With a year-end public comment deadline fast approaching, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection issued on December 23 a detailed "thumbs down" response to plans for Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas exploration in the city's 1,585-square-mile "West of Hudson" watershed.

DEP is concerned about the potential for contamination in reservoirs on the west side of the Hudson River.The DEP went even further, calling on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to withdraw entirely its draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, issued in late September, whose public comment deadline is December 31.   

"It does not address the risks of drilling in the New York City watershed, which supplies drinking water for nine million New Yorkers (within and outside the city), the DEP concluded. "The dSGEIS does not meet the requirements of the New York State Environmental Conservation Law because it does not include critical and necessary analyses, including: cumulative impacts of the industrialization necessary for drilling, waste disposal, air quality, pipeline construction and ancillary infrastructure."

Since 1997, New York City has received a federal Environmental Protection Agency waiver, called a "Filtration Avoidance Determination," and has spent $1.5 billion to maintain that status. The inherent environmental impacts and risks of gas drilling could result in the need to construct a filtration plan at a minimum cost of $10 billion, which would translate into a 30 percent increase in water rates.

The consulting firm of Hazen and Sawyer/Leggette, Brashears and Graham, hired by DEP to evaluate risks, identified three major categories of concern:  industrialization involving thousands of wells, truck trips and cleared acres, and millions of tons both of hydrofracking chemicals and waste water; chemical contamination, not only of ground water from the fracking and horizontal drilling process but also of the wastewater generated by the process; infrastructure damage, particularly to New York City water conduit tunnels.