Gone4Day
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24 February, 2011
Platts Commodity News
645 Words
Copyright 2011. Platts. All Rights Reserved.
Trenton, New Jersey (Platts)--24Feb2011/611 pm EST/2311 GMT
Tempers flared as well-organized landowners from upstate Pennsylvania and New York faced off against residents of New York City and New Jersey at the Delaware River Basin Commission's final set of hearings on natural gas drilling rules for the watershed in Trenton, New Jersey, Thursday.
Although less well-attended than hearings earlier this week in rural communities on both sides of the Delaware River in New York and Pennsylvania, Thursday's opportunity for the public to voice its thoughts about the DRBC's proposed gas drilling rules had two city residents ejected before the hearing began and featured frequent catcalls and insults from both sides.
Roughly 300 witnesses, speakers and supporters of both sides wandered in and out Trenton's Patriot War Memorial Theater, feuding with each other as witnesses testified, in the lobby of the 2,000-seat Art Deco theater and out onto the steps overlooking the Delaware
River.
DRBC staff distributed 100 slots for witnesses in the six minutes before the
hearings got underway, spokesman Clarke Rupert said. Unable to secure a ticket, New York City residents J.K. Canepa and Gabrielle Engh took to the stage and called the entire proceeding illegitimate. They were ejected.
The only thing both sides agreed upon was that the DRBC is -- in their opinion -- incapable of regulating gas development inside the watershed it governs. Speakers from both sides called the federal river commission "incompetent."
The DRBC's 83-page set of rules for gas drilling in the watershed, which includes seven counties in both New York and Pennsylvania that lie atop the Marcellus Shale, include hefty bonding requirements for new wells, a comprehensive gas development plan by operators, and a cradle-to-grave tracking system for fresh, hydraulic fracturing and produced water.
Pro-drilling speakers -- often landowners from Wayne County, Pennsylvania,
frustrated as their neighbors in adjacent counties collect lease bonuses and royalty payments from gas wells on their farms -- said the DRBC should abandon any attempt to regulate drilling as its plan adds layers of unneeded regulation on top of that of the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
Wayne County landowner Alan Nowicki said the DRBC's proposed plan for gas drilling is "unacceptable and unworkable." Nowicki, who owns a small oil and gas production company, complained that gas producers targeting the Marcellus Shale in his county "can't get capital and can't create jobs. Please reconsider these regulations."
Anti-drilling witnesses, many from urban New Jersey, New York City and Philadelphia, called on the DRBC to wait until its own study on the cumulative impacts of gas drilling and the US Environmental Protection Agency's study on the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water are complete.
"Wait for the insights to be gained from the EPA study and the cumulative impact study by the DRBC," Brooklyn resident Van Kypers testified. "The DRBC is under no obligation to further gas production. It does have the obligation to protect water."
As the audience clapped and booed speakers in turn, at times the testimony got catty. After a New Jersey resident pleaded for a delay in gas drilling, one Wayne County landowner noted that New Jersey has a high cancer rate and had long ago fouled its waters.
"Clean up your act," he said. "Stop whining and crying."
While the Trenton hearings are the last, according to the approved schedule, DRBC Executive Director Carol Collier acknowledged before the testimony started Thursday that more hearings are possible in Philadelphia and New York.
A full vote from the DRBC's members - New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the US Army Corp of Engineers -- on whether to hold more hearings is due March 2.
Bill Holland, bill_holland@platts.com
Platts Commodity News
645 Words
Copyright 2011. Platts. All Rights Reserved.
Trenton, New Jersey (Platts)--24Feb2011/611 pm EST/2311 GMT
Tempers flared as well-organized landowners from upstate Pennsylvania and New York faced off against residents of New York City and New Jersey at the Delaware River Basin Commission's final set of hearings on natural gas drilling rules for the watershed in Trenton, New Jersey, Thursday.
Although less well-attended than hearings earlier this week in rural communities on both sides of the Delaware River in New York and Pennsylvania, Thursday's opportunity for the public to voice its thoughts about the DRBC's proposed gas drilling rules had two city residents ejected before the hearing began and featured frequent catcalls and insults from both sides.
Roughly 300 witnesses, speakers and supporters of both sides wandered in and out Trenton's Patriot War Memorial Theater, feuding with each other as witnesses testified, in the lobby of the 2,000-seat Art Deco theater and out onto the steps overlooking the Delaware
River.
DRBC staff distributed 100 slots for witnesses in the six minutes before the
hearings got underway, spokesman Clarke Rupert said. Unable to secure a ticket, New York City residents J.K. Canepa and Gabrielle Engh took to the stage and called the entire proceeding illegitimate. They were ejected.
The only thing both sides agreed upon was that the DRBC is -- in their opinion -- incapable of regulating gas development inside the watershed it governs. Speakers from both sides called the federal river commission "incompetent."
The DRBC's 83-page set of rules for gas drilling in the watershed, which includes seven counties in both New York and Pennsylvania that lie atop the Marcellus Shale, include hefty bonding requirements for new wells, a comprehensive gas development plan by operators, and a cradle-to-grave tracking system for fresh, hydraulic fracturing and produced water.
Pro-drilling speakers -- often landowners from Wayne County, Pennsylvania,
frustrated as their neighbors in adjacent counties collect lease bonuses and royalty payments from gas wells on their farms -- said the DRBC should abandon any attempt to regulate drilling as its plan adds layers of unneeded regulation on top of that of the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
Wayne County landowner Alan Nowicki said the DRBC's proposed plan for gas drilling is "unacceptable and unworkable." Nowicki, who owns a small oil and gas production company, complained that gas producers targeting the Marcellus Shale in his county "can't get capital and can't create jobs. Please reconsider these regulations."
Anti-drilling witnesses, many from urban New Jersey, New York City and Philadelphia, called on the DRBC to wait until its own study on the cumulative impacts of gas drilling and the US Environmental Protection Agency's study on the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water are complete.
"Wait for the insights to be gained from the EPA study and the cumulative impact study by the DRBC," Brooklyn resident Van Kypers testified. "The DRBC is under no obligation to further gas production. It does have the obligation to protect water."
As the audience clapped and booed speakers in turn, at times the testimony got catty. After a New Jersey resident pleaded for a delay in gas drilling, one Wayne County landowner noted that New Jersey has a high cancer rate and had long ago fouled its waters.
"Clean up your act," he said. "Stop whining and crying."
While the Trenton hearings are the last, according to the approved schedule, DRBC Executive Director Carol Collier acknowledged before the testimony started Thursday that more hearings are possible in Philadelphia and New York.
A full vote from the DRBC's members - New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the US Army Corp of Engineers -- on whether to hold more hearings is due March 2.
Bill Holland, bill_holland@platts.com
