CWT fights DEP on gas drilling rights

By Jay Braman Jr.
Another voice in the region has been heard on the much-discussed subject of gas drilling in the New York City Watershed.This time it’s the Coalition of Watershed Towns (CWT), an advocacy group that, for almost 20 years, has fought for the rights of over 50 towns and villages in the Catskills that make up what is known as the West of Hudson Watershed.
The CWT’s Executive Committee, a group of representatives from Delaware, Ulster, Greene, Sullivan and Schoharie counties, submitted a three-page position on the gas drilling issue to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the agency that is currently in charge of regulating gas drilling in the state and is in the process of preparing regulations for gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that sits under the watershed as well as the rest of Appalachia in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Western New York.
The problem is that the method of extracting that gas out of the ground, a process called hydrofracing, could be harmful to the drinking water.
The CWT has not taken a position on the issue of drilling, but has come out swinging against the City of New York, which has called for a ban on drilling in its watershed.
In short, the CWT wants the watershed region to be treated like all the other areas where drilling is under consideration.
“If it harms water quality here then it harms water quality everywhere,” said CWT Attorney Jeff Baker, who spoke on the matter at a recent meeting to the organization’s executive committee in Margaretville.
It was Baker who penned the official comment the CWT submitted to the DEC.
In those comments, Baker challenged the validity of the city’s call for a drilling ban.
“The coalition does strongly protest any claim that gas mining…should be prohibited anywhere in the New York City Watershed. We do not believe that proponents of such a ban have demonstrated any sufficient reason why the mining presents a special threat to the city’s water supply, compared to any other water supply in the state,” Baker wrote.
Through Baker, the CWT agreed that hydrofracing can have a significant impact on groundwater.
“However, those impacts are statewide and are not unique or present a specific threat to the New York City supply,” he added.
The CWT actually has a bigger concern on a smaller scale.
“If the threat of contamination is real, it is even more of a concern for smaller municipal systems relying upon groundwater and individual homes than it is to the city’s supply,” Baker said.
The CWT’s comments follow comments submitted to DEC by New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, which wrote “gas drilling poses unacceptable risks to the unfiltered water supply for nine million New Yorkers.”
Baker also notes that the city’s position fails to take into account the economic impact on landowners in the watershed.
“An arbitrary prohibition deprives property owners from realizing the full potential of their property and denies the communities needed tax revenues and jobs,” said Baker.