As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration finalizes a ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, New Yorkers will watch their southern neighbor continue its experiment with shale gas.
New York has been under a fracking moratorium since 2008, and people on both sides of the shale gas debate see the state’s Dec. 17 announcement as a milestone in Pennsylvania’s experience with the gas drilling industry. It could have implications for the Delaware River Basin Commission, a multi-state river compact that has held back gas development in Wayne and Pike counties since 2010.
Local residents and activists brought the scientific, political and media spotlight to the industry’s operations in Susquehanna, Bradford and Wyoming counties. New York health officials cited studies conducted in Pennsylvania when they made their case for a ban.
The news prompted Susquehanna County resident Victoria Switzer — caught up in a well-publicized water contamination case in Dimock Township in 2008, later becoming a prominent advocate for stronger oversight of the gas industry – to revisit some of her memories of what she now calls the “Gas Wars.”
“When the announcement came, it was a physical feeling,” Switzer said. “It made it so real.”
She remembered in 2010, when Democratic New York State Senator Antoine Thompson from Buffalo first visited Dimock, returning again within months. Later that year, Thompson sponsored a bill that placed a nine-month moratorium on the technique.
“Elected officials wouldn’t give us the time of day back then,” Switzer said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my god,’ we’re not crazy.’”
Also in 2010 came the release of “GasLand,” the controversial documentary film by Josh Fox that introduced Dimock to the world.
Around that time, politicians, activists and journalists, many from New York, poured into the township to see drilling in a familiar landscape of steep, knobby hills, clear streams, farm fields and dense forests. Strangers knocked on Switzer’s door, asking to be shown around.
“We were the poster child of what not to do,” Switzer said.
Susquehanna County resident Vera Scroggins began offering free citizen tours of the gas fields, earning her fame and notoriety.
“I think it’s an encouraging thing and shows that citizen power can make things happen,” Scroggins said of New York’s ban.
She has not stopped her tours.
Reached by phone recently, she said she had finished showing around officials from Delaware County, New York. Among their concerns are living next to pipelines and compressor stations, which will continue to proliferate in their state despite the fracking ban.
“It really helped them see firsthand what it means to have it in your neighborhoods,” Scroggins said.
Switzer thinks New York’s ban could prove to be a crucial moment for Pennsylvania. Faced with uncertainty over fracking’s risks to public health, New York places the burden of proof on the industry, while Pennsylvania places it on the public, she said.
“If an entire state recognizes that this is an unproven experiment, what does that say to Pennsylvania?” she asked. “How is the worth of a Pennsylvania child different than a New York child?”
Many of those who support the gas industry see Governor Cuomo’s motivations as less than noble.
“This was a crass political move, it obviously was,” said Tom Shepstone, a Wayne County consultant who publishes and writes for the popular pro-industry blog NaturalGasNow.org. He thinks Cuomo wants to secure the support of the left wing of the Democratic Party, maybe in the hopes of a presidential bid.
Shepstone doesn’t doubt the role Northeast Pennsylvania activists played in New York’s ban.
“There’s no question that this decision was basically encouraged and to some extent enabled by the radicals who are interested in stopping fracking everywhere,” he said.
The decision could make drilling more unlikely for the Pennsylvania portions of the Delaware River basin, he said.
“Even though it’s a New York state issue, it’s a particular problem for anyone in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, who wants to see drilling,” Shepstone said.
Despite New York’s strong anti-fracking contingent, the latest poll by Siena College in Loudonville, New York shows mixed feelings. In a telephone poll of 639 registered New York voters, 38 percent opposed fracking and 35 supported it, with an almost four percent margin of error.
The official reason the Cuomo administration gave the fracking ban is concern for public health in the face of scientific uncertainty.
“I asked myself, ‘Would I let my family live in a community with fracking?’” Acting Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, M.D., J.D., said in a cabinet meeting in Albany. “The answer is no. I therefore cannot recommend anyone else’s family to live in such a community either.”
More than 20 New York Department of Health scientists reviewed studies on the industry’s potential to contaminate air, soil and water and the side effects of living near gas sites, according to their report.
It cites a series of studies conducted in Pennsylvania’s gas fields.
One was a 2012 working paper revised in 2013, in which then-Cornell University researcher Elaine Hill examined birth outcomes from Pennsylvania mothers living near gas wells from 2003 to 2010.
She found those born to mothers near wells were significantly more likely to have low birth weight, small size for gestational age and low scores on a newborn health exam.
A 2012 report by Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project, not published in a peer-reviewed journal, reported survey results from 108 people from 55 Pennsylvania households spanning 14 counties, plus air and water test results from some of them.
Those within a half-mile of a well site reported health problems more frequently than those living farther than a half-mile.
The report also cites a slideshow presentation from the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project‘s website describing 27 cases of health effects plausibly related to nearby gas extraction, such as skin irritation, nausea, abdominal pain, trouble breathing, cough and nosebleeds. These people self-reported their symptoms to the clinic.
Another study by scientists from Yale University, the University of Washington and Colorado State University involved a health survey of 492 people in 180 randomly selected households in Washington County, in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Adjusting for a variety social and health factors, they found people living close to wells were more likely to report skin conditions and upper respiratory symptoms, although other symptoms showed no correlation. The study is meant to help generate questions for further research, the authors wrote.
A study published in October relied on air sampling by trained volunteers in Wyoming, Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It found air pollutants, most commonly benzene, formaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide, in all five states at levels exceeding some federal health standards. Susquehanna County residents Rebecca Roter and Frank Finan, were among the volunteers. Both are core members of Breathe Easy Susquehanna County, a group advocating for real-time monitoring of air conditions near gas sites.
They and other Pennsylvania volunteers recorded five measurements of formaldehyde near compressor stations in Susquehanna County that exceeded at least one health standard, as did one measurement of benzene near a pipeline pig launcher in Washington County.
They chose those compressor stations because nearby residents reported nosebleeds, Roter said.
“I was thrilled that Governor Cuomo put the health of his constituents first and did not rush to join the bandwagon next door,” she said. “Because I think that what is definitely emerging is that there are real health risks.”
For a variety of reasons — such as small sample sizes, reliance on self-reporting and choosing inappropriate health standards to compare to — New York’s report acknowledged that these studies cannot definitively prove whether or not shale gas extraction causes health problem. But there remain enough “significant uncertainties” to justify a ban on the technique, Dr. Zucker told officials.
Conventional or low-volume hydraulic fracturing is still permitted under the current regulations and will continue to be after the ban, New York Department of Environmental Conservation spokesman Peter Constantakes said in an email.
The agency considers 80,000 gallons of water per well the threshold for “high-volume,” he said. Shale gas wells in Pennsylvania typically require 7 million to 13 million gallons per well.
Doctors who work in public health are not at all settled on what risks fracking poses to the public.
Theodore Them, M.D., a specialist in occupational medicine who also holds a master’s in public health, works in Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre. Guthrie, the medical provider that owns the hospital, services the Twin Tiers region, including Bradford County, the most heavily drilled and fracked county in the state.
Dr. Them said he has never seen any evidence that shale gas has sickened a nearby resident, even after using open record laws to acquire such information from New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. He speaks for himself, not Guthrie, Dr. Them said in a recent radio interview with members of the pro-drilling Joint Landowners Coalition of New York.
In his own practice, he’s seen “more of the same” occupational injuries, he said — more back strain, muscle strain, fractures, cuts, burns, chemical exposures and chemical burns than he’s seen before from industrial workers. But that’s because the number of workers in the area drastically increased, he said.
“I’d be more concerned having my children grow up in New York City being exposed to the pollutants there,” he said.
