2nd New York state judge upholds fracking ban in towns

[Judi Lynn]

2nd New York state judge upholds fracking ban in towns
By Dan Wiessner
ALBANY, New York | Sat Feb 25, 2012 7:39pm EST

(Reuters) - A New York state judge on Friday upheld an upstate community's ban on gas drilling, marking the second victory this week for opponents of the drilling method known as fracking.

The authority vested in towns and cities in New York to regulate use of their land extends to prohibitions on drilling, acting state Supreme Court Justice Donald Cerio ruled on Friday, dismissing arguments by a landowner who had already sold leases on almost 400 acres.

"Municipalities are not preempted ... from enacting local zoning ordinances which may prohibit oil, gas and solution drilling or mining," Cerio wrote. "The state maintains control over the 'how' of (drilling) procedures while the municipalities maintain control over the 'where.'"

Jennifer Huntington, a dairy farmer, argued the town of Middlefield's ban was pre-empted by a state law designed to create a uniform regulatory scheme for the oil and gas industry. Cerio disagreed, holding that nothing in the legislative history of the law and its numerous amendments suggested state lawmakers intended to stop towns from barring heavy industry.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/26/us-usa-newyork-fracking-idUSTRE81P01820120226?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=401

[dipsydoodle]

1. "over the where"

I like that.

[Fortran]

3. The "how" nowadays includes much of the 'where', a point the judge ignored or missed.

It's just the barest beginning of what will be decades of legal fights over oil and gas in the near future, and water on down the line. I don't even think the courts will be able to maintain enough power to solve, much less enforce them. It's gonna get a whole lot worse before it (never) gets better, sadly.

[blue neen]

4. IMHO, the "how" does not include the "where."

Those are two completely different issues when it comes to fracking.

[Fortran]

15. Subsurface formations are fractured far from a point directly underneath the hole where it starts.

If you don't think people who live in the next county will be hiring ambulance chasing lawyers to sue somebody/everybody you don't know much about the 'legal' system these days.

[blue neen]

18. That's correct. The toxic fracking chemicals are put through laterals up to 1 1/2 miles away.

I hope that "ambulance chasing lawyers" are able to protect the citizens whose property values have declined, and whose water sources have been ruined.

The "legal" system deck has already been stacked in Pennsylvania "these days" in favor of the drillers by Governor Tom Corrupt.

I hope that New York continues to fight the Robber Barons.

[PA Democrat]

23. You obviously are quite ignorant of the legal system if you

think an attorney would waste his time and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to pursue a "frivolous" lawsuit. The corporate polluters have very deep pockets and it is typically years before people receive any compensation in even the most egregious cases of harm due to environmental pollution.

BTW, how much is YOUR family's health worth?

[Fortran]

29. Apparently you never heard of contingency fees or class action suits.

Pity.

[PA Democrat]

33. Spare me your insults. A contingency fee means that the plaintiff's attorney bears all the costs

whether they win or lose. No attorney in his right mind would risk financial disaster for a contingency fee unless they had a very good case. Do you have any idea of the costs of the various experts that have to be retained? Do you have any idea of the money spent by the corporation to delay, deny, obfuscate, and do everything humanly possible to avoid taking responsibility for harming people?

[DocMac]

2. I'll go with the "how." nt

[blue neen]

5. Go New York!

Learn from the fools who are turning Pennsylvania into a living hell.

[Thinkingabout]

6. Do you think gas companies are going to tell the truth

I am not experienced on all sides of this matter but have seen bad results after explosions near personal wells. Also those who are able to light the product coming out of their water lines in a home does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

[christx30]

7. Pure water

is highly flammable. That's why firefighters don't use it. Makes things worse.

[proverbialwisdom]

12. Good one. Thanks for the laugh.

[ellisonz]

8. woot

[Agony]

9. IOW "Home Rule" rules and communities get to determine their own destiny. from the court ruling

NYSDEC gets to say how drilling happens wherever municipalities choose to allow it to happen.

If you do not want fracking in your NY neighborhood get your local government to ban it. Get your Comprehensive Plan in order and Zone fracking (heavy industry) out of your town. Don't count on Cuomo being any help...

Here are a couple of para's from the court ruling...

"Similarly, here, the defendant's Zoning Law is an exercise of the municipality's constitutional and statutory authority to enact land use regulations even if such may have incidental impact upon the oil, gas and solution drilling or mining industry. The Zoning Law does not conflict with the state's interest in establishing uniform policies and procedures for the manner and method of the industry or does it impede implementation of the state's declared policy with respect to these resources.

•••

Therefore, it is evident that the supersession clause contained with ECL §23-0303(2) does not serve to preempt a local municipality such as defendant from enacting land use regulation within the confines of its geographical jurisdiction and, as such, local municipalities are permitted to permit or prohibit oil, gas and solution mining or drilling in conformity with such constitutional and statutory authority."

Cheers
Agony

[L. Coyote]

10. REC! Great News. DON'T drink the flammable water.

[SnakeEyes]

11. Love it

1. It's pollutes
2. We need to get off dirty energy sources
3. by preventing it and other forms of dirty energy source recovery it helps give reason for energy costs to skyrocket which should be the catalyst for #2 to occur. I welcome $5 gas and hope it goes even higher

[proverbialwisdom]

13. State Pre-emption Pesticide Laws are being battled out across the country, links here:

From another dUer's link to beyondpesticides.org, I recently learned that so-called state pre-emption pesticide laws are being applied to force GMOs into communities.

Links here:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=beyond+pesticides+state+pre-emption+laws&psj=1&oq=beyond+pesticides+state+pre-emption+laws&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=1500l11711l0l12870l40l40l0l0l0l1l654l12771l0.2.15.17.5.1l40l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=9615cf4d726fcad1&biw=1619&bih=649

(beyondpesticides.org State Preemption Laws PDF only available to me via cache)

[mackdaddy]

14. Of course Frack wells can be drilled over a mile and a half horizontally from the well head.

And how far from the well shaft the fracturing happens is not really disclosed.

So just drill the well head a mile and a half outside town, and tunnel under the town. Who is to know until the water burns?

Isn't this Halliburton technology grand?

[Fortran]

16. A ban on gas drilling has nothing to do with fracking which is a completely separate activity

that may or may not be done after the well is drilled. I can't figure out how people expect to get cheap auto gas with no drilling...it sounds like a symptom of insanity to me.

[blue neen]

17. What does "cheap auto gas" have to do with the natural gas derived from fracking?

Is your car powered by natural gas?

The big surge to get to the Marcellus Shale gas is not to provide the gas to the United States--it is all about putting it on the world market, and ultimately selling it to China and India.

If a gas company is drilling a Marcellus Shale well, they most likely are going to be doing fracking. Why would a corporation spend the money to drill a well, and then not extract the natural gas from it? It takes millions of dollars to build those well pads; they're not going to waste their time and money building them just for shits and giggles.

Fracking most certainly does have everything to do with gas drilling. Let's not sugar coat it. Halliburton invented the toxic-chemical-laden fracking process just to get to this gas.

God help the people who live in the Utica Shale, because they're the real target of Big Oil and Gas.

[Fortran]

19. Halliburton did not invent it, they got some of the earlier patents. I worked in Okla and Illinois

oil fields with my dad who was instrumental in developing the technology in the late 1940s...they were doing it on a strictly experimental basis and were not interested in patents back then. Also, they certainly were cognizant of the fact it needed to be done with care to avoid water contamination, but in those days the shallow oil wells often produced (unwanted) water...that was before deep water wells were thought to be useful because they simply weren't needed.
The first fracking was to produce oil, not gas. Prior to 1950 natural gas was more of a nuisance than a marketable product in most oil fields...they flared off literally billions of cubic feet just to get it out of the way because there was no infrastructure to do anything else with it. I can guarantee damn few if any "oil men" wanted to cause any harm to people or their potable water then or now. And yes, my car is powered with natural gas. So is my truck.

[blue neen]

20. Lots of interesting info on Halliburton:

"Far below this rippling wealth there’s a vast, rocky netherworld called the Marcellus Shale. Stretching through southern New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, the shale contains bubbles of methane, the remains of life that died 400 million years ago. Gas corporations have lusted for the methane in the Marcellus since at least 1967 when one of them plotted with the Atomic Energy Agency to explode a nuclear bomb to unleash it. That idea died, but it’s been reborn in the form of a technology invented by Halliburton Corporation: high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing -- “fracking” for short."

"Fracking uses prodigious amounts of water laced with sand and a startling menu of poisonous chemicals to blast the methane out of the shale. At hyperbaric bomb-like pressures, this technology propels five to seven million gallons of sand-and-chemical-laced water a mile or so down a well bore into the shale."

"Up comes the methane -- along with about a million gallons of wastewater containing the original fracking chemicals and other substances that were also in the shale, among them radioactive elements and carcinogens. There are 400,000 such wells in the United States. Surrounded by rumbling machinery, serviced by tens of thousands of diesel trucks, this nightmare technology for energy release has turned rural areas in 34 U.S. states into toxic industrial zones."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175492/tomgram:_ellen_cantarow,_an_environmental_occupy_fracks_corporate_america/#more

I wish that I could believe that no one wants to harm people or potable water, but the fact is that they are:

"By 2009, Dimock, a picturesque rural village, had become synonymous with fracking hell. Houston-based Cabot Oil & Energy had started drilling there the year before. Shortly after, people started to notice that their drinking water had darkened. Some began experiencing bouts of dizziness and headaches; others developed sores after bathing in what had been their once pure water."

"For a while, Cabot trucked water to Dimock’s residents, but stopped in November when a judge declined to order the company to continue deliveries. The Environmental Protection Agency was going to start water service to Dimock in the first week of January, but withdrew the offer, claiming further water tests were needed. Outraged New Yorkers organized water caravans to help their besieged neighbors."

“When I went to Dimock,” says Slottje, “I saw well drilling, huge trucks, muddy crisscrossing pipeline paths cutting through the woods, disposal pits, sites of diesel spills, dusty coatings on plants, noisy compressor stations -- you name it. So I decided to put my legal background to work to prevent the same thing from happening where I lived. We’d been corporate lawyers before. We know the sort of resources the energy corporations have. The grassroots people have nothing. And they have this behemoth coming at them.”

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175492/tomgram:_ellen_cantarow,_an_environmental_occupy_fracks_corporate_america/#more

If they want no harm to come to us, then why don't they wait until this process is perfected, or a better way of extracting the gas is invented? It's not going anywhere, is it?

I congratulate you on the fact that your car and your truck are both powered by natural gas. What's the name of that truck, and where could you acquire one? My husband would be very interested.

BTW, we both know that equating the price of auto gasoline with Marcellus Shale fracking is a way to get citizens to think that fracking is a good thing, but that's just a selling point. They want the gas to send it overseas, where it will make the most profit for Big Oil and Gas.

[Fortran]

21. The truck isn't actually mine, it belongs to the city. It is a 2010 Chevy part of a fleet they had

converted last year. My car is a Honda Civic GX that I was lucky to get because my brother in law is a partner in a Honda dealership in St. Louis. I don't think of fracking as an inherently good or bad thing, it just is. Extracting petrochemicals from the ground has always been a fairly nasty business - even when it bubbled up out of the ground on its own like in Pennsylvania 150 years ago - but the thing is, how much will a regular person be willing to pay for a product everyone wants that creates pollution? It might very well turn out that we will run out of hydrocarbons right around the time their byproducts have saturated the atmosphere and thus limit the ultimate damage to livable levels, or it might be there's enough to poison us all with CO2 before it's gone. Thing is, humans are going to use whatever resources they can exploit to keep from freezing in the cold and all the noble environmentalism in the world will never change that and it will be done by big companies or little ones or individuals according to the marketplace and available technology.

[Fortran]

22. Oh, by the way, not to defend Halliburton, but 50 years ago they were just another company

like Schlumberger that sent people out to do nasty jobs for a pretty reasonable price. That was LONG before people like Cheney got insinuated into their business and turned it into a vehicle for warmongers and the military-industrial complex (and I can't help mentioning once again Prez Eisenhower, a Republican was the first to warn us about it).

[blue neen]

25. Yes, human will use resources to keep from freezing, but why does it have to be fossil fuels?

There is technology already available, but Oil and Gas Companies haven't figured out a way to make enough money off of other sources yet.

"Noble environmentalism" is what cleaned up Pennsylvania after the Oil Companies and the Coal Companies destroyed this state 100 years ago. When I was a child, the river in my hometown was bright orange from acid mine drainage. We spent many years, and a whole lot of money restoring that river that the Robber Barons had polluted into a giant sulfur stream. Now, they stock this same river with trout and have fishing tournaments.

What happens? The same people who got rich from oil and coal are now the ones getting even richer from Marcellus Shale...they didn't give a damn then or now about anything but money. The acid mine drainage is gone, only to be replaced by methane, and benzene, and toluene. So, the cycle starts all over again.

That's bullshit. People shouldn't sit here and be complacent and accept it all as inevitable. That's why what is going on in New York is so admirable. I salute them and everyone who is still trying in Pennsylvania (although that's a tough cause until we vote Governor Gashole out of office).

[Fortran]

27. You're absolutely right, there is current technology that can fill in that gap, it is nuclear.

I realize that suggesting such a thing here on DU is akin to endorsing the KKK but the simple incontrovertible fact is that no amount of 'renewable' energy (assuming that means wind and solar) is now recoverable in sufficient quantity to satisfy world requirements nor is likely to do so for many years. It's possible that given sufficient funding and impetus, useful fusion technology might be developed but there's not much dedication to that kind of investment - which is understandable if not pleasing to contemplate.

The cleanup from the pollution you find so praiseworthy is wonderful but did nothing to alleviate the fundamental problem, that of energy availability. Everyone claims to believe in altruism until it requires some sacrifice on their part...it's a kind of hypocrisy unique to homo sapiens and I suspect cannot be persuaded out of us, and for sure not bred away even if we thought that was a good way to approach it.

[blue neen]

31. The fundamental problem is this:

"Big oil’s ruthless supply and demand tactics have monopolized the entire energy industry by shredding competitors’ attempts to offer alternatives. Consumers are thus forced to surrender their right to choose due to the aggressive techniques being used by the oil industry to prevent the use of clean energy. Unfortunately, the American government has historically sided with the oil tycoons. In the movie Who Killed the Electric Car the executive director for Energy and Climate Solutions, Joseph J. Romm accurately declares, “There’s no question that the people who control the marketplace today, the oil companies, have a strong incentive to discourage alternatives except the alternatives that they themselves control.” This seems rather unfair considering the alarming amount of evidence that shows the ill effects the use and production of fossil fuels cause to the environment. The ideal solution would be to replace oil with one of the safer alternatives that have been introduced into the markets over the past forty years; however, the American economy, being driven by capitalism and big oil interests, has protected the status quo and prevented change from occurring. There is a significant need to revise the profit motive as it pertains to energy and the environment. Presently, the oil industry controls the environmental future of America, which does not bode well for the future."

"Over the past forty years there have been several notable attempts to revolutionize technology, all of which have been stomped into the ground by the oil industry. The first occurred in 1985 when Ronald Reagan tore down the solar panels from the roof of the White House. The incident and the events surrounding it were documented in Joshua Green’s essay, “Better Luck This Time.” In “The Specter Haunting Alaska” Peter Canby tells of another win for the oil industry. Canby gives details on Donald Hodel’s decision to drill in Alaska despite explicit warnings from environmentalists of disastrous results for the environment. Most recently, the California Air and Resource Board made an attempt to soften the blow that the oil industry is taking on the atmosphere. They passed the Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate in1990, which stated that each year car manufacturers were required to produce a small percentage of vehicles that did not produce harmful emissions. This effort by the auto industry to infiltrate the use of electric vehicles was stopped by the oil industry but not without the help of the United States government. This disturbing occurrence was documented in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car. It is absolutely necessary for a major revision to take place in order for the environment to have any chance at survival. These attempts were made by influential people, over the past four decades, yet still remain unsuccessful, suggesting that there is little hope for the environment."

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/353/big-oils-stranglehold-on-america

[blue neen]

34. The cleanup that I find "so praiseworthy?" Really? Does that mean you don't?

Even Richard Mellon Scaife found it praiseworthy enough to write about it in his very conservative newspaper:

"The Kiski River, which arguably suffered more environmental damage than any other during Western Pennsylvania's industrial heyday, has made a remarkable comeback. After being a lifeless stream of rust-colored pollutants for nearly a century, the Kiski now is home to dozens of fish species, insects and birds. Fishermen grace its banks, and boaters float on its gentle current in places where for generations people were rightfully afraid to go near the water."

"Environmental officials hope the successful strategy for cleaning up the Kiski can continue to improve it. They also hope it can serve as a model for cleaning up other polluted rivers and economically revitalizing old, industrial riverfront communities."

<snip>

"Officials believe before its revival began, the Kiski was a dead river for as long as 90 years. Its demise began in the late 1800s, when mines throughout the Valley produced the coal that fueled Western Pennsylvania's blossoming industries. The acidic water rushing from those mines into the Kiski and its tributaries killed every living thing in the water within a few years."

"In 1909, an aquatic scientist from the Carnegie Museum named Arnold Ortmann examined the Kiski and found freshwater life there to be extinct. In 1980, the state Fish and Boat Commission surveyed the river and found no fish living there."

"By 1990, however, a followup survey found remarkable improvement. Ten years later, the Kiski again showed signs of improving quality when some threatened species of fish were found living there."

<snip>

"In 1972, the EPA estimated the discharges were dumping nearly 58,000 pounds of acidic mine waste into the river each day. The mine run-off water also is filled with heavy metals like iron, aluminum and manganese. No recent survey has been completed to determine just how much acid mine drainage is reaching the river today but officials say the river's comeback is proof the pollution has been dramatically reduced. Still, the pollution continues to be a problem."

"The Kiski is the biggest contributor of acid mine drainage to the Allegheny River -- the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people in the region. During heavy rains that push water from the Kiski, this polluted water results in fish kills along the Allegheny."

Read more: Groups helped bring Kiski River back to life - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_373057.html#ixzz1nY4w1U8z

[PA Democrat]

26. Cost to convert your engine to run on natural gas is $12,500 - $22,500.

And then there is the problem of refueling. It's ludicrous to consider natural gas as an alternative to gas.

http://www.greencar.com/articles/can-convert-natural-gas.php

[blue neen]

30. Let's see. There are between 21 and 50 CNG filling stations in the entire state of Texas.

You live within 5 miles of 3 of them.

That's an amazing geographic location for you.

[PA Democrat]

32. Pointing out the fallacy of your argument does not equal "defending gasoline."

1. The majority of Americans do not "live within within 5 miles of 3 'filling' stations." In fact there are only 1100 stations in the entire country and only HALF of those are open to the general public.

2. There is currently only ONE car specifically manufactured to run on natural gas available for purchase (Honda Civic GX) that I know of and it is only available for sale in only two states, CA and NY.

3. Natural gas is still a non-renewable fossile fuel that contributes to greenhouse gasses.

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/10-things-you-should-know-about-natural-gas-vehicles/

As far as your question as to "what the hell is wrong with me" ...

I've seen the price people pay when there is fracking going on quite literally in their back yards. My sick and elderly parents have neighbors who drilled a well right on their property line the minimum distance allowed by PA law from my parents' house. Their house is now worth a fraction of its value before the well was put in. There are frequently fumes so strong that they must stay indoors.

My drinking water is threatened by fracking going on immediately next to the reservoir that serves more than 150,000 people in my county. Fracking waste water has been dumped into local rivers that are also a source of public drinking water.

http://www.marcellus-shale.us/Beaver-Run-Reservoir.htm
http://www.water-contamination-from-shale.com/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-allows-waste-from-fracking-to-be-dumped-into-rivers/

That's my problem. The people who benefit financially from the natural gas boom are never the ones who bear the brunt of the costs.

[PA Democrat]

24. Good to hear that NY has not sold out to the natural gas industry like my state has.

PA allows wells to be drilled right next to the public's drinking water supply.



Although fishing has been banned at Beaver Run Reservoir since 1952, the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (MAWC) decided to allow Marcellus Shale gas well drilling on their property next to this 1,300 acre lake in Salem, Bell and Washington townships.

The lake provides water to 150,000 people in northern Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Three horizontal wells are being drilled by CNX Energy in 2010 over the objections of some residents who are concerned about their water quality being affected. There was a spill at Cross Creek Lake, a fishing lake at a county park in western Pennsylvania in 2009.


http://www.marcellus-shale.us/Beaver-Run-Reservoir.htm