| |  | | | |  | | New York State Department of Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens, above, said DEC draft regulations for high-volume hydraulic fracturing will not be finalized until the State Health Department review is finished and a decision on fracking might not be made until 2013. Photo by Gazette file. |
November 26, 2012 The New York State Department of Health have named three outside experts to assist the agency in its review of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The Associated Press reported the Department of Environment Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said DEC proposals won't be finalized until the State Department of Health review is finished. Draft regulations may have to be reopened for public comment, and a decision on fracking might not be made until sometime in 2013.
Both state agencies are in the process of finalizing a health-impact study of fracking, and are using the outside perspectives of three experts to inform the review.
State Health Commissioner Nirav Shah, who will assist the DEC's environmental and health impact analysis of the shale gas development, has identified John Adgate, chairman of the Environmental and Occupational Health Department at the Colorado School of Public Health; Lynn Goldman, dean of George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services; and Richard Jackson, chairman of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles' Fielding School of Public Health.
"We aim, as a panel of outside reviewers, to provide the state with the information they need to consider all of the potential health consequences that might be associated with the process of fracking," Goldman said. "We will look to see if the guidelines adequately address the public health implications of fracking."
Goldman's research interests include children's environmental health, public health policy and research. Before becoming a faculty member at George Washington University, she was a professor of environmental health sciences at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
In 1993, she was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate to serve as assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. According to her biography on the George Washington University Web site, she has made "significant progress" on the issues of testing of high volume industrial chemicals and identification of chemicals that disrupt endocrine systems.
Adgate's research interests include children's environmental health, human exposure measurement using chemical and biological monitoring in communities, air pollution exposure analysis and exposure reduction interventions.
Jackson, who is a professor in environmental health sciences, has done extensive work on the impact of the environment on the health of children, on pesticides, and has also focused on epidemiology, infectious diseases and toxicology. His research interests also include how the "built environment," including architecture and urban planning, affect health. He is currently working on policy analyses of environmental impacts on health ranging from toxicology, architecture, climate change and chemical body burdens.
"We know that Mr. Adgate, Ms. Goldman, and Mr. Jackson have an enormous task in front of them in their review of the [DEC's] already completed study on public health impacts of fracking," Katherine Nadeau of Environmental Advocates of New York said.
She said she continues to call on the state government to perform a comprehensive public health impact assessment.
In a statement released in September, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens said that although the review will be informed by the outside perspectives of Adgate, Goldman, and Jackson, on the science of gas-drilling, the decision-making will remain a responsibility of the state government.
In 2008, a moratorium was imposed on shale gas drilling in New York, when regulators began an environmental review of fracking, a process that involves drilling through layers of rock with high pressure water to release pockets of natural gas.
The Independent Oil and Gas Association, a consortium of energy companies that are advocates of, and are pushing for, hydraulic fracturing in New York, released a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo expressing their impatience with the way the governor is handling the regulatory process.
"As we have said many times previously, this delay is harmful to energy policy in New York, and hugely detrimental to the upstate New York economy," said IOGA representatives in a letter to the governor. "We urge you to release the supplemental generic environmental impact statement] and let our industry begin the work of trying to recover."
In response to IOGA's letter to Cuomo, Nadeau said New York residents are looking to Cuomo to ensure the significant questions are answered about the impact of fracking before considering permitting the process.
"The gas companies believe the state should care more about their bottom line than the public health and well being of the millions of New Yorkers who will be affected if fracking is permitted," she said.
Earlier this year, health and environmental groups announced they were concerned the review of the environmental and health impact of shale gas drilling conducted by the DEC and reviewed by the State Health Department and "outside experts" will be objective. They requested that the DEC turn over the review to an organization that is independent of the state government. Environmentalists are concerned the chemicals used in the fracking process could inadvertently contaminate drinking water near the well sites.
Green Party member and Activist Howie Hawkins said New Yorkers need a full assessment of the risk of hydraulic fracturing in the state and he is not sure they will get that from a state agency under Cuomo.
In a statement released in September, Martens announced he rejected the demands from environmental groups and other entities to turn the environmental and health impact review over to an independent non-government entity. He also said he will share the DEC's health impact analysis with the Department of Health, stressing that "government is the public's independent reviewer; that is the essence of the current process."
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