DEC Update: Governor Paterson names Acting DEC Commissioner: Peter Iwanowicz
After the recent firing of Pete Grannis, Governor Paterson has named Peter Iwanowicz as the acting DEC Commissioner. Iwanowicz will also continue serving in his current position as the Deputy Secretary for the Environment. Before his current positions, Iwanowicz worked as the Assistant Secretary for the Environment as well as serving as the first Director of the New York State Office of Climate Change (created in 2007). He has been actively engaged with New York's involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) as well as serving as the State representative to the International Carbon Action Partnership.
For more on Peter Iwanowicz, click here.
Drilling Wastewater Disposal Options in N.Y. Report Have Problems of Their Own
by Joaquin Sapien and Sabrina Shankman for ProPublica
Environmentalists, state regulators and even energy companies agree that the problem most likely to slow natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale in New York is safely disposing of the billions of gallons of contaminated wastewater the industry will produce.
Between 1,500 and 2,500 wells per year could eventually be drilled into the huge natural gas reserve, state regulators say, although other estimates are far higher (PDF). Each well will produce about 1.2 million gallons of wastewater that can contain chemicals introduced during the drilling process and dredged up from deep within the earth. Using the state’s higher estimate, that means the industry will have to find a way to dispose of as much as 3 billion gallons a year, enough to fill 5,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
There are a few disposal options: Injecting it into underground storage wells, trucking it to specialized treatment plants in nearby states, or having it processed at sewage plants in New York.
But ProPublica has found that none of these methods are realistic.
- Of the 135 New York plants listed in the report, only a tiny fraction can or will accept Marcellus Shale wastewater. ProPublica interviewed spokespeople for 109 of those plants and found that just three have any interest in accepting the water -- and only in small amounts. New York City's 14 treatment plants, whose operators declined to talk to ProPublica, are already running at capacity -- and often over it -- which means they too are unlikely wastewater recipients.
- Of the 11 out-of-state plants the DEC listed as options, nine can't take any more wastewater. Two declined to answer questions for this story.
- Of the six injection wells (PDF) that operate in New York, only one is licensed to accept oil and gas wastewater. It's owned by Lenape Resources Inc., which uses it exclusively for wastewater from its own gas fields.
Read the rest of the story at Pro-Publica's website.
NY requires household cleaning companies to reveal chemical ingredients adapted from HealthNewsDigest.com
For the first time, the State of New York will begin requiring household cleaning companies to reveal the chemical ingredients in their products and any health risks they pose.
The move was triggered by public health and environmental advocates, who urged New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation to enforce disclosure requirements dating back more than 30 years. Independent studies show a link between many chemicals commonly found in cleaning products and health effects ranging from nerve damage to hormone disruption. read more ..
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Downloadable Materials
(if you don't have a viewer for pdf files, a free one is available from Adobe)
• FINAL comments Gas Drilling dSGEIS - SCAC_gasdSGEIS_12_09
• Gas Drilling Handout (304 KB pdf)
• Petition: Stop Climate Change (124 KB pdf)
• Wetlands at Risk Report(240 KB pdf)