Panel approves Arcuri drilling amendment

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July 2, 2010

By Tom Grace Cooperstown News Bureau The Daily Star Fri Jul 02, 2010, 03:30 AM EDT

An amendment authored by U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, to compel natural gas and oil drillers to comply with the federal Clean Water Act was approved in a voice vote Thursday by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

If enacted, the amended bill would force drillers to obtain EPA discharge permits before construction of drilling sites begins.

In effect, drillers in other states would follow a regulation similar to what is already law in New York State, where the state Department of Environmental Conservation requires storm water management plans for vertical gas wells.

The DEC's proposed regulations for horizontal drilling in the Marcellus shale also require the management plans.

"However my amendment is necessary so the Clean Water Act ensures that

all states require these

measures — so that we have a level playing field across all states because runoff

water does not recognize nor stop at state borders,"

Arcuri stated in an e-mail sent to The Daily Star Thursday evening.

Arcuri, a House Transportation and Infrastructure committee member,

attached the amendment to the Oil

Spill Accountability and Environmental Protection Act of 2010, which cleared the committee Thursday.

If the bill becomes law, it would reverse a provision of the 2005 Energy Policy Act that exempted drillers from obtaining National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.

The bill, as amended, now goes to the House floor.

Arcuri's amendment "seeks to hold big oil and gas to the same environmental standards as every other industry in preventing unnecessary runoff from construction sites that could contaminate our rivers, lakes and streams," he stated.

"By giving them a pass on this important regulation, we're essentially assuming the oil and gas industries will take the necessary environmental precautions on their own.

"That's the same sort of fast-track approach that led to the BP oil spill." Arcuri, a two-term Democrat who is running for re-election against Republican Richard Hanna of Barneveld, said that drillers' construction sites typically create 10-to-20 times more runoff than farms in production or 1,000-to-2,000 times more runoff than forestland.

Renee Gamela, Hanna's spokeswoman, said he could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon or night.

Nicole Dillingham, executive director of Otsego 2000, an organization that has warned against the hazards of gas drilling, thanked Arcuri for his efforts.

"I'm very encouraged by it," she said, noting that drilling is exempted from other federal regulations as well.

Otsego County Rep. James Powers, R-Butternuts, hailed the amendment, too.

"It's great; I'm all for protecting our water," he said.

Powers, a dairy farmer and beekeeper, said he believes gas drilling in New York State is inevitable "because we all drive cars, we all heat our homes in the winter; we're using the energy.

"But I think our regulations in New York State are much stricter and will do a better job of protecting us than what they have in Pennsylvania," he said.

Still, to make the gas and oil industry abide by the same federal environmental standards as other industries is the right thing to do, he said.