environment and safety of huge tracts of our state need immediate protection

Dear Governor Cuomo / Commissioner Martens:

The environment and safety of huge tracts of our state need immediate protection from the reckless, profit-driven urgency of an industry with an extremely bad reputation. The chemicals used in hydrofracking include, for starters, known carcinogens as well as other substances which cause neurological disorders. It is urgent that the gas industry be brought back into compliance with the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act before irreparable harm is done, and I hope that the EPA’s ongoing study can be the first step in this process. But without state-imposed safeguards, there will be no environment to protect, just an industrial wasteland of ruined farms and injured people.

Ian Urbina’s report in The New York Times of February 27 spells this out in painful detail: flowback no one knows what to do with, the oil industry’s depraved indifference, a political climate running against regulation of any kind. It is urgent that the DEC expand the scope of its draft SGEIS to include additional concerns, notably how to manage gas drilling wastewater . Citizens and Technical Advisory Committees should be established to help the DEC revise the draft. There should be a public comment period of at least 30 days to identify additional issues to be included in the draft SGEIS’s scope. Individual EIS reviews for horizontal hydrofracturing permits should be required, and GA effluent limitations for hydrofracking, deep well injection, and wastewater treatment should be imposed.

Yours,

Joan F.