Last month, one member of the public attended  the Delaware Town Board meeting.  Last night,  attendance was standing room only.

Highway Superintendent Bill Eschenberg made an appeal to the public for patience  as he cited to reduced funding from both New York State and the federal government.  “Please remember we’re all in this together if you find yourselves driving over potholes this winter.  We’ve got no idea what will happen with our CHIPS funding.”

CHIPS is  the Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program and according to page 76 of Governor Patterson’s  Budget Briefing Book for 2010-11, “…the Executive Budget maintains the State’s core Trust Fund investment in the highway and bridge program at 2009-10 levels and also preserves funding for local highway and bridge projects under the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) at prior-year levels.”   Those figures may change depending on action by the NYS Legislature.

Kara McElroy,  the Town’s Grants Coordinator,  reported,  “We met with the Rural Water Association (RWA) about our sewer plant problems and it looks as if there are several funding streams available to us for help.  We’ve had an application  with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)  for a long time so  the RWA met with us to suggest engineering directions we might pursue.”

Ms. McElroy also  reported that “the Town’s Community Development Grant application will be submitted this Friday and  our application for  Upper Delaware Council (UDC) funds will be sent tomorrow.”  (For more on these grants and the programs involved, please see  Breathing’s coverage of last month’s Town meeting.)

According to Ms. McElroy,  “We’ve been awarded a Category B Renaissance Grant for which the Town will be the lead agency.”  To help with the project, please email townofdelaware-ny.us

Harold Roeder,  Chair of the UDC and  the Town of Delaware’s  representative to the Council,  also spoke to the  fiscal  theme  struck by  Superintendent Bill Eschenberg by explaining that the UDC has been operating under the auspices of the National Park Service (NPS) since its inception.  “The Council was established  to protect property  rights and to protect water  quality in the Delaware River Corridor.  We get funding  from the NPS but  the amount hasn’t changed for twenty years.  That lack of increase results in less grant monies for our member townships.”

According to the UDC website,  the Council helps ensure the responsible actions of property owners through its  “…commitment to local land use controls and voluntary actions by landowners to protect the resources on their own private property, as opposed to federal ownership of the land in the river corridor.”

Ms. Ginny Boyle reported on The Callicoon Creek Park’s  recent “Work Day” which was coordinated with student volunteers from The Delaware Valley Job Corps.  She also referenced the many summer  events being planned for  The Park which include  music and art festivals,  weekly farmers’ markets  and a  May 22nd Plant Swap.  (The Park Committee’s  website and blog  will be “going live” on  or about May 1st so stay tuned for news on that.  Until then,  see notes at the end of this article for specific events and dates.  Breathing was very pleased to participate in the “Work Day”  with the  kids from Job Corps and had a great morning!)

While thanking the Town for refurbishing the Park’s entryway,  Ms. Boyle asked if funds  could be made available to replace damaged fence railings.  Although Town funds are not available, Councilperson Matt Hofer said Hofer Log and Lumber would donate whatever materials might be needed.

Councilperson John Gain reported on his tour of many of the Town’s  flooding trouble spots with  representatives of the  New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT),  Soil and Water Conservation and Mr. Jim Hughson,  owner of a local excavating company.  Mr. Gain described problems with rubble  under  the SR 52 bridge near Dick’s Auto Sales where the brook is seriously narrowed and several problems with culvert pipes.  “NYSDOT needs to get a digger from West Virginia that’s used to clear   rubble from coal mines but there’s no way of knowing when that will happen.  We’re facing significant erosion issues and it looks like  the pipes will have to be replaced.”

Mr. Hughson’s company, Jeff Sanitation, was awarded  a contract for the Town Clean-up Day.  (Please call  the Town Hall  at 845-887-5250  for details of that program  and another which permits residents and businesses  to dispose of electronic equipment on two separate days.)

Town Clerk, Ms. Tess McBeath  outlined steps that still need to be taken before the Town can incorporate  Farmland Protection into its Comprehensive Plan.

“The Gas Drilling Resolution,” which was tabled without comment last month,  passed this month with the removal of  an item calling for  “Inspections done by locally trained and qualified inspectors.”   According to Supervisor James Scheutzow,  the Board received a petition signed by forty residents  in support of the Resolution.  Council members Cindy Herbert, Harold Roeder and John Gain voted yes  “with reservations”  while Matt Hofer voted no and James Scheutzow voted in favor.

PUBLIC COMMENT

Mr. Matt Murphy of  the Stewart-Murphy Funeral Home asked why  Howard Fuchs, the Town’s Building Inspector,   cited him for  violations of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) when many other Town of Delaware businesses listed by Mr. Murphy  do not provide handicap access as mandated by the law.  The Board promised to look into the matter, discuss it with Mr. Fuchs and get back to Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Roy Tedoff,  a landowner in the Town of Delaware,  described  NYS Assembly Bills 10490 and 10633.  “A10490 asks that a moratorium  be declared in NYS  until 120 days after  the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a report on  the impacts of  gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing on drinking water.   A10633 gives Towns the right to use zoning regulations to control where drilling can take place.   This Town Board should contact the Assembly and  state the Board’s approval of the proposals.”   Supervisor Scheutow said he didn’t know about the Bills but would look into them.

Although a resident in the Town of Fremont rather than Delaware, Mr. Noel Van Swol spoke at length several times.  He is  a leading public voice on the issue of gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.   He was also a leading opponent of  the  National Park Service’s involvement  in the Delaware River Corridor twenty years ago when  he made the  argument that local people could police themselves and keep The River safe.  Now, he and Mr. Bill Graby of the Sullivan-Delaware Property Owners Association, are  committed to drilling and hydraulic fracturing as “the only thing that will save us economically.”

In response to Mr. Tedoff’s  request that the Town support Assembly Bills  10490 and 10633,  Mr. Van Swol said,  “Those Assembly bills would further delay  drilling in New York State.  Our landowner group represents 9,215.24 leased acres in Delaware Township.  That’s more than 14 square miles.  Our organization has  to oppose the Board supporting the Bills.  Local property owners have been the silent majority while environmentalists have promoted their  hidden agenda to stop the drilling.  We’ve heard tonight of dire [economic] times and the only solution is this vital new drilling industry. New York State Senator  John Bonacic has said that upstate NY is dead.  Only  drilling can give it a heartbeat.  Hydraulic fracturing  has  been around since the 1940s.   As Jack Danchak commented recently,  there have been more than one million  wells fracked in the US and not one  serious instance of  trouble.”

Mr. Danchak  is a local sportsman who writes a regular column on fishing and hunting for the Sullivan County Democrat.  Although  he’s right that “fracking” has been around since the 1940’s, the  new slick water, high pressure,  horizontal hydraulic fracturing  technology proposed for New York and pioneered in Texas in 2002,  has some  scientists and the Environmental Protection Agency worried.

Gas extraction companies had known for years about the immense gas reserves in the Marcellus and Barnett Shales, but  there was no  viable way to remove it.  According to a gas industry publication,  The Permian Basin Petroleum Association Magazine,    “…when Devon Energy Corporation acquired Mitchell Energy in 2002, it drilled down vertically to the Barnett Shale, turned the drill bit, and continued drilling horizontally…. The combination of the water fracs and horizontal drilling revolutionized the unconventional shale gas play.”

Reports of  accidents and contamination in Dimock, Pa.,   DISH, Tx., Pavillion, Wy.,  Fort Worth, Tx  and other areas,  contradict assertions  by Mr. Danchak and Mr. Van Swol  that  “not one serious instance of trouble” has been caused by the  technology. (Milanville resident, Josh Fox, has documented some of those occurrences in his award-winning film, “Gasland.”

Mr. Van Swol continued his speech with a reference to New York’s dairy farmers who are still being paid at 1970’s  milk prices  and asked,  “What’s worse?  Some gas wells or farmers  going out of business and subdividing their properties and the environment being polluted by septic systems?”

Many family  farmers in New York  have been forced out of the dairy business due to abysmally poor pricing supports and federal underwriting of  gigantic  “factory farms”; but  people concerned with the impacts of  gas drilling have responded to Mr. Van Swol’s question in public hearings  by stating  that the carcinogens found in hydraulic fracturing fluids are not found in septic systems.

Mr. Bill Graby said, “We property owners have been working with the gas companies for almost two years. We’ve developed lease agreements that protect everyone.”

Mr. Tedoff replied, “Please make those contracts public.  We’ve been hearing about all the protections you’ve gotten,  but  all we  have is your word for it.   Until you stop keeping your leases secret, it looks like you  want to get all the gas out,  make the money and leave the rest of us so we can’t drink the  water.  Lease protections wouldn’t be so important if the gas drilling companies were regulated under The Clean Water Act.

A new resident and professional baker,  Ms. Elizabeth Finnegan said, “I also want to encourage the Town to support the moratorium Bill.   Let the EPA do its job.  If our water, soil and animals aren’t safe,  it won’t matter what kind of money’s available for grants.”

Steve Lundgren, another Town of Delaware resident  said, “Drilling is not the only solution to our economic problems and two years is not too long to study it.  Not everyone will benefit from drilling.   I understand  the farmers’ plight but only a small number of  leaseholders  will benefit.”

“The  NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is  responsible for protecting us,”  said Mr. Van Swol.  “If you don’t trust the State…they haven’t found problems in New York.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued reports on DEC’s inspection and enforcement record which contest Mr. Van Swol’s assertion and recently, Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC)  Commissioner Grannis admitted at a conference that his agency,  which oversees gas extraction, is understaffed.

(In a comment at Breathing, Jennifer Canfield, a long-time local realtor addressed one piece of the prosperity issue at Breathing by providing a list of banks  “who will not fund leased properties, based upon environmental risk, as per information gained from a mortgage broker who is still looking further into the situation:

First Place Bank
Provident Funding
GMAC
Wells Fargo (will know for sure in a few days)
FNCB
Fidelity
FHA
First Liberty
Bank of America

“A few local lenders who underwrite their own are still lending, ”  Ms. Canfield continued.  “We are trying to also get a determination from the sources at Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae.”)

Additionally, FHA rules (Federal Housing Adminstration) state,   “No existing home may be located closer than  300 feet from an active or planned drilling site.  If an operating [gas] well is located in a single family subdivision, no new or proposed house may be built within 75 feet of the operating well.”

Another long-serving realtor, David Knudsen responded at his site, “When a property has a gas lease on it that permits use of the surface for drilling, a third party essentially has the rights to materially change the property. Environmental concerns notwithstanding, those material changes to the surface could affect the value of the property, possibly devaluing the asset that the bank has lent on. Likewise, appraisals become difficult. Any piece of real property comes with a ‘bundle of rights’ that comprise its value. A gas lease essentially severs one of those rights, gas extraction, from the real property, so it becomes difficult to determine the value of the property without that right to transfer with the real property. It makes valuation very complicated. And in this still-tight lending environment, most lenders don’t want to deal with anything complicated or with an unquantifiable risk.”

Mr. Paul Hindes, the Town of Delaware’s  representative to  the Multi-Municipal Gas Drilling Taskforce (MMTF),  explained the MMTF has been focused on creating Road Use Agreements the Taskforce hopes will provide asset protection in the event that gas drilling comes to its eight  member towns.  “We want all eight towns to have identical road use laws that take into consideration not only the weight of industrial trucks on our roads but also the weight of those trucks over a cumulative period of time.”

Bill Eschenberg,  the Town’s  Highway Superintendent,  said he didn’t see any  evidence of harm from gas drilling during his trip to  “Susquehanna”  where Dimock, Pennsylvania is located. “If trucks wreck roads, they won’t keep running over them.  They need to fix them for the benefit of their own equipment.”

In contrast,   after a trip to  Dimock during  this past winter,  Breathing reported, “Throughout  Dimock, signs of poverty are  clearly visible and  the state of  dirt roads traveled by heavy drilling trucks was impossible to ignore.  Ruts were so deep and continuous that   humps as high as 8-9″ threatened  the under carriages of low-riding vehicles and, in part,  may have prompted  the Mayor’s question in Callicoon… about the state of our  local roads.”  (Mayor Tillman’s description of the gas industry’s  economic and environmental impacts on his town of DISH, Texas is available here.)

In his final comment, Mr. Van Swol said,  “Don’t worry about  money for  DEC inspectors.  The New York State Legislature will give us whatever we need  due  to all the money  coming from drilling and a severance tax.”

Virginia Andkjar,  one of the Town’s  Assesor stated,  “Unfortunately, it looks like the severance tax  will  be just a pittance.”

According to pages 98-99 of  Governor Patterson’s Budget Briefing Book,  the severance tax amounts to 3% on some gas extraction companies,  won’t be levied  until 2011-12 and is predicted to garner only  $1 million in revenues.

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CALLICOON CREEK PARK SCHEDULE (not including regularly-scheduled  Sunday Farmers’ Markets):

May 22 at 10:00 AM :  Plant Swap.  Email me at  Ljbucar@earthlink.net for details

July 10,  31 and August 21 or 28 (still in flux):  Under the Moon in Callicoon Concert Series.   Janet Burgan, coordinator. Keep your eyes and ears pealed for details!

July 17 : Art Fair.  For more information,  see Robin at  The Callicoon Wine Merchant

On April 2, 2010,  NYS Assembly bill 10490 was referred to the New York Assembly’s  Environmental Conservation Committee (EnCon).  The Bill  will establish a moratorium on gas drilling in New York State until 120 days after the Environmental Protection Agency releases its study of the gas industry and its  impacts.

On April, 13, 2010,  NYS Assembly Bill  10633 was referred to the Assembly’s EnCon Committee.  The  “home rule” bill will give local governments  zoning control over where gas drilling can occur in their jurisdictions.

Two days later, April 15th,  was a busy, busy day in New York gas news:

  • New York’s gas extraction lobby, the  Independent Oil & Gas Association (IOGA-NY)  proposed to  rescue “New York State’s environmental and parks budgets”  by  drilling in New York’s protected park lands.  IOGA-NY’s  press release  asserted, “New York State could raise more than $200 million in fiscal year 2010-11…” and urged, “expediting the auction of state land leases and the application approval process.”  (According to Governor Patterson’s Budget Briefing Book, the current budget deficit  is $3.2 billion and is expected to reach $6.8 billion in 2010-11, $14.3 billion in 2011-12 and by 2013,  $20.7 billion.)
  • At the same conference, “DEC Director of Mineral Resources, Bradley Field…[said] the entire process, including the issuance of [gas drilling] permits, would be finished in 2010.”

To ensure that  New York  taxpayers get a return on  the billions of gallons of free water the gas companies use in gas extraction and to offset the possible contamination of  State parks  “which welcome “more than 55 million visitors each year,” (2009 Annual Report)  Governor Patterson has proposed a 3% severance tax on some gas extraction companies. (Budget Briefing Book, pp 98-99). Unfortunately, the tax won’t be levied  until 2011-12 and will garner only  $1 million in revenues.

(By comparison,  Texas’  2007 severance tax on the  gas industry was  7.5% and produced  $2.76 billion in revenues.   Mayor Tillman of DISH, TX assured an audience in Callicoon, NY,

“We don’t have a state income tax in Texas.  We have the severance tax on the gas companies.  It’s good for a lot of reasons.   The tax is paid by volume on the gas so if you’re leasing,  you’ve got a measurement of how much your wells are producing.  It’ll tell you how much gas is coming out of the ground and how much money you should be getting.”   (A previous Breathing article,  referenced a court judgment that found   Chesapeake had defrauded royalty owners in Texas out of $134 million in payments by under-reporting the amount of  gas Chesapeake extracted from its lessor’s wells.) Tillman continued to tout the benefits of enacting a severance tax,  “Do you have enough inspectors in  New York?   A severance tax could pay for that, too.”  Then, looking out over the audience,  he asked,  “How are the roads holding out around here?”  When the audience groaned and laughed, he said,  “A severance tax can fix that.”

Although IOGA-NY’s April 15th  press release expressed concern for  the terrible state of  New York’s finances,  the gas lobby  continues  to oppose a severance tax  while urging lawmakers to entrust  the State’s public lands  to them for $200 million.

Despite the industry’s offer,  Texas’ annual severance tax of  7.5% sounds like a better deal than the 3% proposed by Governor Patterson or our $200 million share in their multi-billion dollar profits; especially since  the DEC  (dSGEIS, Chapter 9, page 6) estimates, “… 2,000 wells per year ± 25% in the New York Marcellus play.”

Two thousand wells per year?  Only 29 new DEC staff  (Budget Briefing Book, page 53) to oversee billions of gallons of  toxic fracking fluids and  radioactive waters produced by the fracking process?   Billions of dollars of gas company  profits on the backs of New York State’s  taxpayers and our  parks  and  water resources?  Billions of gallons of our water used in  fracking operations for free?   And the gas lobby believes  we can be bought off with a $200 million mosquito bite out of our multi-billion dollar deficit?

Email, call or write your Assembly and  Senate members  and tell them to support a Moratorium and local control over the siting of gas wells in our communities. (Assembly member Aileen Gunther has already signed on to both bills.)  Call your friends and neighbors.  Email them this article so they know what’s at stake. And then, write  letters to the editors of your local newspapers.  Spread the word any way you can.  The gas lobby has the money.  We have the votes.

Get busy and  we can do the other thing Mayor Tillman suggested,  “Get it right.  Learn from the mistakes made in DISH, TX.”

DISH, TX…where new studies have revealed that not only were the air and water  contaminated by the gas industry, but so were  the people.

And look again at the April timeline  above.  The gas lobby has drawn a bead on elected representatives who are working for community rights, Home Rule and studies of  hydraulic fracturing. Is the lobby worried New York residents and taxpayers will vote for the health and welfare of New York and against gas company profits and a few pieces of silver?

On April 2, 2010,  NYS Assembly bill 10490 was referred to the New York Assembly’s  Environmental Conservation Committee (EnCon).  The Bill  will establish a moratorium on gas drilling in New York State until 120 days after the Environmental Protection Agency releases its study of the gas industry and its  impacts.

On April, 13, 2010,  NYS Assembly Bill  10633 was referred to the Assembly’s EnCon Committee.  The  “home rule” bill will give local governments  zoning control over where gas drilling can occur in their jurisdictions.

Two days later, April 15th,  was a busy, busy day in New York gas news:

  • New York’s gas extraction lobby, the  Independent Oil & Gas Association (IOGA-NY)  proposed to  rescue “New York State’s environmental and parks budgets”  by  drilling in New York’s protected park lands.  IOGA-NY’s  press release  asserted, “New York State could raise more than $200 million in fiscal year 2010-11…” and urged, “expediting the auction of state land leases and the application approval process.”  (According to Governor Patterson’s Budget Briefing Book, the current budget deficit  is $3.2 billion and is expected to reach $6.8 billion in 2010-11, $14.3 billion in 2011-12 and by 2013,  $20.7 billion.)
  • At the same conference, “DEC Director of Mineral Resources, Bradley Field…[said] the entire process, including the issuance of [gas drilling] permits, would be finished in 2010.”

To ensure that  New York  taxpayers get a return on  the billions of gallons of free water the gas companies use in gas extraction and to offset the possible contamination of  State parks  “which welcome “more than 55 million visitors each year,” (2009 Annual Report)  Governor Patterson has proposed a 3% severance tax on some gas extraction companies. (Budget Briefing Book, pp 98-99). Unfortunately, the tax won’t be levied  until 2011-12 and will garner only  $1 million in revenues.

(By comparison,  Texas’  2007 severance tax on the  gas industry was  7.5% and produced  $2.76 billion in revenues.   Mayor Tillman of DISH, TX assured an audience in Callicoon, NY,

“We don’t have a state income tax in Texas.  We have the severance tax on the gas companies.  It’s good for a lot of reasons.   The tax is paid by volume on the gas so if you’re leasing,  you’ve got a measurement of how much your wells are producing.  It’ll tell you how much gas is coming out of the ground and how much money you should be getting.”   (A previous Breathing article,  referenced a court judgment that found   Chesapeake had defrauded royalty owners in Texas out of $134 million in payments by under-reporting the amount of  gas Chesapeake extracted from its lessor’s wells.) Tillman continued to tout the benefits of enacting a severance tax,  “Do you have enough inspectors in  New York?   A severance tax could pay for that, too.”  Then, looking out over the audience,  he asked,  “How are the roads holding out around here?”  When the audience groaned and laughed, he said,  “A severance tax can fix that.”

Although IOGA-NY’s April 15th  press release expressed concern for  the terrible state of  New York’s finances,  the gas lobby  continues  to oppose a severance tax  while urging lawmakers to entrust  the State’s public lands  to them for $200 million.

Despite the industry’s offer,  Texas’ annual severance tax of  7.5% sounds like a better deal than the 3% proposed by Governor Patterson or our $200 million share in their multi-billion dollar profits; especially since  the DEC  (dSGEIS, Chapter 9, page 6) estimates, “… 2,000 wells per year ± 25% in the New York Marcellus play.”

Two thousand wells per year?  Only 29 new DEC staff  (Budget Briefing Book, page 53) to oversee billions of gallons of  toxic fracking fluids and  radioactive waters produced by the fracking process?   Billions of dollars of gas company  profits on the backs of New York State’s  taxpayers and our  parks  and  water resources?  Billions of gallons of our water used in  fracking operations for free?   And the gas lobby believes  we can be bought off with a $200 million mosquito bite out of our multi-billion dollar deficit?

Email, call or write your Assembly and  Senate members  and tell them to support a Moratorium and local control over the siting of gas wells in our communities. (Assembly member Aileen Gunther has already signed on to both bills.)  Call your friends and neighbors.  Email them this article so they know what’s at stake. And then, write  letters to the editors of your local newspapers.  Spread the word any way you can.  The gas lobby has the money.  We have the votes.

Get busy and  we can do the other thing Mayor Tillman suggested,  “Get it right.  Learn from the mistakes made in DISH, TX.”

DISH, TX…where new studies have revealed that not only were the air and water  contaminated by the gas industry, but so were  the people.

And look again at the April timeline  above.  The gas lobby has drawn a bead on elected representatives who are working for community rights, Home Rule and studies of  hydraulic fracturing. Is the lobby worried New York residents and taxpayers will vote for the health and welfare of New York and against gas company profits and a few pieces of silver?

EDITORIAL

Imagine a Neandrathal  stumbling upon a luscious piece of trail-kill 30,000 years ago  and debating  whether to share it with his hungry tribe or  eat it  himself.

Would survival of the fittest have trumped  his community’s needs?  Or would he have recognized  that food (like water) was  a Neandrathal utility — a resource essential to  the tribe’s survival  —  its consumption regulated with the common weal in mind?   Would Neandrathal society have  concocted some system of head thumps to ensure  that  fortunate ones shared with the hungry many?

Long-enshrined in our societal  understanding of survival  are two fundamental concepts that we treat with varying importance depending on the situation.

  • “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”  (Our community prospers when it  fosters and defends  the rights and strengths of  its members.)
  • “Ask not what your country can do for you  — ask what you can do for your country.”   (The strength of our  community  depends on the responsible generosity of its members.)

Some of the wildest and most contentious cases in Supreme Court history have attempted to resolve conflicts between  individual rights and  the community’s expectation that its larger, more inclusive  interests will predominate.

In  the earliest days of our Republic, Eminent Domain was  recognized as a  tool  inherent to the Federal Government’s mandate to “defend and protect.”   For  the  “public good,”  soldiers were billeted in Colonial homes during the Revolution  but  seizure of  private lands for permanent use  was  onerous to most early Americans and the “public use” restriction in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause was strictly interpreted as a  protection against such seizures.

As  our population grew  and technology created a more mobile citizenry,  public works demanded more land for  roads, bridges and railroads.  In more recent years and in response to a landscape crammed full of skyscrapers, derricks, residential and shopping mall sprawl,  eminent domain has been used to protect open space for public enjoyment.   (The “public good” in this instance being protected  from the narrower interests of a few developers.)

Of particular interest to us in the Delaware River Basin is the  legal concept of  “inverse condemnation” which we hear with increasing frequency from  property holders demanding  they be compensated  when  regulations prohibit gas drilling on their properties.  According to a Fifth Amendment Annotation,** “While [the Fifth Amendment]  established that government may take private property, with compensation, to promote the public interest, that interest also may be served by regulation of property use….‘The distinguishing characteristic between eminent domain and the police power is that the former involves the taking of property because of its need for the public use while [police power] involves the regulation of such property to prevent the use thereof in a manner that is detrimental to the public interest.’ 251 But regulation may deprive an owner of most or all beneficial use of his property and may destroy the values of the property for the purposes to which it is suited. 252 The older cases flatly denied the possibility of compensation for this diminution of property values, 253 but the Court in 1922 established as a general principle that ‘if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.”’ 254

Later, in a 2002 case,  (Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency)  The U.S. Supreme Court found that, “Moratoria on all development in Lake Tahoe Basin area for a period totaling 32 months, imposed by a regional planning agency while formulating a land use plan for the area, were not per se takings of property requiring compensation under the Takings Clause.”

In a seemingly oblique but related development,  corporations attained “personhood”  when The U. S. Supreme Court stated in  Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Beckwith (1889) “…corporations are persons within the meaning of the [Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment]….    We admit also… that corporations can invoke the benefits of provisions of the constitution and laws which guaranty [sic] to persons the enjoyment of property, or afford to them the means for its protection, or prohibit legislation injuriously affecting it.”   (Bold added for emphasis.)

As the trend toward  condemnation of privately held lands has become more usual,  eminent domain actions have increasingly benefited “corporate  persons” in the guise of  public interests.  This trend  occasioned public outrage in 2005,  when The Court ruled in   Kelo v. New London that  privately-held  property could be  seized by a government  and handed over to  a private corporation  for the public benefit —  while said corporation stood to reap a boatload of  profits.

I would never deny just compensation to landholders whose property is seized for the public good but as I write this,  Congress has just launched  an investigation into  gas drilling practices  and their  potential harm to the environment.   Perhaps we should await its findings before deciding that those practices are either legal or in the public interest, as NYS Senator Bonacic has contended.

In that context, NYS  Senator John  Bonacic, the Northern Wayne Property  Owners’ Association (NWPOA) and energy corporations  have  begun a campaign of hostage-taking.  In an  “Alice-Down-The-Rabbit-Hole” logical warp,  they have demanded that millions of people who depend on water from the Delaware River Basin and New York City Watershed pay  landholders NOT to risk  that water supply with a toxic soup of corporate fracking fluids.

“Bizarre-o!”  as my friend Amanda might say.  Or more elegantly,  I refer you to  Cliff Westfall’s analogy of a few days ago, “What if I decided to burn down the woods on my land, claiming it was the cheapest way to clear a field, with no concern for preventing its spread to my neighbor’s house?  Of course the government could regulate that. The bottom line is this: the government may prevent you from doing things on your property when those actions would harm public welfare.”   In further explanation of Mr. Westfall’s comparison,  please understand that  fracturing fluids  used in gas drilling are injected underground,  may travel as much as 6,000 feet and their  direction is neither predictable nor controllable…like a forest fire.

It is inconceivable  that Senator Bonacic and the NWPOA  truly believe that in our current economic crisis any governmental entity (or body of taxpayers) has the means to pay the ransom.  The national unemployment rate is blowing up in our faces.  Tax revenues are plummeting.  Small businesses are dying.  Our infrastructure is crumbling and our children are moving back home and forsaking dreams of college.  In the event NWPOA or some other organization of  lessors prevails in  a lawsuit demanding compensation for the value of their  mineral rights,  every taxpayer, student and worker who does not  benefit from gas royalties will lose.  And the sure winners?  Drilling companies who stand in the background ready to reap the  profits.

Given the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision which found in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission —  a la George Orwell’s  Animal Farm —  that some “persons”  and their lobbyists  “are more equal than others,” we should not doubt the risk faced by our water and our Republic.

And given the evolutionary demise of Neandrathal,  I can’t help but wonder if  he decided to eat the whole thing all by himself.

Urge the Delaware River Basin Commission and the US Congress  to  enact moratoria  on drilling. It’s for the “public good”  because,  as more and more people are beginning to remember,  “We cannot drink gas  nor grow our food with it.”

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*   “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

**In general, compensation must be paid when a restriction on the use of property is so extensive that it is tantamount to confiscation of the property.

In the Mahon case, Justice Holmes for the Court, over Justice Brandeis’ vigorous dissent, held unconstitutional a state statute prohibiting subsurface mining in regions where it presented a danger of subsidence for homeowners. The homeowners had purchased by deeds which reserved to the coal companies ownership of subsurface mining rights and which held the companies harmless for damage caused by subsurface mining operations. The statute thus gave the homeowners more than they had been able to obtain through contracting, and at the same time deprived the coal companies of the entire value of their subsurface estates. The Court observed that ”[f]or practical purposes, the right to coal consists in the right to mine,” and that the statute, by making it ”commercially impracticable to mine certain coal,” had essentially ”the same effect for constitutional purposes as appropriating or destroying it.” 255 The regulation, therefore, in precluding the companies from exercising any mining rights whatever, went ”too far.” 256 However, when presented 65 years later with a very similar restriction on coal mining, the Court upheld it in Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v. DeBenedictis. 257 Unlike its precursor, the Court explained, the newer law ”does not merely involve a balancing of the private economic interests of coal companies against the private interests of the surface owners.” 258 Instead, the state had identified ”important public interests” (e.g., conservation, protection of water supplies, preservation of land values for taxation) and had broadened the law to apply regardless of whether the surface and mineral estates were in separate ownership. A second factor distinguishing Keystone from Mahon, the Court explained, was the absence of proof that the new subsidence law made it ”commercially impracticable” for the coal companies to continue mining. 259 The Court rejected efforts to define separate segments of property for taking purposes–either the coal in place under protected structures, or the ”support estate” recognized under Pennsylvania law. 260 Economic impact is measured by reference to the property as a whole; consideration of the coal placed off limits to mining as merely part of a larger estate and not as a separate estate undermined the commercial impracticability argument.

In a case examining a Moratorium imposed on development in the Lake Tahoe area, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that a moratorium on development is not necessarily a taking, and that regulatory takings cases must be decided on a case-by-case basis rather than on categorical rules, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302, 122 S. Ct. 1465, 152 L. Ed. 2d 517 (U.S., Apr 23, 2002) (NO. 00-1167).  …the Court held that because the regulation was temporary, it could not constitute a categorical taking.”

EDITORIAL

Imagine a Neandrathal  stumbling upon a luscious piece of trail-kill 30,000 years ago  and debating  whether to share it with his hungry tribe or  eat it  himself.

Would survival of the fittest have trumped  his community’s needs?  Or would he have recognized  that food (like water) was  a Neandrathal utility — a resource essential to  the tribe’s survival  —  its consumption regulated with the common weal in mind?   Would Neandrathal society have  concocted some system of head thumps to ensure  that  fortunate ones shared with the hungry many?

Long-enshrined in our societal  understanding of survival  are two fundamental concepts that we treat with varying importance depending on the situation.

  • “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”  (Our community prospers when it  fosters and defends  the rights and strengths of  its members.)
  • “Ask not what your country can do for you  — ask what you can do for your country.”   (The strength of our  community  depends on the responsible generosity of its members.)

Some of the wildest and most contentious cases in Supreme Court history have attempted to resolve conflicts between  individual rights and  the community’s expectation that its larger, more inclusive  interests will predominate.

In  the earliest days of our Republic, Eminent Domain was  recognized as a  tool  inherent to the Federal Government’s mandate to “defend and protect.”   For  the  “public good,”  soldiers were billeted in Colonial homes during the Revolution  but  seizure of  private lands for permanent use  was  onerous to most early Americans and the “public use” restriction in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause was strictly interpreted as a  protection against such seizures.

As  our population grew  and technology created a more mobile citizenry,  public works demanded more land for  roads, bridges and railroads.  In more recent years and in response to a landscape crammed full of skyscrapers, derricks, residential and shopping mall sprawl,  eminent domain has been used to protect open space for public enjoyment.   (The “public good” in this instance being protected  from the narrower interests of a few developers.)

Of particular interest to us in the Delaware River Basin is the  legal concept of  “inverse condemnation” which we hear with increasing frequency from  property holders demanding  they be compensated  when  regulations prohibit gas drilling on their properties.  According to a Fifth Amendment Annotation,** “While [the Fifth Amendment]  established that government may take private property, with compensation, to promote the public interest, that interest also may be served by regulation of property use….‘The distinguishing characteristic between eminent domain and the police power is that the former involves the taking of property because of its need for the public use while [police power] involves the regulation of such property to prevent the use thereof in a manner that is detrimental to the public interest.’ 251 But regulation may deprive an owner of most or all beneficial use of his property and may destroy the values of the property for the purposes to which it is suited. 252 The older cases flatly denied the possibility of compensation for this diminution of property values, 253 but the Court in 1922 established as a general principle that ‘if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.”’ 254

Later, in a 2002 case,  (Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency)  The U.S. Supreme Court found that, “Moratoria on all development in Lake Tahoe Basin area for a period totaling 32 months, imposed by a regional planning agency while formulating a land use plan for the area, were not per se takings of property requiring compensation under the Takings Clause.”

In a seemingly oblique but related development,  corporations attained “personhood”  when The U. S. Supreme Court stated in  Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Beckwith (1889) “…corporations are persons within the meaning of the [Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment]….    We admit also… that corporations can invoke the benefits of provisions of the constitution and laws which guaranty [sic] to persons the enjoyment of property, or afford to them the means for its protection, or prohibit legislation injuriously affecting it.”   (Bold added for emphasis.)

As the trend toward  condemnation of privately held lands has become more usual,  eminent domain actions have increasingly benefited “corporate  persons” in the guise of  public interests.  This trend  occasioned public outrage in 2005,  when The Court ruled in   Kelo v. New London that  privately-held  property could be  seized by a government  and handed over to  a private corporation  for the public benefit —  while said corporation stood to reap a boatload of  profits.

I would never deny just compensation to landholders whose property is seized for the public good but as I write this,  Congress has just launched  an investigation into  gas drilling practices  and their  potential harm to the environment.   Perhaps we should await its findings before deciding that those practices are either legal or in the public interest, as NYS Senator Bonacic has contended.

In that context, NYS  Senator John  Bonacic, the Northern Wayne Property  Owners’ Association (NWPOA) and energy corporations  have  begun a campaign of hostage-taking.  In an  “Alice-Down-The-Rabbit-Hole” logical warp,  they have demanded that millions of people who depend on water from the Delaware River Basin and New York City Watershed pay  landholders NOT to risk  that water supply with a toxic soup of corporate fracking fluids.

“Bizarre-o!”  as my friend Amanda might say.  Or more elegantly,  I refer you to  Cliff Westfall’s analogy of a few days ago, “What if I decided to burn down the woods on my land, claiming it was the cheapest way to clear a field, with no concern for preventing its spread to my neighbor’s house?  Of course the government could regulate that. The bottom line is this: the government may prevent you from doing things on your property when those actions would harm public welfare.”   In further explanation of Mr. Westfall’s comparison,  please understand that  fracturing fluids  used in gas drilling are injected underground,  may travel as much as 6,000 feet and their  direction is neither predictable nor controllable…like a forest fire.

It is inconceivable  that Senator Bonacic and the NWPOA  truly believe that in our current economic crisis any governmental entity (or body of taxpayers) has the means to pay the ransom.  The national unemployment rate is blowing up in our faces.  Tax revenues are plummeting.  Small businesses are dying.  Our infrastructure is crumbling and our children are moving back home and forsaking dreams of college.  In the event NWPOA or some other organization of  lessors prevails in  a lawsuit demanding compensation for the value of their  mineral rights,  every taxpayer, student and worker who does not  benefit from gas royalties will lose.  And the sure winners?  Drilling companies who stand in the background ready to reap the  profits.

Given the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision which found in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission —  a la George Orwell’s  Animal Farm —  that some “persons”  and their lobbyists  “are more equal than others,” we should not doubt the risk faced by our water and our Republic.

And given the evolutionary demise of Neandrathal,  I can’t help but wonder if  he decided to eat the whole thing all by himself.

Urge the Delaware River Basin Commission and the US Congress  to  enact moratoria  on drilling. It’s for the “public good”  because,  as more and more people are beginning to remember,  “We cannot drink gas  nor grow our food with it.”

************************

*   “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

**In general, compensation must be paid when a restriction on the use of property is so extensive that it is tantamount to confiscation of the property.

In the Mahon case, Justice Holmes for the Court, over Justice Brandeis’ vigorous dissent, held unconstitutional a state statute prohibiting subsurface mining in regions where it presented a danger of subsidence for homeowners. The homeowners had purchased by deeds which reserved to the coal companies ownership of subsurface mining rights and which held the companies harmless for damage caused by subsurface mining operations. The statute thus gave the homeowners more than they had been able to obtain through contracting, and at the same time deprived the coal companies of the entire value of their subsurface estates. The Court observed that ”[f]or practical purposes, the right to coal consists in the right to mine,” and that the statute, by making it ”commercially impracticable to mine certain coal,” had essentially ”the same effect for constitutional purposes as appropriating or destroying it.” 255 The regulation, therefore, in precluding the companies from exercising any mining rights whatever, went ”too far.” 256 However, when presented 65 years later with a very similar restriction on coal mining, the Court upheld it in Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v. DeBenedictis. 257 Unlike its precursor, the Court explained, the newer law ”does not merely involve a balancing of the private economic interests of coal companies against the private interests of the surface owners.” 258 Instead, the state had identified ”important public interests” (e.g., conservation, protection of water supplies, preservation of land values for taxation) and had broadened the law to apply regardless of whether the surface and mineral estates were in separate ownership. A second factor distinguishing Keystone from Mahon, the Court explained, was the absence of proof that the new subsidence law made it ”commercially impracticable” for the coal companies to continue mining. 259 The Court rejected efforts to define separate segments of property for taking purposes–either the coal in place under protected structures, or the ”support estate” recognized under Pennsylvania law. 260 Economic impact is measured by reference to the property as a whole; consideration of the coal placed off limits to mining as merely part of a larger estate and not as a separate estate undermined the commercial impracticability argument.

In a case examining a Moratorium imposed on development in the Lake Tahoe area, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that a moratorium on development is not necessarily a taking, and that regulatory takings cases must be decided on a case-by-case basis rather than on categorical rules, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302, 122 S. Ct. 1465, 152 L. Ed. 2d 517 (U.S., Apr 23, 2002) (NO. 00-1167).  …the Court held that because the regulation was temporary, it could not constitute a categorical taking.”

(The following joint  press release from Earthworks and The Powder River Basin Resource Council is re-printed here by permission of EarthWorks Action.  At this crux moment in our fight to protect our own Delaware River Basin, no report is  more timely.  Please read the story and then organize a Light Up The Delaware River Party.  Many of us believe  The Delaware River Basin Commission will decide the Basin’s fate by mid-October or earlier.  9-6-09 is our moment to come together as a Basin Community and say, “We need Environmental Impact Statements, cumulative effects studies and evidence that someone, somewhere will be monitoring the drilling industry and its disposal of toxins.”)

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EPA Confirms Drinking Water Contamination by Toxics Used in Hydraulic Fracturing

Joint Press Release: EARTHWORKS * Powder River Basin Resource Council

EPA will investigate nearby oil and gas development to determine contamination source

Pavillion, WY citizens call for fracking moratorium

Pavillion, WY, August 14, 2009 – This week U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told a group of over 70 that initial investigations found 11 of 39 tested drinking water wells were contaminated. Among the contaminants are toxics used in oil and gas production.

As part of a Superfund investigation, EPA began sampling in March 2009 in the Pavillion, WY area in response to multiple landowners concerns about changes in water quality and quantity following EnCana’s increased gas development in the area. Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (WDEQ) and EnCana had continually assured Pavillion residents that there was no evidence of hydrocarbons or toxic chemicals in their drinking water wells.

“Our families and neighbors are experiencing everything from miscarriages and rare cancers to central nervous system disorders, seizures, and liver disease” said John Fenton of Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens, a citizens group formed to address oil and gas contamination.

EPA confirmed the presence of 2-butoxyethanol (2-BE), a known constituent in hydraulic fracturing fluids, in three wells. This is the same chemical that was documented in the water well of Laura Amos, a Colorado landowner, after nearby wells were hydraulically fractured by EnCana. EPA reported that other water contamination, in the Pavillion wells, included methane, as well as adamantanes (a form of hydrocarbon) and six other chemical compounds of concern.

In 2001 EnCana’s fracturing operations in Silt, Colorado were linked to methane and other contamination of Ms. Amos’ nearby water well. Amos was unable to test immediately for chemical constituents related to hydraulic fracturing as she was unable to identify what chemicals were in EnCana’s drilling products. In 2003 Ms. Amos was diagnosed with a rare adrenal cancer and she later discovered that 2-BE had been used in EnCana’s fracking products. According to Dr. Theo Colborn at The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, known health effects of 2-BE include elevated numbers of combined malignant and non-malignant tumors of the adrenal gland, kidney damage, kidney failure, toxicity to the spleen, the bones in the spinal column and bone marrow, liver cancer, anemia, female fertility reduction, and embryo mortality.

As a result of the EPA’s findings, residents in the Pavillion area are now calling for a halt to EnCana’s fracturing operation. “It’s very concerning that we are finding known fracturing products and hydrocarbons in our citizens’ water wells,” says John Fenton. “We’ll await EPA’s determination as to what is the cause of this contamination. However, in the mean time, we are asking EnCana to ensure no more fracturing occurs in the area.”

EPA stated that they will continue sampling, meeting with all parties and working with EnCana to determine the source and extent of the contamination. Randy Tuween, an EnCana representative at the meeting, pledged to fully cooperate with the community and EPA officials.

“Full cooperation in this instance requires that EnCana fully disclose what products and chemicals have been used in the Pavillion/Muddy Ridge fields,” says Deb Thomas, organizer for the Power River Basin Resource Council and the Pavillion Area of Concerned Citizens. “This shows why federal regulation of fracturing and drilling operations is so important. We have been seeking answers from EnCana and the State of Wyoming for years. We are very pleased that EPA is now getting results. All citizens deserve clean water.”

In June, the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (S. 1215/HR 2766) was introduced to require disclosure of fracturing chemicals to public agencies and to lift the exemption for hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The legislation, known as the FRAC Act ensures that a federal minimum standard would prohibit endangerment of underground sources of drinking water while allowing states flexibility in implementing that standard.

“Citizens throughout the country have been reporting changes in their water well’s quality and quantity after nearby hydraulic fracturing operations for years and voicing concerns about both short and long-term health effects,” said Jennifer Goldman of Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project. “The FRAC Act is critical to ensuring that we know what toxics are being injected into and near our aquifers and to holding the oil and gas industry accountable for the environmental and health impacts.”

*** END ***

For More Information

Contacts:

  • Deb Thomas, Powder River Resource Basin Council: 307-645-3236
  • Jennifer Goldman, EARTHWORKS: 406-587-4473
  • John Fenton: 307 856-7098

On hydraulic fracturing:
http://www.earthworksaction.org/hydfracking.cfm

On the inadequate regulation of hydraulic fracturing:
http://www.earthworksaction.org/halliburton.cfm

On Laura Amos, the Colorado landowner poisoned by 2-BE (including links to the Endocrine Disruption Exchange report on 2-BE)
http://www.earthworksaction.org/cvLauraAmos.cfm

On the Powder River Basin Council
http://www.powderriverbasin.org

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