How much natural gas, really?
Posted October 29, 2009 at 6:08 am 
Filed in: Today the NYT’s editors not suprisingly praise Chesapeake’s decision not to exercise rights under a lease to produce natural gas within the area containing New York City’s watershed (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29thu2.html?ref=todayspaper):
“The decision by the Chesapeake Energy Corporation not to drill for natural gas in New York City’s watershed is a smart and welcome move on the company’s part, and very good news for the 8.2 million New York City residents who depend on this environmentally sensitive region for their drinking water.”
Fair enough, but then the high horse arrives and the NYT leaps right on:
“The threat has not, however, disappeared. Chesapeake is believed to be the only leaseholder in the watershed, but its decision is voluntary and not binding on other oil and gas companies. New York State needs to adopt regulations that place the watershed permanently off limits, while imposing the strictest possible safeguards on drilling anywhere else where drinking water supplies might be affected.”
Of course, no one can really object to the “strictest possible safeguards” whenever “drinking water supplies might be affected.” And in fact there is a highly successful federal program, administered by the states, called the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program. It’s part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, originally passed back in 1974 and significantly strengthened in 1986. Under the UIC program, each state must pass implement and enforce an underground injection control regime to prevent the endangerment of underground drinking water sources.
If a state is lax in its enforcement — unlikely to be the case in New York — EPA can assume enforcement on the state’s behalf. The UIC program regulates injection well specifications for waste disposal, including radioactive and hazardous waste disposal, industrial and municipal wells, oil and natural gas recovery wells, and wells for the extraction of minerals and geothermal energy.
If natural gas recovery wells are already regulated, then what’s the problem? Well, the type of activity used to recover natural gas in the newly discovered and plentiful natural gas shale formations — hydraulic fracturing — is not covered by the UCI program, thanks to an amendment to the 2005 Energy Policy Act. (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/wells_hydrofrac.html) That means there’s no federal structure in place, and state or local hotbeds of NIMBYism are free to regulate out of existence this vital practice that is key to unlocking America’s bountiful, clean natural gas from shale formations. And if that happens, all the rosy scenarios for future natural gas production go out the window.
Natural gas shale formations have been touted as the key to bridging between a coal-dominated electricity system to a low carbon future. It may be that clear, consistent and reasonable federal UIC regulations for hydraulic fracturing are an essential element of that bridge.
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