking water is at risk from natural gas development.
That’s simply not true. The charge ignores the record of 70,000+ oil and gas wells that have been drilled in New York with production stretching back to 1821. Every one of those wells reaches hydrocarbons by passing through an aquifer. They have not poisoned the water supply.
That’s simply not true. The charge ignores the record of 70,000+ oil and gas wells that have been drilled in New York with production stretching back to 1821. Every one of those wells reaches hydrocarbons by passing through an aquifer. They have not poisoned the water supply.
Fox is famous for filming the flaming faucet, but if he would have turned his camera out of doors he would have found Eternal Flame Falls, Burning Springs, and many other places in NY and PA where methane occurs in shallow strata, mixes with water and seeps to surface. Oil and gas drilling did not cause this to happen. Nature did!
Environmental activists have conflated historical industrial pollution in New York with oil and gas development in order to stir up wild emotions. Once again, it’s wrong. New York has 220 sites listed on EPA’s Superfund and RCRA clean up website. Not one of them was caused by oil and gas development. Gowanus and Love Canals happened because of unregulated industrial waste disposal, not because of oil and gas development.
To be sure, environmental risks associated with development are not zero, but they are worth taking. Comprehensive study of the 2008-2010 record of violations in Pennsylvania, which was done by the Manhattan Institute and released in May 2011, showed that the environmental cost over this period of Marcellus development was $4,500 per well. That cost is more than offset by the benefit, which is estimated to be $2,800,000 per well. Both figures are at the low end of the estimates. Higher figures show an even more compelling cost/benefit trade off.
Towns that enact bans can be sure of only one thing. They will never receive any of the benefits of oil and gas development. Let the New York Department of Environmental Conservation do its job, which is to protect the health, safety and environment of its citizens while ensuring the efficient extraction and conservation of valuable natural resources.
It’s time to board the airplane.
It’s time to board the airplane.
Till Next Time,
Energy Mom
New York, New York
New York, New York
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