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To All SLPWA Members and all Supporters of Seneca Lake Seneca Lake, its watershed and the entire Finger Lakes Region of the State of New York potentially faces the most significant environmental issue of our time and for generations to come. The recently developed, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale of the Southern Tier and Central New York can have a significant positive economic impact on the state, but it also has a very high probability of severe and lasting negative environmental impacts on the quality of the water in our streams, rivers and lakes. Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association is deeply concerned about the environmental impact the drilling of these natural gas wells in the Marcellus Shale may have on the quality of the water entering Seneca Lake from our watershed. The wells are drilled using a process known as “hydro-fracing” which requires large volumes of water to be used in the drilling process to extract the gas trapped within the shale of these deep wells. The wells include a horizontal drilling operation in addition to the traditional vertical well we have significant experience with. These types of well operations are relatively new to New York, and certainly have not been studied completely in order to fully understand the potential environmental impacts this process entails. Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association has had a committee study both the proposed drilling process for these wells currently in use in other states, the problems that have been associated with these operations and the recently released draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) by the NYS Department of Conservation. Because we have found that our lake and watershed are not adequately protected by the DEC proposals in the dSGEIS to manage and regulate the drilling of these gas wells, we have submitted a comment to the DEC during the open pubic comment period that extends to Dec. 31, 2009. You can find SLPWA’S comments to the NYS DEC at the end of this note. To help make our voice heard as a steward of Seneca Lake and its watershed, we need your help! Below the link to our SLPWA Comments on the DSGEIS on Marcellus Shale, you will find several additional links that include a sample letter that you can use to support our comments as well as add your own comments. A final link provides postal and email addresses for you to use to send your comments to local, state and federal governmental officials as well as NYS DEC. Remember, comments must be received by the DEC no later than Dec 31, 2009. In closing, I want to share with you a comment I have heard a number of times concerning the drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. It goes something like this; “The natural gas has been in the Marcellus Shale for millions of years, let’s take a relatively short time now to make sure we don’t live with the environmental impact of drilling for this gas for generations to come.” Let’s not pass along another problem to fuiture generations when we can take a few additional months to make sure that New York State and the Department of Environmental Conservation has the proper regulations and is staffed to manage and regulate the drilling for the natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. Thank you in advance for your support! Phil Cianciotto, President, Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SLPWA Comments on Marcelus Shale dSGEIS to NYS DEC November 2009 |