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The Division of Mineral Resources

Considered as a Foreign Body

The contemplation of whether to ban hydraulic fracturing in ones community, town, county or state

necessarily takes place within the context and expectation of competent, reasonable state regulation of a

dangerous practice, as High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing admittedly is. On a page of the Department of

Environmental Conservations website can be found the following:"Chemical and pollution control is at the core of the New York State Department ofEnvironmental Conservation's (DEC) mission, to protect New York's natural resources and our

environment." (http://www.dec.ny.gov/25.html).

Well, heck, what could go wrong? The DECs got our back! But there is fly in the soup, as always. A

section of New York Environmental Conservation Law, ECL 23, describes, among other things, the

regulation of mineral resources. Here is how the DEC describes the objectives of that section:

The legislative objectives of ECL Article 23, found in Section 23-0301, recognize that it is in thepublic interest to regulate the development, production and utilization of natural resources ofoil and gas in this state in such a manner as will prevent waste; to authorize and to provide for theoperation and development of oil and gas properties in such a manner that a greater ultimate recoveryof oil and gas may be had, and that the correlative rights of all owners and the rights of all

persons including landowners and the general public may be fully protected, and to provide insimilar fashion for the underground storage of gas, the solution mining of salt and geothermal,stratigraphic and brine disposal wells.

But here is how the DEC reinterprets the intent of the law in its proposed regulation, dropping the wordregulate oil and gas in the statute and substituting it with fostering, encouragement and promotion ofoil and gas:

550.1 PolicyThe Department of Environmental Conservation, having been entrusted with the basic responsibility

for administering to and regulating activities relative to the natural resources of o il and gas within theState, does hereby promulgate the following rules and regulations. These have been formulated afterconsultation with landowners, producers and other interested persons involved and a public hearing

relative thereto. The rules have as their objectives:(a) the fostering, encouragement and promotion of the development, production and

utilization of the natural resources of oil and gas in such a manner as will prevent waste;

So the DEC, by substituting the word regulate with the phrase the fostering, encouragement and

promotion of development, has misconstrued ECL 23-0301, thus invalidly converted itself from an

environmental conservation organization into an environmental exploitation organization, as regards

the regulation of hydraulic fracturing.

How does it actually achieve this its regulations? By creating the Division of Mineral Resources (or

DMR), to which it hands the job of fostering, encouraging and promotion of the gas industry. Thus the

DEC, devoted to protecting the states natural resources, has imbedded within itself a division

mandated to exploit natural resources.

In fact, the DMR has no proper place within the DEC and should be an independent entitiy, so the

DEC could defend us against it. There are only two states for damned good reasons in which

exploitation of resources is regulated by the same department tasked with the conservation of those

natural resources and the environment: New York; Pennsylvania. And this explains many of the

shortcomings of the proposed regulations, for instance:

There are none of the scientific citations, required by New York State rule-making law, in anymatter; for example setbacks - the distance drillers have to keep away from homes, lakes,

rivers, places of public assembly, and state lands and parks. And no provisions at all for

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setbacks from suburban housing tracts and developments, businesses, office buildings,

workers, farm animals, schoolyards, hospitals, nursing homes, places of worship, town and

county parks, recreational fields and trails, wetlands, marshes, irrigation systems, canals, etc.

There is no discernable reason for the exclusion of New York City and Syracuse fromfracking. The DEC it excludes these two lucky cities because their water supplies are

unfiltered, and all the rest of New Yorks town waters are filtered systems. But filteringdoesnt remove liquids, dissolved chemicals and radioactive compounds (most of which are

soluble), does it? Filtering doesnt remove the fracking biocides that incapacitate water

treatment facilities, either.

Frackers toxic waste disposal is left to the individual inventiveness of the various drillingcontractors, which the DEC proposes to approve one at a time, as they come in a formula

for inadequate, quixotic, and variable handling, depending on who is the DEC staff regulator

of the moment and what his or her work-load and attention span is at the moment, etc.

This is not intended to become an outline of the failings of the DECs proposals. Rather, the point is

that if you vote not to ban hydraulic fracturing, you will not be held safe by people at the DEC devoted

to fostering, encouraging and promoting the well-being of your and your familys and your neighbors

health and the resources and environment of your town, your county, your state. You will be left to thedubious mercies of the DMR, pledged to foster, encourage and promote the gas industry.

Hey, what the heck could go wrong?