Breathing Is Political's Open Salon Blog

Gas Drilling : Sullivan County’s Hazards Mitigation Plan

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 08:03:36 -0500

In early January 1987, emergency sirens in Cochecton, Lake Huntington and Callicoon shattered the cold afternoon.* The children and I stared fearfully at the Plektron© where it sat on its living room shelf crackling with meager details. Like any good fire chief’s wife, I didn’t pick up the phone to call him. He’d ring us the minute he had a chance.

Slowly, painfully, news reached us. A train had derailed just behind the Callicoon hospital on route 97. A chemical had spilled and was filling the air with caustic vapor.

Snow and mud were making access difficult. All we knew for certain was that several train cars had jumped the track and were lying on their sides.

For hours, the nature and toxicity of the chemical remained unknown but our husbands, brothers and sons were having trouble seeing and breathing. The Ladies Auxiliaries prepared coffee and sandwiches that remained undelivered. We were banned from the site. Our unanswered questions floated in the air around us, “Where’s Conrail? What kind of poison is it? What’s happening to our men?”

Barely two miles south of the spill, as our eyes and throats began to tingle, we learned that young Doc Salzberg had rolled up his sleeves and was helping to evacuate the hospital. There were too few ambulances for speed or efficiency.

The baby in my belly kicked as my own fear rose. At some point, I remembered to feed his brother and sisters and thanked the fates we weren’t amongst the families being forced from their homes.

That was the night we learned there were serious holes in our county-wide disaster response.

Within weeks of the incident, local leaders, representatives of ConRail and our Congressional representatives gathered at the Cochecton Firehouse and began to rectify the situation. It was an admirable and worthy effort on the part of a small county with minimal resources and to this day, I couldn’t be more grateful for the care our leaders showed.

Fast forward to 2010 and Sullivan County is asking residents to help update its All-Hazard Mitigation Plan by completing and returning its Hazard Mitigation Questionnaire by March 31, 2010. According to Sullivan County’s Division of Planning and Environmental Management, “[The questionnaire] can be mailed, faxed or emailed to Michael Brother at Barton and Loguidice, the consulting firm that is conducting the plan update. His contact information is listed on the first page of the questionnaire.”

Although the questionnaire does not address gas drilling or hydraulic fracturing specifically, comments concerning the gas extraction industry and its potential for disastrous accidents can be appended at the last page of the questionnaire.

In December 2009, the Cornell Law School Water Law Clinic submitted its comments on the Draft Supplemental Generic Impact Statement (dSGEIS) issued by New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The report stated, “...[DEC's] current staffing incapacties must be remedied….To demonstrate the critical need for additional field staff, principal tasks specifically identified in the Chapter 7 of the dSGEIS are summarized in the 15-page Memorandum…”

In turn, the Memorandum states unequivocally, “…. The scope and extent of these tasks are clearly beyond the capacity of the DEC.” (Cornell comments dsgeis) (Cornell Law School WLC Memo)

During Mayor Calvin Tillman’s recent tour of upstate New York and Pennsylvania, the DISH, Texas official was asked, “If a well catches fire in Texas, do local firefighters get called in?”

“No,” he answered. “We go to the scene but even emergency responders aren’t allowed on a site. Even if they were, most don’t have special training. If a relief valve goes off, our emergency responders show up and just wait for the guy to turn it off. We can’t get access.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2000 report on compliance in the Oil and Gas Extraction Industries, “Oil and gas extraction facilities are inspected much less frequently (46 months between inspections on average) than facilities in most other industries… and the enforcement to inspection ratio (0.05) is among the lowest of the included industries.” (Page 121: Environmental Protection Agency’s Compliance Assistance Notebooks: Oil and Gas Extraction Industry) In a chart on page 120 of the report, the “enforcement to Inspection Rate” in Region 2 (including New York State) was 0.17% while Region 3’s rate (including Pennsylvania) was .04%. (More recent data was unavailable at the site.)

So, if oversight and enforcement of the gas drilling industry “is beyond the capacity of the DEC,” and the enforcement ratio was already abysmal during Clinton’s “boom times” in the 1990s, what disaster mitigation can we expect now in cash-strapped Sullivan County relative to gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing?

Here are a few clues:

if residents see a possible gas drilling spill or other emergency, we’re encouraged to call the EPA’s newly-established TIPLINE (877-919-4EPA) or email the Agency at eyesondrilling@epa.gov
of the 30-plus gas extraction States in the US, only Pennslvania and New York have no severance tax on the industry. States that have the tax use its revenue for, among other things, community services and infrastructure;
under emergency conditions, the FRAC Act (S1215 – 5 sponsors, HR2766 – 51 sponsors) would require gas extractors to reveal the fracturing toxins used at a particular site. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near passage and consequently, there is no reason to believe emergency personnel would know the nature of the chemical soup confronting them.

Nonetheless, as Sullivan County’s Manager, David Fanslau says, “Federal law requires that the municipalities of Sullivan County develop and implement local hazard mitigation plans in order to obtain future FEMA grant monies for hazard mitigation. These plans must be updated every five years. Upon final approval from FEMA, Sullivan County and each participating municipality must formally adopt and approve the plan.”

In light of FEMA’s requirements and the potential harm from drilling activities, Breathing suggests the following:

Download a copy of Sullivan County’s current Disaster Mitigation Plan and complete the Hazard Mitigation Questionnaire. It isn’t complicated and won’t take long! (Be sure to append your concerns about gas drilling on its final comment page);
Download and read a copy of “A Gas Drilling Research Task Force Report for Sullivan County.” (Its emergency mitigation recommendations are excerpted below this article);**
Let the Sullivan County Legislature know whether those mitigation recommendations satisfy your concerns in the event of a gas drilling accident in our county;

Encourage the Sullivan County Legislature to hold public meetings where residents can hear from, and ask questions of, our Commissioners of Public Health, Public Works, Planning and the County’s emergency responders;
Ask your Town, Village and County representatives if they were present in Narrowsburg on February 19, 2010 when Mayor Tillman met with local officials to discuss his and his residents’ experiences with the gas industry in DISH, Texas;
Ask your County Legislator to propose and/or support a Resolution demanding that New York State maintain a moratorium on gas drilling until cumulative impact studies have been conducted on the industry and drilling; until Congress completes its investigation of the industry’s practices; until residents can be assured of adequate oversight and enforcement of the industry; until New York State has a severance tax which can be used to train emergency personnel and maintain our infrastructure; and until the FRAC Act has been passed and communities have full-knowledge of the toxins we’ll confront in an emergency.

Some County Legislators can be be contacted here and if you’re not sure which District is yours, look on this Legislative District map.

Individual Town websites will have contact information for your Supervisor and Town Board.

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**Sullivan County’s Gas Drilling Task Force Report. Its Emergency Mitigation portion is excerpted here:

“Along with impacts to local road infrastructure, emergency management issues are another concern at the local level. Interviews with Emergency
Management counterparts in other parts of New York State indicate that gas drilling companies have been very good to allow the emergency services (police,
fire and EMS) to attend training sessions which explain how and where a drilling operation will be set up to include a site visit and hands on question sessions. In
summary, our investigation has shown that most natural gas production wells are located in the Western part of the state and the Emergency Service agencies in
those counties have reported no fire or health hazardous to be associated in there areas for the past twenty plus years. A few safeguard measures and protocols must be instituted:

We must be provided with a list of operational telephone numbers and email addresses of management contacts and especially emergency contacts that can be called in the event of an incident near or at a drill site.

Each well site will need a 911 address and access information (gate and lock locations plus access) to ensure that emergency response units can access the site. As will be discussed in the section to follow, the driveway permit process at the town level can be integrated with 911 addressing provided by the Sullivan County Division of Planning. As will be discussed in the next section, the driveway permit forms will need to be revised to require a site plan showing the drilling site and driveway access, as well as photos of the site before construction, after a well is installed and after any subsequent change (e.g., when a well is capped or abandoned) requiring a change in or addition to the NYS DEC permit).

Interface with NY Alert to inform Sullivan County residents of a chemical spill or gas fire.

Communicate with the public about the importance of registering on-line with NY-Alert to secure receipt of notifications of emergencies.

Transportation of waste water/or fracing fluid should be reviewed with emergency response agencies by each operator of a drill site.

Emergency management personnel should have access to, or know, the contents of the fracing fluids, to know how to treat injuries and protect the health of emergency personnel and medical staff.

For the purposes of health treatment by EMS units and hospital ER’s, the exact contents of the fluid should be on record so that proper treatment is made available.

Municipal emergency management staffs need to interact with DEC Region 3 Office and the Mineral Division of the DEC to understand the use of blow out preventers during drilling operations to understand how to control unexpected flows of gas which could result in fires. Along with the DEC, municipal emergency management staff should witness a blow out preventer test prior to drilling.

Local emergency management personnel should understand the gas flaring procedure and the layout of flow lines. As for pipeline transport of product through the existing natural gas line or new lines as built, we already have emergency reporting information and training as to how to response to a natural gas line break. This information is updated yearly by the Columbia Gas Transmission Company with their contractor for safety:Paradigm Liaison Services, Wichita, KS.

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*Here’s a NY Times reference to what we subsequently learned was an acetaldehyde spill behind the Callicoon Hospital in 1987:

DERAILMENT IN UPSTATE NEW YORK CALLICOON, N.Y., Jan. 4 (AP) -Twenty-seven cars of a Conrail freight train derailed in a wooded area near the Delaware River this evening, discharging a hazardous chemical from one car and forcing the evacuation of several homes and a small hospital, state police officials said.

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Resources you might find helpful as you fill out the County’s Hazard Mitigation Questionnaire:

Environmental Protection Agency’s Emergency Planning and Community-Right-To-Know Act

Environmental Protection Agency’s Compliance Assistance Notebooks: Oil and Gas Extraction Industry

Drilling : Inverse Condemnation : Public vs Private Interest

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 21:03:50 -0500

EDITORIAL

Imagine a Neandrathal stumbling upon a luscious piece of trail-kill 30,000 years ago and debating whether to share it with his hungry tribe or eat it himself.

Would survival of the fittest have trumped his community’s needs? Or would he have recognized that food (like water) was a Neandrathal utility — a resource essential to the tribe’s survival – its consumption regulated with the common weal in mind? Would Neandrathal society have concocted some system of head thumps to ensure that fortunate ones shared with the hungry many?

Long-enshrined in our societal understanding of survival are two fundamental concepts that we treat with varying importance depending on the situation.

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” (Our community prospers when it fosters and defends the rights and strengths of its members.)

“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” (The strength of our community depends on the responsible generosity of its members.)

Some of the wildest and most contentious cases in Supreme Court history have attempted to resolve conflicts between individual rights and the community’s expectation that its larger, more inclusive interests will predominate.

In the earliest days of our Republic, Eminent Domain was recognized as a tool inherent to the Federal Government’s mandate to “defend and protect.” For the “public good,” soldiers were billeted in Colonial homes during the Revolution but seizure of private lands for permanent use was onerous to most early Americans and the “public use” restriction in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause was strictly interpreted as a protection against such seizures.

As our population grew and technology created a more mobile citizenry, public works demanded more land for roads, bridges and railroads. In more recent years and in response to a landscape crammed full of skyscrapers, derricks, residential and shopping mall sprawl, eminent domain has been used to protect open space for public enjoyment. (The “public good” in this instance being protected from the narrower interests of a few developers.)

Of particular interest to us in the Delaware River Basin is the legal concept of “inverse condemnation” which we hear with increasing frequency from property holders demanding they be compensated when regulations prohibit gas drilling on their properties. According to a Fifth Amendment Annotation,** “While [the Fifth Amendment] established that government may take private property, with compensation, to promote the public interest, that interest also may be served by regulation of property use….‘The distinguishing characteristic between eminent domain and the police power is that the former involves the taking of property because of its need for the public use while [police power] involves the regulation of such property to prevent the use thereof in a manner that is detrimental to the public interest.’ 251 But regulation may deprive an owner of most or all beneficial use of his property and may destroy the values of the property for the purposes to which it is suited. 252 The older cases flatly denied the possibility of compensation for this diminution of property values, 253 but the Court in 1922 established as a general principle that ‘if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.”’ 254

Later, in a 2002 case, (Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency) The U.S. Supreme Court found that, “Moratoria on all development in Lake Tahoe Basin area for a period totaling 32 months, imposed by a regional planning agency while formulating a land use plan for the area, were not per se takings of property requiring compensation under the Takings Clause.”

In a seemingly oblique but related development, corporations attained “personhood” when The U. S. Supreme Court stated in Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Beckwith (1889) “…corporations are persons within the meaning of the [Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment]…. We admit also… that corporations can invoke the benefits of provisions of the constitution and laws which guaranty [sic] to persons the enjoyment of property, or afford to them the means for its protection, or prohibit legislation injuriously affecting it.“ (Bold added for emphasis.)

As the trend toward condemnation of privately held lands has become more usual, eminent domain actions have increasingly benefited “corporate persons” in the guise of public interests. This trend occasioned public outrage in 2005, when The Court ruled in Kelo v. New London that privately-held property could be seized by a government and handed over to a private corporation for the public benefit – while said corporation stood to reap a boatload of profits.

I would never deny just compensation to landholders whose property is seized for the public good but as I write this, Congress has just launched an investigation into gas drilling practices and their potential harm to the environment. Perhaps we should await its findings before deciding that those practices are either legal or in the public interest, as NYS Senator Bonacic has contended.

In that context, NYS Senator John Bonacic, the Northern Wayne Property Owners’ Association (NWPOA) and energy corporations have begun a campaign of hostage-taking. In an “Alice-Down-The-Rabbit-Hole” logical warp, they have demanded that millions of people who depend on water from the Delaware River Basin and New York City Watershed pay landholders NOT to risk that water supply with a toxic soup of corporate fracking fluids.

“Bizarre-o!” as my friend Amanda might say. Or more elegantly, I refer you to Cliff Westfall’s analogy of a few days ago, “What if I decided to burn down the woods on my land, claiming it was the cheapest way to clear a field, with no concern for preventing its spread to my neighbor’s house? Of course the government could regulate that. The bottom line is this: the government may prevent you from doing things on your property when those actions would harm public welfare.” In further explanation of Mr. Westfall’s comparison, please understand that fracturing fluids used in gas drilling are injected underground, may travel as much as 6,000 feet and their direction is neither predictable nor controllable…like a forest fire.

It is inconceivable that Senator Bonacic and the NWPOA truly believe that in our current economic crisis any governmental entity (or body of taxpayers) has the means to pay the ransom. The national unemployment rate is blowing up in our faces. Tax revenues are plummeting. Small businesses are dying. Our infrastructure is crumbling and our children are moving back home and forsaking dreams of college. In the event NWPOA or some other organization of lessors prevails in a lawsuit demanding compensation for the value of their mineral rights, every taxpayer, student and worker who does not benefit from gas royalties will lose. And the sure winners? Drilling companies who stand in the background ready to reap the profits.

Given the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision which found in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission – a la George Orwell’s Animal Farm – that some “persons” and their lobbyists “are more equal than others,” we should not doubt the risk faced by our water and our Republic.

And given the evolutionary demise of Neandrathal, I can’t help but wonder if he decided to eat the whole thing all by himself.

Urge the Delaware River Basin Commission and the US Congress to enact moratoria on drilling. It’s for the “public good” because, as more and more people are beginning to remember, “We cannot drink gas nor grow our food with it.”

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* “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

** “In general, compensation must be paid when a restriction on the use of property is so extensive that it is tantamount to confiscation of the property.

In the Mahon case, Justice Holmes for the Court, over Justice Brandeis’ vigorous dissent, held unconstitutional a state statute prohibiting subsurface mining in regions where it presented a danger of subsidence for homeowners. The homeowners had purchased by deeds which reserved to the coal companies ownership of subsurface mining rights and which held the companies harmless for damage caused by subsurface mining operations. The statute thus gave the homeowners more than they had been able to obtain through contracting, and at the same time deprived the coal companies of the entire value of their subsurface estates. The Court observed that ”[f]or practical purposes, the right to coal consists in the right to mine,” and that the statute, by making it ”commercially impracticable to mine certain coal,” had essentially ”the same effect for constitutional purposes as appropriating or destroying it.” 255 The regulation, therefore, in precluding the companies from exercising any mining rights whatever, went ”too far.” 256 However, when presented 65 years later with a very similar restriction on coal mining, the Court upheld it in Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v. DeBenedictis. 257 Unlike its precursor, the Court explained, the newer law ”does not merely involve a balancing of the private economic interests of coal companies against the private interests of the surface owners.” 258 Instead, the state had identified ”important public interests” (e.g., conservation, protection of water supplies, preservation of land values for taxation) and had broadened the law to apply regardless of whether the surface and mineral estates were in separate ownership. A second factor distinguishing Keystone from Mahon, the Court explained, was the absence of proof that the new subsidence law made it ”commercially impracticable” for the coal companies to continue mining. 259 The Court rejected efforts to define separate segments of property for taking purposes–either the coal in place under protected structures, or the ‘’support estate” recognized under Pennsylvania law. 260 Economic impact is measured by reference to the property as a whole; consideration of the coal placed off limits to mining as merely part of a larger estate and not as a separate estate undermined the commercial impracticability argument.

In a case examining a Moratorium imposed on development in the Lake Tahoe area, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that a moratorium on development is not necessarily a taking, and that regulatory takings cases must be decided on a case-by-case basis rather than on categorical rules, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302, 122 S. Ct. 1465, 152 L. Ed. 2d 517 (U.S., Apr 23, 2002) (NO. 00-1167). …the Court held that because the regulation was temporary, it could not constitute a categorical taking.”

DRBC Hearing: Stone Energy Nearly Unanimous Opposition

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:02:31 -0500

I apologize for the delay in posting these notes on the February 24, 2010 Delaware River Basin Commission’s (DRBC) Public Hearing at which two applications by Stone Energy were considered. (Like most of you, we’ve been trying to find our driveway and a couple of buried vehicles.) For a better understanding of the comments reported here, please View Draft Dockets D-2009-013-1and D-2009-018-1.

All but five speakers who addressed Stone Energy’s applications opposed them. Virtually all those opponents asked the Commission to impose a moratorium on gas drilling until the cumulative impacts of the industry’s activities could be studied.

Small business owners testified that they were hesitant to build or expand enterprises in the Delaware River Basin for fear of the adverse economic impacts of drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

Susan Blenkensap stated, “My neighbor is a lifelong resident. She had a real estate agency for 30 years. She closed her doors because she couldn’t, in conscience, sell property to people when the land is under threat of drilling.”

Ryan Wood-Beauchamp was concerned about property values. “What if we can’t sell our homes? And what about the FHA [Federal Housing Administration]?” (It was an allusion to FHA rules which state, “No existing home may be located closer than 300 feet from an active or planned drilling site. If an operating well is located in a single family subdivision, no new or proposed house may be built within 75 feet of the operating well.”)

Jessica Corrigan owns an outdoor experience business. “Our house burnt down,” she said. “We don’t know what to do. Should we rebuild under this threat?

One landowner who has joined the Northern Wayne Property Owners’ Association — an organization that supports drilling and claims to represent 80,000 leased acres — says he has not leased and lies awake at night hoping that drilling does not come to his area.

Al Benner is contemplating developing an organic farm but he’s “hesitant to do it. People aren’t thinking about the long term impact on our quality of life. We have hundreds of summer camps. That revenue will be wiped out if reports surface about benzene and toluene in the water up here. Drilling could decimate this region for generations.”

Like many other speakers, Greg Schwartz, an organic vegetable farmer in the Upper Basin insisted the Commission quantify all the potential drilling operations in the Basin. “If you don’t make a decision about the cumulative impacts, you will abrogate your legal responsibility to the Basin and that would be actionable. I am an organic vegetable farmer. I rely on biologically healthy soil. I’m afraid drilling will destroy my business. I urge you to resist today’s political pressure.” (Breathing has presented information on the growth of organic farms nationally and in New York State.)

Bernard Handler addressed Stone Energy’s documented illegal activities in the Basin, “Stone Energy has already violated the rules of the DRBC by drilling in The Basin without permission. They were also non-responsive to the Commission’s requests to respond, ignoring letters, etc. Now they come with hat in hand and we are supposed to believe they are the good guys. They have already set up a drill pad, drilled 8350 feet, transported toxic water out of The Basin and buried drill cuttings underground without following the DRBC’s guidelines.”

A DRBC press release on 6/9/08 “announced that [the DRBC] has informed Stone Energy Corporation that it will need to apply for and receive approval from the Commission before it can extract natural gas in Wayne County, Pennsylvania…”

The letter was an official statement from the DRBC that Stone Energy had violated DRBC regulations by commencing drilling without obtaining DRBC’s approval.

DRBC’s own Docket No. D-D-2009-18-1 says that Stone Energy drilled the vertical well on a date uncertain “between May 9, 2008 and June 2, 2008.” Because he DRBC’s knowledge of many of the well’s specifications is not first-hand, the Commission has been forced to rely on Stone Energy’s application which “indicates it was constructed in accordance with PADEP [Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] Chapter 78 Subchapter D regulations.” There is nothing in the Docket describing the diligence or scope of PADEP’s oversight of Stone Energy’s construction of the well, the company’s subsequent withdrawal and transport of toxic water, nor its burying of its drill cuttings.

Because drill cuttings are recognized as a source of toxins, The Pennsylvania Legal Code describes the required disposal procedure.

It is also important to note that as a matter of law, the DRBC’s rules supersede Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.

According to the Docket, on June 6, 2008, “the DRBC requested that an Application for the M1 Well Site be submitted to the Commission for review and approval.”

Four months later (December 2008) after “Stone drilled and cased the M1 well without Commission approval, a settlement agreement between Stone and the Commission required Stone to submit an application to the DRBC for review and approval of the well and to pay a fine as specified in the settlement agreement.” According to The Upper Delaware Council’s meeting minutes from March 5, 2009, Stone Energy paid a fine of $70,000. The well was capped before gas was extracted. (See faulty well casings cited in Ohio house explosion.)

Finally, two months later (February 13, 2009) “Stone submitted an application to the Commission for approval of the existing M1 Well” and this past Wednesday, Mr. Handler’s outrage that the DRBC would consider granting two applications by Stone Energy was echoed over and over again by Hearing attendees. “After all, how can the DRBC even consider approving an application from a corporation which has already treated the Commission, its rules, The Basin and its environmental health with such disdain. To even hold a hearing on the application makes the DRBC complicit in rendering itself ethically and, perhaps, legally irrelevant,” said one speaker.

One man who lives within a few miles of the existing well was overcome by emotion and was unable to complete his statement which began, “It’s upsetting to me how our community’s being divided, neighbors against neighbors. It’s about the companies being given leeway to run roughshod over everybody. I’m not angry at my neighbors for leasing their land. We’re all having a tough time. But if you’re going to lease the land, at least accept there’s some dangers here. I see people shaking their heads about proven damage that’s happened. At least accept that if you lease you’re taking a risk. I’m pissed. Taxpayers fund these corporations.”

Marian Schweighofer, founder of the Northern Wayne Property Owners’ Association and an advocate of gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, supported approval of Stone Energy’s applications. Holding up a map of Wayne County, she announced that her membership represents 80,000 leased acres. She addressed the issue of “inverse condemnation” which prevents landholders from leasing their mineral rights but does not provide them with compensation for the resultant loss of revenues and reduction in the value of their properties. In fact, her sentiments have been echoed by New York State Senator John Bonacic, in response to New York City’s demand for a moratorium on drilling in the New York City Watershed, “Let them buy the development rights,” he says. “For those landowners who want to sell their gas rights, let the City pay the same market rate to keep the land undeveloped. We buy agricultural development rights for tracts of land we want to preserve. Let those who oppose the lawful exploration and extraction of gas in the Catskills (do the same).”

Opponents of compensation believe Bonacic’s idea is an open-ended scheme with a wide range of unintended consequences. For instance, Cliff Westfall asks in a reply to Ms. Schweighofer, “What if I decided to burn down the woods on my land, claiming it was the cheapest way to clear a field, with no concern for preventing its spread to my neighbor’s house? Of course the government could regulate that. The bottom line is this: the government may prevent you from doing things on your property when those actions would harm public welfare.”

Fracturing fluids injected underground may travel as much as 6,000 feet. Their direction is neither predictable nor controllable.

Although the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution ensures against ” private property [being] taken for public use, without just compensation,” courts have generally supported the common good over the pecuniary benefit of a few. In Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, The U.S. Supreme Court held, among other things, that “In a wide variety of contexts, the government may execute laws or programs that adversely affect recognized economic values without its action constituting a ‘taking,’ and, in instances such as zoning laws where a state tribunal has reasonably concluded that ‘the health, safety, morals, or general welfare’ would be promoted by prohibiting particular contemplated uses of land, this Court has upheld land use regulations that destroyed or adversely affected real property interests.” *

Sandra Folzer owns a 50 acre farm in Tioga County and was offered 250 thousand dollars to sign a lease. She refused. “Water is more important than gas. I can’t drink gas. My neighbor is pushing me to sign but fracking is not tried and true. Fracking the shale has only been happening since 2005. New Mexico has to tank in all its own water. Aquifers are being depleted in Florida. Mexico City is sinking because too much water is being taken from its aquifers. Israel buys its water from Turkey. Remember the Alamo? It’s dried up.”

One speaker said, “Everyone talks about their rights. They don’t talk about their responsibilities, though.”

A bus load of residents traveled three hours to comment at the hearing and were adamant that the DRBC schedule additional hearings in the Lower Delaware River Basin. “Philadelphia gets all its water from The Basin,” was a common refrain.

Tanyette Colon said she is a mother first and foremost. “Norway and Italy are in Pennsylvania subsidizing fracking efforts but they won’t allow it in their own countries. If this application is granted, it will send a message to gas companies that it’s okay to illegally drill wells because they’ll get a slap on the hand but ultimately get their way. Residents of Pennsylvania don’t deserve it.”

Several speakers addressed the environmental impacts of Stone Energy’s applications on The Lackawaxen River which was named “Pennsylvania’s River of the Year” by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Joe Zenes carried a picture of the proposed withdrawal site and, while waiting for the Hearing to begin, worried what Stone Energy’s proposed minimum 5.9 cubic foot per second (cfs) stream flow would do to the stream. “It’ll disappear,” he grunted. “It’ll be a trickle.”

David Jones who owns and operates Kittatinny Canoes, supported Stone Energy’s plans and suggested allowing greater withdrawals when the Lackawaxen is running higher. “Store it when there’s more volume. This project is the start of something. The world, the country, our area needs this industy. This is our future. It will save our area. It’ll protect it from development. Let’s not forget about private property. It’s our right to harvest it. Lengthy studies are a delay tactic. Let’s study every single industry that takes water from the basin. Why just gas drilling? I depend on this water for my livelihood. New York City wastes 100 million gallons of water regularly. This withdrawal represents an olympic size swimming pool. Dockets are approved all the time. This is discrimination.”

Bruce Ferguson responded to Mr. Jones’ claims that lengthy studies are the reason for delays. “The [gas] industry is slowing down the process. Let studies go forward so we can move forward. The [Fracturing and Awareness of Chemicals Act] would restore protections we lost in 2005. It’s a very modest piece of legislation and it’s being fought tooth and nail by an industry that simultaneously claims fracking is perfectly safe.”

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*Practically speaking and considering New York State’s 8.8% unemployment rate (10.4% in New York City) should taxpayers be forced to underwrite landholder compensation for mineral rights just as Congress launches an investigation into gas drilling practices and their potential harm to the environment?

(Inverse Condemnation is not a simple issue and Breathing would very much appreciate Ms. Schweighofer amplifying her point of view in an article that will be published in its entirety. Likewise, Mr. David Jones and I spoke for a quarter hour or more during a break in the Hearing and I’ve asked him to submit an article which I will publish as written. I think we would all benefit from their contributions to this forum. I would also like to express my appreciation to Mr. Jones for his attendance at The Light Up The Delaware River Party. Most attendees were decidedly against drilling in The Basin and he should be congratulated for joining us. Kudos, Mr. Jones!)

Tillman, Janyszeski : Dimock and Callicoon

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:02:47 -0500

First, who is Mayor Calvin Tillman from DISH, Texas and why should any of us care that he spent last week in a whirlwind tour of New York and Pennsylvania communities?

Three years ago, Calvin Tillman was elected Mayor of DISH, Texas, which is located in the heart of the Barnett Shale about 25 miles north of Fort Worth.

DISH occupies no more than 2 square miles, is home to about 180 residents and its annual operating budget is a mere $70,000. (For reference, The Incorporated Village of Liberty, NY covers 2.39 square miles, is home to 3,975 residents and has an annual GENERAL budget of $3,798,804.00.)

According to Mayor Tillman’s presentation (which Breathing heard in both Dimock, PA and Callicoon, NY) DISH is also home to “eleven natural gas compressors as well as an associated treating facility, four natural gas metering stations, around eighteen natural gas wells within its corporate limits, fifty plus wells just outside its corporate limits” and is where “eleven high pressure natural gas pipelines converge.” (Please find aerial views here.)

The Mayor and his residents became increasingly alarmed by the noise generated at the compressor site. “One compressor creates noise at 85-90 decibels…and DISH has 11.” (According to the American Speech Language Hearing Association, “Sounds louder than 80 decibels are considered potentially dangerous.”) Although Tillman was eventually able to obtain noise abatement around the compressors, a foul stench – apparently emanating from the same site – continued to permeate the town and “all the trees along the compressor site were dead or dying.”

After complaining about the odor for several years, “The person who finally came to look said he couldn’t determine the source of the odor.”

Eventually, five corporate operators performed a joint air study and concluded, “no natural gas leaks were found that would be detectable to the human nose.”

The stench worsened and as a result, DISH spent approximately 15% of its annual budget to commission an independent air study which “assessed thirty-one citizens and former citizens of the town…. The laboratory results confirmed the presence of multiple recognized and suspected human carcinogens in the fugitive air emissions present on several locations tested in the Town of DISH…. 61% of health effects reported [by study participants] are known health effects of the chemicals detected in the DISH air study. These health affects include: difficulty in breathing, brain disorders, chronic eye irritation, dizziness, frequent nausea, increased fatigue, muscle aches, severe headaches, sinus problems, throat irritation, and allergies.”

In his presentations, Tillman added, “All the commissioned tests were taken on private property within 100 feet of homes and children.”

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), “The maximum time-weighted average (TWA) exposure limit is 1 part of benzene vapor per million parts of air (1 ppm) for an 8-hour workday and the maximum short-term exposure limit (STEL) is 5 ppm for any 15-minute period.”

WFAA – TV lends credence to Mayor Tillman’s concerns about air quality, “So imagine the reaction of scientists looking at an air sample from a Targa Resources compressor station outside Decatur, west of DISH in Denton County. The sample revealed a level of 1,100 parts per billion of benzene.” (Note: 1,100 ppb = 1.1 ppm)

As the Mayor pointed out, recommended levels are based on a healthy 35 year old man’s exposure over an eight hour period, five days a week. Exposures are not based on the effects of exposure on pregnant women or children. “Why aren’t they based on pregnant women and children?” he asked rhetorically. “Because they shouldn’t be exposed at all,” he said.

(DISH residents are exposed 24/7. Readers interested in learning more about the DISH air study are encouraged to visit the Mayor’s site where the results have been published and he answers those who have attempted, unsuccessfully, to debunk its results. During his presentation, Mayor Tillman affirmed that since the results of the DISH air quality tests have been published, “The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) validated the DISH air study in an internal memo. They’re going to install a permanent air monitoring unit in DISH. If they’d debunked our study, they wouldn’t have spent the money for that.” The TCEQ monitor will record air quality in DISH in real time and anyone will be able to follow the results on the internet. If you’re interested in hearing from DISH residents who have suffered debilitating health effects, Split Estate, presents their stories. )

Although concerns in DISH, Texas are somewhat different from those raised by drilling in Dimock, PA or the Marcellus Shale in New York and the Delaware River Basin, local residents believed those of us living in the Delaware River Basin would benefit from hearing about the “DISH experience.” Mayor Tillman agreed and accepted invitations to meet with some of our local communities.

Unlike most elected officials, Tillman receives no compensation for his mayoral duties and he refuses any compensation, reimbursement or sponsorship for his informational tours.

On Friday February 19, Mayor Tillman met in a closed-door session in Narrowsburg, NY with local policy makers and elected officials. Neither the press nor the public attended and beyond rumors that 20 or so attendees conferenced with the Mayor, we have no information as to who attended or the scope of their conversations.

During the afternoon of the 19th, Tillman, accompanied by members of the press and private citizens, helped delivered 17 cases of fresh water to Dimock, PA resident, Pat Farnelli for use by her and other familes whose water has been rendered useless by a toxic soup of contaminants such as methane, dissolved solids, heavy metals, minerals, barium and strontium. Approximately 18 Dimock families – the number continues to grow — have filed suit against Cabot Oil and Gas (Fiorentino et al. v. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. et al., No. 09-2284, complaint filed M.D. Pa. Nov. 19, 2009) for the degradation of their water supplies. Although the drilling company has provided drinking water to some residents, Farnelli says her family doesn’t qualify for deliveries. “There are six or seven gas wells within about 700 feet of my house. The last time we checked, the methane saturation of our water was about 12%. The DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] said they won’t make Cabot deliver water to us until our saturation is higher — maybe 30% or so — that’s what I’ve heard. Between 30-50% is when the methane starts rumbling before the wells explode. Four or more of my neighbors have had their wells explode. Not just Norma’s. But the methane concentration in our well isn’t that high, yet.”

When Breathing asked Ms. Farnelli if she had anything in writing from either Cabot or Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) explaining the 30% ceiling, she said, “No. It’s just what we’re told.”

In response to a question from Mayor Tillman, Ms. Farnelli explained that when her children “drank water from the family well, they’d get a terrible stomach ache and throw up. They’d just double over. Used to be, they’d drink water at the school, and they’d be fine but whenever they drank our home water, they’d get sick. And now, the water at the school’s turned off, too.” (A drill pad was erected on the Elk Lake School grounds after The Susquehanna River Basin granted approval in July 2009. See Docket #37.)

(Later in the evening, Breathing was in the Elk Lake School for a discussion of gas drilling sponsored by The League of Women Voters. The school’s water fountains were turned off. Students and staff are confined to drinking from bottled water dispensers although water continued to flow to lavatory sinks and toilets. According to several attendees, students and parents were informed by the Elk Lake School District that installation of bottled water was a precaution against the spread of “the H1N1 virus.” (Link to article written prior to the start of drilling.) According to a December 9, 2009 article at The Independent Weekender, drinking fountains were shut down after the pump system “malfunctioned” on October 15, 2009. The District Superintendent said the shutdown had nothing to do with drilling or hydraulic fracturing at the school site. Further, he stated the water has been tested, found safe and repairs would be completed over the Christmas break. Instead, according to officials, fountains were turned off to prevent spread of the H1N1 virus.)*

During Mayor Tillman’s presentations at both the Elk Lake School auditorium and The Delaware Community Center in Callicoon, he was adamant that certain areas should be off limits to well drilling pads. “You do not have to site them on school yards. You make this hazard a risk when you put it in school yards and in peoples’ front yards.”

Locally, the Wayne Highlands School District has been approached by Hess about a potential leasing of school properties for drilling.

When Farnelli was asked about her own health, she admitted she’s undergone testing for lupus. “The doctor ordered some blood tests for metals, but I haven’t had them done. We don’t have health insurance. Even though I’m on disability and my husband’s cook job barely pays the bills, we don’t qualify for assistance and we sure can’t afford health care.”

“I feel like we were naive for signing the leases,” Farnelli continued. “We sure aren’t prospering. I wish we’d never signed. The landman told us they probably wouldn’t drill; that there’d be little or no lasting damage or impact; that there’d be a commotion for two or three weeks, and then there’d be a little thing like a fireplug on a square of concrete in the hayfield left. He said it was almost like winning the lottery and that’s how they were still talking Thrusday night at Elk Lake at the royalty owners’ meeting…about winning the gas well lottery. They said the sign-on bonus was the most anyone would pay – $25 per acre – and that it was like free money. They made it sound patriotic and clean and green – like getting America off of foreign oil dependency. When Norma’s [Fiorentino] well blew up on New Year’s Day…we’ve been kicking ourselves. The Carter’s well vent exploded 6 or 7 times. Now, I worry about my kids.”

“We were told everyone would get a methane tester for our basements but Cabot said the equipment wasn’t necessary. The DEP showed up here with a Cabot representative and they were pretty jovial when they didn’t find methane in the basement. Then they said they’d found some at our well head and that they needed me to vent it because they’d found it in the water. My husband wasn’t home and I didn’t know what I had to do. They didn’t explain anything and they said they couldn’t do it for me. I asked for help a couple of times but they said I needed a big wrench. Two days went by and all they’d say was my house could blow up.”

At this point in the story, Mayor Tillman asked Ms. Farnelli for the name of her DEP contact and said he planned to contact him.

Throughout Dimock, signs of poverty are clearly visible and the state of dirt roads traveled by heavy drilling trucks was impossible to ignore. Ruts were so deep and continuous that humps as high as 8-9″ threatened the under carriages of low-riding vehicles and, in part, may have prompted the Mayor’s question in Callicoon (below) about the state of our local roads.

On February 20th, the Mayor was back in Sullivan County at the Delaware Community Center in Callicoon, NY where he was joined by Nancy Janyszeski, Chair of the Board of Supervisors of Nockamixon Township and Pennsylvania Chair of the Lower Wild and Scenic Delaware River. They were greeted by a standing-room only crowd that was a mix of drilling advocates, lessors and opponents of gas drilling.

After explaining the results of air quality tests conducted by DISH (see above) Tillman addressed issues of hydraulic fracturing and recommended several precautionary measures. “I saw in Dimock that drill pads are situated next to homes. In Texas, local authorities are allowed to permit a well which I was shocked to hear local ordinances can’t do here. It needs to come back to the local level. In theory, Chespaeake could buy and tear down this building and put in a well and there’s nothing your local governments could do about that. They might buy a city block like in Fort Worth and put a pad site. What’s good for Albany might not be good for here. Urge your local officials to get the local control back to the local level.”

Supervisor Janyszeski echoed the Mayor’s concern about local control. Nockamixon has used zoning to hold the drills at bay until protections of its water and land are in place. “We’ve always understood the benefits of drilling, but we need to make sure it’s safe. We’re in Special Protection Waters. We have a Wild and Scenic Rivers designation. The proposed drilling site in Nockamixon is on an Exceptional Value Stream.

“Hundreds of leases were signed before we even knew they were in town,” Janyszeski said. “The gas people say they don’t need local permits.

“The drilling will be for a short-term and our communities will be left with the clean up but the gas companies come in and say, ‘We don’t need a permit from local governments. If you or I want to put an addition on our house, we need a permit. Why don’t then need one?”

At which point, most of the audience broke into spontaneous applause.

Janyszeski then discussed an amicus brief filed by, among others, Nockamixon Township, The Delaware Riverkeeper and Damascus Citizens in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania concerning the ability of local governments to control gas drilling within their borders.

According to the Court’s ruling, “Municipalities have a unique authority and responsibility in the regulatory framework which must be maintained; they ‘give consideration to the character of the municipality, the needs of the citizens and the suitabilities and special nature of particular parts of the municipality.’” In the end, the court’s decision permits a local regulatory body to enact “traditonal zoning regulations that identify which uses are permitted in different areas of the locality, even if such regulations preclude oil and gas drilling in certain zones….” However, the decision also restricted the scope of local jurisdiction, “We do not, for instance, suggest that the municipality could permit drilling in a particular district but then make that permission subject to conditions addressed to features of well operations regulated by the [Pennsylvania Oil and Gas] Act.” (Bold added for emphasis.) Essentially, when it comes to actual drilling practices and operations, the Court upheld that Pennsylvania State law will carry more force than local regulations.

In response to the ruling, Nockamixon Township has amended old zoning ordinances in order to restrict gas and drilling operations to “light industrial and quarry zones.” Also, the Town has strictly enforced weight limits on all its bridges.

“It means companies have more hurdles to jump,” said Janyszeski.

Tillman reiterated the importance of local involvement, “Your local authorities have to insist drilling companies use green completions. Flaring isn’t necessary. They don’t have to store the drilling waste in pits. Make sure there’s a system for vapor recovery on condensate tanks and other emission sources. They can use zero emission dehydrators and pneumatic valves. The companies say it costs too much but green completions actually save product which makes the companies more money.”

In amplification of Tillman’s statement that, “Companies will tell you the fracking fluid’s safe. It contains over 250 chemicals and over 90% of them have negative health effects,” Ms. Janyszeski suggested other localities conduct baseline water testing as was done in Nockamixon Township. “We used Wild and Scenic River funding to perform our first round of testing. Now we know how our water is. We tested streams near proposed sites and ten wells and discovered we have TCE in a couple wells. As a result of the successful testing, we got another $25,000 from The Wild and Scenic River funds for a second round. I’d add, since hearing what Mayor Tillman’s done with air testing in DISH, that’s also something our local governments should be looking at.”

(Linda Babicz, moderator of the program, interjected that our local Multi-Municipal Taskforce is working to ensure, through permits, that drilling companies will be responsible for testing before any gas wells are drilled or worked on. In addition, she offered, “We don’t have Home Rule in New York State. That’s why our local governments don’t have the right to demand permits.”**

As to assertions made by drilling proponents that gas drilling will be an economic boon for local municipalities, Mayor Tillman addressed the issue of declining tax revenues in DISH. “During my tenure as Mayor, I’ve doubled the size of the town to 2 square miles. The [underground] minerals are just an extension of the property for taxation purposes. The average well loses about 50% of its mineral value after the first year of production. The only way to maintain the value, is to drill more and more…. and the cost of natural gas goes down…… a lot of cities in Texas and in the Barnett shale are in trouble. They’re having to raise taxes and lay off people. I liken this to heoin. It’s like an addictive drug and a lot of [Texas] cities got addicted to it.”

“There are other ways to think about it,” the Mayor continued. “We used to get 60% of our tax revenues from minerals. We’ve probably spent that much to clean up. If you don’t have minerals on your property and you don’t get ‘mailbox money,’ it probably isn’t worth it. And even those who get the mailbox money, they’ll probably say it isn’t worth it. The former mayor [of Dish] sold mineral rights. He’s one of my supporters now. [The companies] have kicked in money for parks, but if you weigh the costs and benefits, I just don’t think there’s been an overall benefit.”

When he was asked about the kinds of jobs the gas industry’s created in Texas, Tillman said, “Most drilling rig crews are transient. They’ll come for two weeks and then they’ll go somewhere else. They live on the pad site — seven days on and seven days off.”

When asked about the health impacts of drilling on drilling workers, Tillman responded, “There’s probably stuff that doesn’t get reported. There have been some accidents where workers got asphyxiated and died. There’ve been explosions on sites and people have died. There are signs, ‘No Open Flames’ near wells because of the methane. I called OSHA for the workers but they’re only considered temporary employees so they don’t go through OSHA.”

One audience member asked Mayor Tillman to address the impact of hydraulic fracturing on organic farms. “The only other air study done besides ours [outside of litigation] was at an organic goat farm in Fort Worth. The company was flaring a well. [The study] detected the same toxins as ours did. She has to constantly test her pastures. I assume you’d have to do that at your own expense until you win a long court battle.”

(According to The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA) and an article in The Post Standard, “The number of organic farms in New York has tripled since 2006″ while the market for organic goods has expanded 20% over the last ten years. According to The United States Department of Agriculture’s 2008 Survey of Organic Growth, “Nationally, New York ranks fourth in the number of organic farms behind California, Wisconsin, and Washington. Total area devoted to organic production in New York totaled 168,428 acres. Value of sales of organically produced commodities in the state totaled $105.1 million, ranking seventh nationally and accounting for 3.3 percent of total U.S. organic sales.”)

At the end of his prepared remarks, Mayor Tillman recommended several actions that should be taken by local and state governments:

Develop ordinances related to oil and gas exploration prior to permitting any wells.
Local Ordinances should require road use agreements
Local ordinances should require green completions
Understand that there are places that should be off limits for drilling.
Wells should not be located in school playgrounds, and pipeline should not be run through front yards

Impose a severance tax

Require the latest emission lowering technology, including vapor recovery, and zero emissions dehydration, and pneumatic valves

Work together in groups when signing leases
Do not be the mole, working against your neighbors

Of the severance tax enacted by the State of Texas, he said, “Here’s what I wish your legislators would consider. We don’t have a state income tax in Texas. We have the severance tax on the gas companies. It’s good for a lot of reasons. The tax is paid by volume on the gas so if you’re leasing, you’ve got a measurement of how much your wells are producing. It’ll tell you how much gas is coming out of the ground and how much money you should be getting.” (In a previous Breathing article, I referenced a court judgment that found Chesapeake had defrauded royalty owners in Texas out of $134 million in payments by under-reporting the amount of gas Chesapeake extracted from its lessor’s wells.)

Tillman continued to tout the benefits of enacting a severance tax, “Do you have enough inspectors in New York? A severance tax could pay for that, too.”
Then, looking out over the audience, he asked, “How are the roads holding out around here?” When the audience groaned and laughed, he said, “A severance tax can fix that.”

But the final recommendation which drew a standing ovation from the crowd was this, “Do not issue another permit until these things are accomplished!”

******

*The article does not specify what agency tested the water. I am planning to make contact with the school in order to obtain more clarity. If I succeed, I will certainly report back here.

**Actually, there is a weak version of Home Rule in New York State that permits localities to narrowly regulate within their own borders so long as the State of New York approves. When Sullivan County attempted to use it relative to a Room Tax on our hospitality industry, we discovered that the process is arduous, complicated and is ruled by “windows of opportunity.”

Callicoon-On-The-Delaware: One Morning

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:02:19 -0500

I grew up playing baseball, growing veggies with my grandmother and riding horses in Madison, Ohio. It’s a small village in the northeast corner of the state that sits five miles from the shores of Lake Erie. When I was in school, the Cuyahoga River caught fire regularly and “Help me! I’m dying,” was scrawled in graffiti letters on the side of a Lake Erie pier. Anyone who lived along its banks already knew the lake was in jeopardy. The miles of fish carcasses strewn along the shore were clue enough.

Today, I live in a lovely, well-worn home overlooking the banks of the Delaware River in the Hamlet of Callicoon, NY. Whether I drink my morning coffee on my front porch or at a bedroom window, the gleam of the river is the first thing I see each day.

I’ve stood on the bridge that connects Pennslvania to New York and watched vacation trailers float beneath me in a torrent of brown flood. I’ve watched ice floes pile and pile so high that I’ve never doubted our tenancy rests in Nature’s hands.

But for more than the River, I came home to Callicoon for the people and early morning walks down Main Street.

This morning’s first stop was The Delaware Valley Free Library, built in 1913. As I approached the door with my ever-late book returns, Bernie, a friend from “the PA side,” poked his head out saying, “Got a minute? We have to talk.” His dark hair hangs well below his stocking cap and his salt and pepper beard remind me of my old hippie days. He’s wandered through the Far East and Buddhist Temples and now, he works as hard as anyone I know to preserve and protect the river and its hamlets. He wants to be sure we’re ready for this Saturday’s forum on Gas Drilling and Public Health that we’re helping to coordinate. It will be held in Callicoon’s Delaware Youth Center this coming Saturday.

At the back of the Library is a public room with murder mysteries and computers where locals chat as often as they read. As we finalize our last minute plans for the forum, the owner of Callicoon Van & Taxi Service wanders in with a big “Mornin’, all!” and settles at one of the internet terminals. A half hour or so later, as I pay my fines and check out a selection of Martha Grimes and Louise Penny mysteries, an elder whose head almost reaches my shoulder breathes toward my ear, “Oooo. Martha Grimes!” “Yup,” I nod. “Richard Jury’s my one true love,” and the conversation’s off and running until I remember I’ve got three more stops at least. She pats the cover of a book I’ve just returned. “The winter’s too long these days,” she sighs, “and I need all the books I can get.”

Headed toward The I.O.U., my favorite store in the universe, I remember I need stamps. Yes, stamps. I send birthday cards that carry fingerprints and smudged ink because anyone who’s struggled down a birth canal deserves more than misty electrons floating in an ethernet pipeline.

The main lobby of the post office is closed. Bud, a long-time resident who migrated up from NYC decades ago, shakes his head at me from the driver’s seat of his truck. “And it’ll stay closed for a full 90 minutes,” he says.

“Well wouldn’t Mae Poley and Wilda Priebe have called that heaven in the old days,” I say. (Mae and Wilda were North Branch’s post mistresses when I first moved to The Delaware River Basin. They’d taken over from their mother when she retired and Mae, her husband Earl and their daughter Amy still live in the old building that houses the PO. When I was a young single mom with a baby to raise, the sisters made sure I had plenty of house cleaning and dairy farm jobs to feed the little bugger. Neither of them ever closed the post office for more than half an hour and even then, we all knew where to find them. More than once, Mae fed me lunch at her kitchen table. She thought it’d keep me quiet till she was ready to re-open the window. I still remember the day Wilda admitted she knew fewer and fewer of the “new folks” who were buying the old, empty houses in North Branch. The Poleys, Priebes and so many others are woven into my life here in The Basin. I’ve cared for their loved ones in the Callicoon Hospital, rattled rafters with them at Democratic Party meetings and cheered all our kids from Tee Ball to graduation.

“I like your ‘Drilling Isn’t Safe’ button,” Bud says and I invite him to the forum on Saturday. For an hour, we catch up on all the people we know in common and where they are.

“Ya’ know Barbara and George Hahn?” I ask. “Sure!” he says. “We were in school together.” Barbara was an RN who flew over the original Woodstock Festival in a medical helicopter with Abby Hoffman. Her husband, George, had the Jeffersonville Veterinary for decades. They spent a whole afternoon giving me the skinny on my Jeff postcards. Although, truth be told, their memories weren’t always…synchronized, George’s family hearkened back to the days when our first settlers spent their first winters hunkered down in caves till their houses could be built. (The old Hahn farmstead was where Apple Pond Farm is today in Callicoon Center.) Barbara and George moved to Connecticut this winter to be nearer their kids. “They lit my days,” I say, missing them all over again.

Bud says his daughter was laid off when the Neversink Public School closed its reading program to save money. “Can’t pass a math test if ya’ can’t read,” he mutters.

My heart was set on a stop at the I.O.U. but I still needed a few things at Peck’s and as ever, the morning was nearly gone.

Peck’s is more than just a village grocery. For years, Art and Beth Peck worked day and night growing their first Narrowsburg store till it became another and another and another. Just as Beth’s energy fed the Narrowsburg Library, the local arts alliance and theater and a small news sheet that eventually became The River Reporter, when they retired, the Pecks ensured their employees were vested in the small chain’s future. But that’s not why Peck’s is more than a grocery. As my friend Marci says, “If I’ve got things to do at home, I don’t dare go to Peck’s.” Even if you make it down the aisles at a run, there’s the check out where neighbors share the news of the day. Among others, this morning, I ran into Fred Stabbert, III, publisher of The Democrat, Callicoon’s hometown newspaper. He was in college when I first worked for the paper that was handed down from his grandfather to his father and not so long ago, to him. Anyone who moves to Sullivan County should make it a point to read The Democrat’s “Down The Decades” page. It’s a wonderful compendium of more than 100 years of Sullivan County history — from the “white knights who protected our women” in thankfully bygone days to our more modern times. Those pages, in concert with Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County are a must-read if you’re interested in where we’ve been.

Most days, I feel a terrible urgency about painting a picture the outside world will see and cherish as much as I do. Our River valley’s wealth and health depend on each of us. We are a generous people. We care for each other — for our elders who return home alone after a hospitalization because their children have left in search of better jobs; for our young people who are learning the old arts from teachers like Bobbie Allees over at the Sullivan West Central School in Lake Huntington.

Our memories are long, stretching back to the days when our early families lived in caves above Callicoon Center and North Branch. Much of our strength derives from our open arms; arms that have welcomed organic sustainable agriculture to replace the old dairies. Fiber artists, novelists, poets and even Hollywood actors have made The Basin their home. And just this winter, our valley sent two of our sons to The Sundance Film Festival where Zac Stuart-Pontier won critical acclaim as an editor for “Catfish” and Josh Fox’s “Gasland” brought home Sundance’s Special Jury Prize for Documentaries.

Like Appalachia, Texas, Ohio and countless others before us, our valley faces a threat from outside.

But with each new year, our farmers, artists, teachers, librarians, nurses – old-timers and newcomers – carve a new historic tablet.

Please come to the Delaware Community Center February 20th at 4:00 PM. Learn what gas drilling may mean to the future of our valley.

*******

(Postscript to yesterday’s article. Bread bakers who read yesterday’s article will be unsurprised to learn that my pumpernickel loaves were reluctant to rise. The yeast knows when the baker’s spoiling for a fight. I suspect anger makes the air too heavy.)