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Monday, May 17, 2010 THE STAR GAZETTE
Drilling sites give fright, May 12, 2010 Recently, my husband and I traveled into Pennsylvania checking out the contentious horizontal drilling, aka hydro-fracking, sites. Hearing rumors, we decided to see for ourselves. We saw. And, learned there is lots we don't know. Stopping first to a nearly completed site outside Mansfield, we viewed a number of large containers (tanks) labeled: Danger, do not enter. This tank may contain fatal vapors. Some, surrounded by yellow hazard tape. A farmhouse was within 100 yards of them, and plastic-lined pond with two large plastic water tanks nearby. We spoke with an 18-wheeler tanker driver, learning his job was hauling fresh water to fracking sites, then hauling away the contaminated fracking fluid, aka flowback, laden with chemicals and heavy metals. He takes it to a treatment area, inaccessible to the public, near Roseville, where the clean-up begins, then is sent on. Somewhere. That afternoon, he was making flowback water runs. No indication of hazardous waste was apparent on his rig. We saw many such unmarked tanker-trucks. Visiting another site, we actually saw drilling, a 24/7 operation. There was a nearby golf course. We saw more plastic-lined ponds. Traveling to Dimock we spoke with several tanker drivers, extolling opportunities hydro-fracking brought to their community. They did mention well problems and contaminated water. Driving on, we approached a house with a large plastic container in the front yard, and metal pipe jutting from a plastic covered area. We stopped and the gentleman residing there confirmed their well exploded from methane. Driving home we talked about what hydro-fracking would mean to our area. More jobs? More money? More industry? More traffic? More pot-holes? More pollution? Probably. It would likely mean an end to the Finger Lakes region as we know it today. We would be seeing thousands of tankers because it takes 5-7 million gallons of water to frack one well, one time. Each tanker carries 5,000 gallons. This is 1,000 loaded tankers per well. Then, there are tankers carrying flowback. Plastic-lined ponds, some filled with fresh water, some with flowback, will speckle our countryside. Unmarked tankers carrying toxic water will be interspaced with tourists and wine-tasters. There will be accidents and spills. Plan on it. Pennsylvania has experienced it; so will we. Drive into Pennsylvania. See for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. Think about the importance of clean water, and what it would mean to our area if we lost this resource. Sandy Wallace lives in Beaver Dams, N.Y. I would be amazed if Chesapeake wasn't active here -
the drillers continue building infrastructure anticipating the day of DEC approval - the latest, of course,
is the news about their landfills in Chemung, Steuben and Allegheny counties and gas storage caverns just outside of
Watkins - new pipe line outside of Corning under the Chemung River from Pennsylvania. I suspect that they are looking
for a staging area for their Yates County projects. Bob Davis
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