“Today the State Department of Environmental Conservation made a serious mistake by failing to ban drilling for natural gas in the upstate watershed that supplies New York City’s drinking water. The State’s mitigation proposals are half measures; they are not adequate for protecting the health of eight million New Yorkers. With a special permit, the State would allow drilling within one thousand feet of water tunnels. Toxic fluids could be kept near our water supply for up to seven days.   Buffer zones around reservoirs fail to exclude drilling in the larger area designated as New York City’s watershed.

“Most important, the State’s EIS says that of the 1,549 square miles making up the NYC watershed, “1,077 square miles of the Watershed that are not protected potentially are available for the placement of well pads for the development of shale gas reservoirs.” (Draft SGEIS 9/30/2009, Page 2-22.) That means that 69.5 percent of our watershed is open to dangerous drilling.

“I believe the choice is simple: we either correct this error and ban drilling now, or soon enough the officials entrusted with protecting our environment will be asked to explain why they were asleep at the switch when it mattered most.”