Last month, Gov. David Paterson fired Pete Grannis as commissioner of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation when a memo detailing the impact of the governor's proposed budget cuts on the DEC was leaked to the Albany Times Union.
Under lawyer and longtime environmentalist Grannis, the DEC was both criticized for underestimating the risks of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and praised for creating the nation's first fracking chemical disclosure rules.
Now that Grannis is gone, environmental groups worry that the state may effectively deregulate hydrofracking.
Interviewed by ProPublica this month, consummate bureaucrat Grannis navigated the hydrofracking issue with great finesse.
Grannis the environmentalist said that, in gutting the DEC's budget, Albany seems to have ignored the $3 billion a year that hunting, fishing, trapping, birding, camping and other outdoor activities bring into the state.
Grannis the bureaucrat said that the DEC did a better job than environmentalists have given it credit for in creating draft hydrofracking regulations setting some of the country's most stringent industry standards.
Hydrofracking is an industrial use having "substantial" short-term impact, he said, but the land can be restored once the drilling activity is completed
if drilling is effectively regulated
.
What about clean water? Grannis said the biggest environmental issue relative to gas drilling in the state's Catskill reservoirs, which supply New York City's drinking water, is the state's EPA certification, under which both New York City and Syracuse are allowed to use minimally-treated drinking water.
He acknowledged that hydrofracking could put that at risk.
Asked about the huge water draws from the state's rivers that hydrofracking would demand, Grannis acknowledged that the industry currently lacks the capacity to handle water draws of that size.
Asked how many state inspectors it would take to monitor hydrofracking, Grannis feinted, saying that there would be a direct link between the volume of drilling activity and the number of available inspectors.
Discounting the importance of federal guidelines for gas drilling, Grannis said that New York had "an extraordinary record" on drilling, begging the question whether the state's past regulatory performance can be used predictively.
Closing the "Halliburton Loophole" in the federal Safe Drinking Water Act isn't necessary, Grannis said, because the state's health department does what the Halliburton Loophole prevented the EPA from doing: monitoring drinking water quality and the impact of drilling on drinking water.
While Grannis sees the Halliburton Loophole as a national environmental issue, he does not see it as an issue in New York State, because our drinking water standards are higher than the federal standards that would apply if the Halliburton Loophole were closed.
He sees strict liability for the drilling industry down the road, with reimbursement by the drillers if the state or local government had to step in the meantime. Explosions in hydrofracked wells, he said, might be covered through a prepaid liability fund.
Asked when he thought New York would be ready to allow drilling in the Marcellus Shale, Grannis said the state needed to complete its draft environmental review, making sure that all the facts have been sifted, all the risks weighed, all known risks mitigated, and sufficient resources, legal and human, in place to ensure that the state has the authority to do what it needs to do.
The DEC has been watching hydrofracking in Pennsylvania, he said, and has factored the issues there into its draft environmental review. He said that Pennsylvania had rushed ahead and done things without thinking them through -- and is now paying the price.
He sees New York as having been more careful.
Under Grannis, the DEC drafted the first U.S. guidelines for disclosing the contents of fracking fluids, which the drilling industry argued would destroy their business model. Grannis the environmentalist said that if the contents of fracking fluids are so proprietary, drillers shouldn't get a permit.
Current state regulations and the draft environmental review require full disclosure of the ingredients in fracking fluid, but not the mix. Grannis said the mix is less important than the ingredients, which the state needs to identify in order to get baseline information and monitor.
If drilling is done correctly, Grannis said, the chemical mix shouldn't get into drinking water. He acknowledged, however, that fracking fluids might go through existing fissures in the bedrock and get into the water.
A clean energy economy and energy independence, said Grannis the environmentalist, requires that we not just do things, but do them right, whether it's gas drilling or any other energy sourcing process.
The
article from ProPublica.
