Not fine with brine

Joan Walker said that the vertical-well production brine that the New York State Department of Conservation currently allows to be used on state roads and on county fairgrounds is “also radioactive and toxic.” She characterized the brine chemicals as having a number of toxic effects: many are carcinogenic, endocrine disruptors, and/or the cause of birth abnormalities and neurological disorders. “The DEC and energy industry say that fracking fluid is safe. I’d request that the county officials call upon DEC staffers and the energy industry reps to try drinking it themselves for good baseline end studies.”

Doom for wells

Dave Channon noted that “there’s no gas and oil drilling in Ulster County because it’s not corrupted yet.” He described the brine and flow water from the wells as “toxic waste. There’s no water treatment place that can handle this. The only place is a hazardous waste dump.” Claire Franck suggested that municipalities “produce Geiger counters to test everything before it goes on the roads.”

Hydrologist Paul Rubin, who wrote a technical report on the proposed dispersal of brine in Pennsylvania evaluating the impact on groundwater, said the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has defined wastewater brine as “very salty, therefore, injurious to plants and aquatic life.’ From a hydrologic and water quality standpoint, the certain dispersal of fracking waste brines into our waterways, reservoirs and freshwater aquifers from intentional brine dispersal is analogous to running a small secondary line from an oil tank … close to a drinking water well,” he said. While it may take time for the well to be unusable, it will happen. “Contaminant-laden fracking brine dispersed on our roadways will move into our finite water resources and degrade them.”

“Once released, there’s no way to get the chemicals back,” said speaker Peter Lamerson. “The cumulative and biological effects are forever.”

‘Nowhere safe left to live’

Eleven-year-old Violet Hansen, a resident of Rosendale, was the show-stopper. “Many people think kids don’t pay attention to what’s going on. We’re not stupid just because we’re young,” she said. After listing some of the states where fracking is done, causing “water faucets to catch on fire and houses to explode,” Hansen said she was “scared” and “angry.” “New York State is so beautiful. Why ruin it? If fracking happens by the time I have children, there will be nowhere left safe to live. Animals won’t survive and plants will die. Then will the economy even matter?”

When calling for a short break more than midway through the hearing, Bernardo noted that Hansen should definitely “run for class president.”

Marbletown resident Patricia Anderson said the U.S. House of Representatives, after conducting an investigation into the chemicals used in drilling, acknowledged that the companies were injecting fluids into the ground whose potential risks they little understood. The House found that “more than 650 of the products used in hydro-fracking contained chemicals which are known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. But hydrofracking is exempt from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, so they had no authority to restrict this use,” she said. “They also found that 279 of these compound products contained at least one component listed as ‘proprietary’ or ‘trade secret’ posing an unknown risk to human health and the environment.

“The U.S. Congress knows this stuff is toxic and can do nothing about it,” said Anderson. “You, our county representatives, are our last line of defense against this poison.”

Bernardo noted that legislature is accepting written comments on the proposed law until 5 p.m. on Friday, April 27. The legislature’s laws and rules and environmental committees will then meet to bring the vote to the full legislature.

Wishnick said afterwards the committees will be addressing several issues, including the nature of the penalties on ban violators and type of brine to be banned. He also said he planned to suggest that the legislature approach the state Department of Transportation to seek local approval prior to using production brine to de-ice state roads in the county. If the changes to the proposed law are substantial, a second hearing would be held.