Natural Gas Drilling in the New York City Watershed

The recent push by the Chesapeake Energy Corporation to begin natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale has put New York City on its toes. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation released a draft environmental review that proposed laws and guidelines for drilling after 18 months of research. The city particularly concerned with the contamination of their drinking water supply because the drilling is proposed in the NYC watershed.

Despite the fact that the majority of the concerns are addressed in the environmental review, many city residents and officials remain concerned with the proposition, many because New York City is one of only four major cities that is allowed by the EPA to not filter their drinking water. The city's water is from upstate New York, and if the EPA was to take away the special permit, the city would have to build over $10 billion worth of water treatment plants. Another problem that would be amplified by the drilling would be that the large amounts of wastewater produced have no treatment facility in the region and would have to be exported to another state. More recently, Chesapeake Energy announced that they will not pursue drilling within the New York watershed, due to pressure from environmentalists and the city. However, the pursuit of drilling for oil and natural gas within watersheds of other regions continues. Should the instance of the New York drilling serve as a form of precedent for other drilling proposals?

Drilling for natural gas within the United States has become a controversial topic, but drilling in an area affecting the drinking water supply of one of the nation's largest cities is a whole different matter. The side advocating for the drilling pushes the importance of America's energy crisis, but is the energy harvested worth the health and livelihoods of over 8 million people?

Some argue that there are plenty of protective measures that would be taken to protect the water quality and the gas found would supply the entire nations' energy supply for two years. Two years of energy for the entire country is quite a find, but it would be better if instead of spending more money on drilling for gas, we put policy and legislation into place to reduce the amount of energy consumed nationwide. Now that the issue of this particular proposition is in the grave, the question remains if this instance will count as precedent for other initiatives. I hope that the retaliation by New York City proves to permitters and the government that citizens don't want this kind of damaging energy harvesting - they want viable, long-term options.