Gas Drilling Along the Delaware River Remains Uncertain

November 21, 2011 | 1:11 PM

By Susan Phillips

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The Mar­cel­lus Shale nat­ural gas for­ma­tion stretches across about two-thirds of Penn­syl­va­nia, from the south­west cor­ner of Wash­ing­ton County to the north­east cor­ner of Wayne county. But drill rigs have yet to tap the gas that lies beneath Wayne and Pike coun­ties. That’s because a drilling mora­to­rium exists until the reg­u­la­tory agency that over­sees drilling in areas near the Delaware river imple­ments new drilling rules. That vote was sup­posed to hap­pen Mon­day in Tren­ton. But as hun­dreds of activists pre­pared to protest the meet­ing, and risk arrest, the Delaware River Basin Com­mis­sion can­celed the event with lit­tle explanation.

Through­out Philadel­phia, its sub­urbs and small towns along the Delaware river, you can now see bumper stick­ers that read “no frackin’ way” and yel­low lawn signs that read “Don’t Drill the Delaware.” These are areas that don’t lie above any nat­ural gas deposits. But the oppo­si­tion to gas drilling among res­i­dents who live down­stream is growing.

• Gas Drilling Along The Delaware River Remains in LimboEnvi­ron­men­tal­ists Claim Vic­toryDown­load

“We hear a great debate over this right of the Con­sti­tu­tion and that right of the Con­sti­tu­tion, but as far as I’m con­cerned the num­ber one right is the right to live and in order to live you need air to breath, and you need water to drink…”

That’s John Scor­sone, speak­ing at an anti-drilling rally in Philadel­phia out­side of the office of U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers.  The Corps rep­re­sents the fed­eral gov­ern­ment on the five-member Delaware River Basin Com­mis­sion, or DRBC. The Com­mis­sion was cre­ated in 1961 to man­age the river’s water qual­ity, as well as quan­tity. New York, New Jer­sey, Penn­syl­va­nia, Delaware and the fed­eral gov­ern­ment all have a seat on the Com­mis­sion. All four states use the Delaware river as a source of drink­ing water. But this is the first time the Com­mis­sion has had to make deci­sions about energy production.

Tracy Car­luc­cio is with the Delaware River­keeper Net­work, one of the most vocal and active envi­ron­men­tal groups seek­ing to halt drilling along the Delaware river.

“Fif­teen mil­lion peo­ple get their water from the Delaware river. It’s one of the largest water­shed water sup­plies in the nation. There’s no other place to get this water.”

Car­luc­cio says she believes that no mat­ter what reg­u­la­tions are in place, the drilling prac­tice known as hor­i­zon­tal hydraulic frac­tur­ing, or frack­ing, will one day pol­lute the river.

“Philadel­phia is down­stream from where this frack­ing is going on,” said Car­luc­cio. Philadel­phia is also in the path­way of pipelines and com­pres­sor sta­tions and liq­ue­fied nat­ural gas sta­tions may pop up in the [Chesa­peake] Bay. So Philadel­phia is in the crosshairs here.”

Frack­ing uses a com­bi­na­tion of pres­sur­ized water, sand and chem­i­cals to “frac­ture” the shale rock and release the gas. The DRBC, has spent the last sev­eral years draw­ing up new reg­u­la­tions, tak­ing pub­lic com­ment and revis­ing their pro­posal. But Car­luc­cio says the rules now on the table, are not strin­gent enough to pro­tect the water. She wants buffer zones from sur­face water increased. And envi­ron­men­tal­ists like her want the DRBC to con­duct an envi­ron­men­tal impact study before draw­ing up any new rules. So they planned a large demon­stra­tion out­side the sched­uled meet­ing, rent­ing busses to take hun­dreds of peo­ple from Philadel­phia to Trenton.

But not every­one closely watch­ing the actions of the DRBC agrees with Car­luc­cio. About 140 miles north of Philadel­phia, in Wayne county, prop­erty own­ers like Curt Coc­co­drilli, want the drilling mora­to­rium lifted.

“What we’re look­ing at right now is lit­er­ally the divid­ing line, what I call the eco­nomic iron cur­tain, between the Delaware River Basin and the Susque­hanna river basin.”

Above Coccodrilli’s back porch, just behind his pond, are the Moosic Moun­tains, which serve as the divid­ing line between the Susque­hanna river basin and the Delaware river basin. The Susque­hanna River Basin has a sim­i­lar Com­mis­sion, but it only over­sees water with­drawals, not water qual­ity. The multi-state Delaware River Basin Com­mis­sion has reg­u­la­tory author­ity over the water that runs through the bulk of Coccodrilli’s land. The DRBC planned to vote on its new gas drilling rules this week. And a sim­ple major­ity of three yes votes would have lifted their mora­to­rium. That would mean an addi­tional income of about $20,000 dol­lars a year for Coc­co­drilli. When the DRBC put in the mora­to­rium, his bonus pay­ments stopped. He says gas drilling has helped bring pros­per­ity to other parts of the state.

“But over here it’s depres­sion and reces­sion in the County,” said Coc­co­drilli. “So what do you do? Do I lis­ten to the envi­ron­men­tal illu­mi­nati as they want to heap their almighty rules from above on us? I mean they treat this area as their own state park.”

In fact Coc­co­drilli and the mem­bers of the North­ern Wayne Prop­erty Own­ers Alliance do con­sider them­selves envi­ron­men­tal stew­ards. They spent two years nego­ti­at­ing envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards into a lease with Hess Cor­po­ra­tion and New­field Explo­ration Com­pany, com­bin­ing their more than 100,000 acres to gain lever­age with the drilling com­pa­nies. For them, nat­ural gas pro­vides an alter­na­tive to America’s addic­tion to for­eign oil, which they say led to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They say nat­ural gas is also an alter­na­tive to coal fired power plants, which cre­ate acid rain. Both of Coccodrilli’s grand­fa­thers worked in the coal mines and both died of black lung.

“If you value Amer­i­can inde­pen­dence away from for­eign strife, and you want a cheap clean fuel source then I think you’re fool­ish not to extract in the Delaware river basin,” said Coccodrilli.

Coc­co­drilli planned to make the two-and-a-half hour drive to Monday’s meet­ing in Tren­ton, and cel­e­brate a “yes” vote on the new drilling rules, which would have lifted the mora­to­rium. But late Thurs­day night, Delaware Gov­er­nor Jack Markell sent out a let­ter stat­ing he would vote “no.” Markell says the Com­mis­sion needs more time to do an envi­ron­men­tal impact study.  Delaware’s Sec­re­tary of Envi­ron­ment and Energy Collin O’Mara, tells StateIm­pact that New York state also thought the vote should be delayed. The lack of con­sen­sus sent the DRBC into tur­moil, and on Fri­day, the Com­mis­sion can­celed Monday’s meet­ing. Penn­syl­va­nia Gov­er­nor Tom Cor­bett sent out a state­ment say­ing the deci­sion to can­cel the meet­ing was polit­i­cal, and not based on “sound sci­ence.” For now, no new meet­ing is sched­uled, a sign that the mora­to­rium on drilling in the Delaware river basin will not be lifted soon. Activists like Tracy Car­luc­cio from the Delaware River­keeper Net­work still plan to march in Tren­ton and cel­e­brate a victory.