Kern-Rugile: Fracking isn't worth risks

A vote scheduled for Monday in Trenton, N.J., could have opened the floodgates to a practice that would have a devastating impact on the four states that border the Delaware River. But the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) announced on Friday that the vote had been postponed. No future date was given.

The DRBC, a group made up of the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, along with a representative of the Obama administration, is contemplating whether to end the moratorium on gas drilling along the basin, which is the main source of clean drinking water for more than 15 million people, including 9 million in New York City.

If the moratorium is ultimately lifted, high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing -- better known as fracking -- would be allowed along this precious resource.

Fracking involves extracting natural gas by injecting massive amounts of water, sand and about 600 chemicals into deep-shale rock formations. Radioactive materials such as radium and uranium are also released. Not only do these toxins end up in the air and drinking water, but, according to the nonprofit advocacy organization Food & Water Watch, a single well can create more than a million gallons of highly contaminated wastewater.

Adrienne Esposito of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment says five sewage plants on Long Island -- including sites in Glen Cove, Bay Park and Cedar Creek -- are being proposed as treatment sites for this wastewater, which would be dumped into our waters after processing. "By its very nature, this waste material cannot be adequately treated," she says. In addition, "Look at what's happened in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming."

The industry denies that fracking causes environmental contamination. But in highly fracked Wyoming, federal standards for air quality were not met for the first time in 2009, which environmental groups attribute to fracking. Asthma rates around drilling sites in Pennsylvania have skyrocketed. And Texas neighborhoods near fracked wells have reported high levels of airborne neurotoxins and carcinogens.

The industry is pushing natural gas as a clean energy alternative, but according to Food & Water Watch's Sam Bernhardt, that's a fallacy. Although natural gas is cleaner than coal and oil at the point of combustion, "when you take into account its production -- the emissions associated with fracking and threats of water contamination -- fracking is just as dirty as coal," he says.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said last week that New York was planning to vote no on the DRBC regulations in the now-postponed vote. That's good, but it doesn't mean the DEC is anti-fracking. The department released a draft of regulations in September that could open sites around the state to fracking -- with stringent rules and exceptions for some watershed areas. The draft will be discussed at a public hearing on Nov. 30 in Manhattan.

Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst) is unimpressed with the DEC's draft, saying it doesn't address health concerns. "They claim that, with proper regulation, there won't be any health impacts. That's nonsense," he says. "Fracking is an industrial activity, and there will always be significant health problems associated with it. The DEC is sticking its head in the sand."

Long Island's sandy layers won't ever be fracked, because we don't have gas reserves here, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the issue. Assemb. Steven Englebright (D-Setauket), a geologist, says it's clear that "fracking will negatively impact Long Island's air and water" through drifting air pollution and wastewater treatment. His conclusion makes perfect sense: "We should be putting our efforts into clean, renewable energies like solar, and [creating] tens of thousands of jobs right here."

Jenna Kern-Rugile lives in East Northport.

This version of the column was revised to reflect Friday's announcement that the DRBC vote scheduled for Nov. 21 had been postponed.