October 08, 2009 07:44 PM UTC

New York City to Take On Oil and Gas?

• 2 Comments
• by: ClubTwitty

The day after news hit that three energy companies on the Western Slope have agreed to a settlement with punitive damages upwards of a half million dollars for polluting streams near the Roan Plateau, a new report commissioned by New York City highlights the dangers energy development can pose to our nation’s water supplies.

Although the oil and gas industry regularly claims that it always uses Best Management Practices and thus no one has anything to fear from this highly industrialized activity, and none of the companies involved in the settlement admit any wrongdoing, this photo, provided by EcoFlight–a Colorado conservation group–shows the massive ‘poopcicle’ that resulted from this malfeasance accident.

Sediment discharge is only one of the many dangers that threaten our water supplies from energy development, as the NYC report documents.

A preliminary report from a consultant hired by New York City warns that “nearly every activity” associated with natural gas drilling could potentially harm the city’s drinking water supply and that while the risk can be reduced with strict regulations, “the likelihood of water quality impairment…cannot be eliminated.”

While worried residents in the sparsely populated Interior West have had some difficulty gaining traction on this issue, and–with the notable exception of Reps. DeGette and Polis–few of our elected officials here take the threat of fracking and other activities seriously enough to support federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, NYC has both clout and political power.  

As I noted in a previous diary New york State is proposing new oil and gas regulations that go far beyond what Colorado has instituted (or proposed) and industry seems willing to accept these, with one spokesman noting that he doubted they would discourage drilling.  But according to the NYC report, even these rules wouldn’t go far enough.  

“This is not a fringe issue for this administration,” LaVorgna said. “This is a mayor that adamantly orders tap water every night he dines out.”

In one of his few statements on the subject, Bloomberg, who has generally supported the idea of energy development, told WNYC radio Thursday that “if this has the danger of polluting, we will fight it.”

While both GOP gubernatorial wannabes continue their lies that Colorado’s new rules chased away the oil and gas industry with the ‘strictest rules in the nation’ (in NY industry claims that state gets credit for those, but that’s just an interesting aside), Gov. Ritter seems intent on a Quixotic quest to win back the affections of the oil and gas industry.  Not so for elected officials in New York, where the City’s mayoral race may depend not on who can capitulate to industry the most, but rather who is most willing to fight it:

“The stakes are very high based on the conclusions of this report,” Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said in an interview with ProPublica. The report, he said, “suggests that city elected officials have a role to play here and a responsibility to step up and say, ‘What does frack drilling mean to New York City residents?'”

Last week Stringer announced he was launching a Kill the Drill campaign.

There is no more precious resource than water–upon which all life depends.  And the water that flows from the Rockies is not Colorado’s alone.  From the Midwest to California, many millions of citizens depend on protecting this critical resource.  This is a federal issue and our waters–here in Colorado and elsewhere–deserve national protections.  

Colorado’s elected leaders should stand up for Colorado’s land, water and people, and not bend over to curry the favor of this single, highly impactful, activity.