Individual Rights/ Individual Responsibility

On Thursday Nov. 1 at 6:30pm there will be a public hearing in the Alfred Station Fire Hall. The Alfred Town Board will be seeking comment from citizens on the plan to extend the current moratorium on horizontal, high volume, slick water, hydrofracking for another year within the Town of Alfred. Since the announcement of this meeting I have been thinking about the importance of a moratorium and the idea that some have put forth that a moratorium is a threat to our individual property rights.

Rather than seeing the moratorium as a threat, I think it is actually quite the opposite. I take great comfort in the fact that our civic representatives are taking the time to study this issue and all of its possible effects and ramifications on our town and our way of life. I have travelled in some of the highly drilled communities in Pennsylvania and seen first hand the impact on individuals, families, roads, property rights, as well as the impact on the natural resources we too often take for granted such as clean drinking water and clean air. Since this entire industry is exempt from the federal clean air and clean water standards, I believe that it is unconventional gas drilling that is the threat, not a moratorium.

No matter how we feel about the extent of government regulations, I think we can agree that there are numerous ways in which the rights of individuals to do as they please are moderated by rules that protect the greater good of a community. Why not have an adult bookstore across the street from a public school?  That’s why we have zoning.  Why have regulations that protect human health? Why not dispense with septic systems? Why do we have a police force? Speed limits?

A moratorium on horizontal, high volume hydrofracking protects the public while this issue is being studied. This seems prudent. Many citizens recently attended the informational meeting in Almond where Scott Torrey of the Allegany County Soil and Water department illustrated how the Village and Town of Alfred, as well as Almond, are all intimately connected because we draw water from the same unprotected aquifer. Professor Ingraffea from Cornell then proceeded to explain from a scientific and geologic point of view just how vulnerable these resources are and the impacts that all the processes associated with unconventional drilling can have on them.

The Comprehensive Plan for the Town and Village of Alfred includes a study of water quality and management. Although commissioned in 1993, long before this type of drilling was an issue, it is particularly relevant today.  This is an excerpt from the study:

“A quick survey of remediation costs for contaminated groundwater supplies will show that prevention is well worth the effort. Corrective measures can rapidly escalate into the millions of dollars, not to mention yielding substantial inconveniences to those dependent on the contaminated water supply. There really is no such thing as being overly protective when it comes to groundwater protection, especially when it is a community’s only source of drinking water….While many of the suggestions provided in this guide may seem politically unpopular in the short-term, having contaminated groundwater would be even more unpopular. It is far easier to address threats and prevent contamination than to deal with the costs and other problems associated with crisis-type situations…. Groundwater protection efforts are most effective when done on a more regional level as aquifers and their recharge areas do not stop at jurisdictional boundaries.”

This last statement is particularly relevant because many of the issues associated with horizontal drilling do not stop at “jurisdictional boundaries.” Polluted water and air don’t recognize property rights and property boundaries. The fracking industry doesn’t either. Through compulsory integration, if 60% of individual landowners have leased their land in a well spacing unit, the other 40% can be integrated against their will and drilling will occur under their land whether they give their consent or not. So much for individual property rights. When I first read about compulsory integration I thought it was an article about China.

The same individual who is worried about his property rights has also stated that decisions should be made on facts, not emotion. Many have studied this issue for a long time now and feel strongly, emotionally if you will, exactly because they have studied the facts, including the dismal record of leaks,  spills, and methane migration. I am one of them. Furthermore, I have met people in Pennsylvania that have poisoned water, and who, from the industry perspective, are expendable. Not surprisingly, they aren’t any different from you or me; they simply had the bad luck to own a well that was polluted by a nearby horizontal fracking operation. They are, understandably, emotional.  

My family drinks from a spring whose recharge area does not obey property boundaries. I will do my best to protect it and I expect others to do the same. The community has to ask itself – are there threats to our town, universities and schools, our way of life, our water and health that are worth protecting ourselves from? Where do individual rights stop and individual responsibility to others begin? I would strongly suggest right here, right now.

As of early October, 234 communities in New York State have invoked home rule by enacting bans or moratoriums or are in the process of doing so, like the Town of Alfred. These 234 towns have decided that it is imperative to protect themselves from the threat of unconventional drilling and that clean water and clean air are essential, and need to be a protected right for all.