A NIMBY group calling itself Advocates for Cherry Valley launched a legal challenge in May in hopes of obstructing a low-volume frack in a vertical Utica shale well by Gastem USA, the American subsidiary of a Canadian company.
But, just last week, they had their petition rejected by the NYS DEC, some 40 days after filing — which seems like it ought to be some kind of new record for swiftness.
The dispute ostensibly concerns the Sheckells 1 well — off Irish Hollow Road, Town of Cherry Valley, Otsego County, NY — which was originally bottomed out in Utica shale by Covalent Energy in September 2007, back prior to the time period when Marcellus mania exploded across upstate.
Successor Gastem, in September 2010, won DEC permission to hydraulically fracture the shalebed with less than 80,000 gallons of fluid, which qualifies as a low-volume "stimulation" that's already blessed under existing regulations and environmental studies. (Contrary to widespread public confusion on this point, only high-volume hydraulic fracturing remains frozen under both versions of New York's famous shale gas moratorium.)
For one reason or another, however, the frack on the Sheckells hasn't yet gone through — although I do remember Gastem fracking a vertical Marcellus shale well nearby, the Ross 1, around December 2010.
In May 2011, the Advocates put together a challenge against the Sheckells 1 on procedural grounds. All I know about the so-called Advocates — and all I need to know — is that they originally formed in 2002 in order to (soon-thereafter-successfully) kill a $50 million wind power project proposed in the neighborhood — which, to me, represents instant loss of any possible credibility as a bonafide environmental organization.
What the maneuver tries to do, in a nutshell, is to force the DEC to stuff the Sheckells job — and any similar completion jobs statewide — under the same blanket of indefinite delay which is now closing out Year 3 in restraining all horizontal shale gas drilling.
It didn't work, but you'd need to a lawyer to explain where their arguments went wrong.
A couple real-world observations, though:
Notice that the NIMBY group didn't have any trouble whatsoever winning mainstream press coverage immediately after filing their complaint (appearing in the Albany Times-Union on May 6, and in the Oneonta Daily Star on May 10). But — after they lost — where is the media? Apparently neither of these outlets know how to follow up without prompting — and mum's the word from the Advocates, obviously.
Notice, also, how many dollars and hours and days the opposition must have put into researching just this one well, and just this one case. Their complaint letter appears to reference every communication running forward or back between Gastem (or predecessor Covalent) and the DEC, since the original permit application in 2007. Clearly, these folks have much deeper pockets, and much more time on their hands, than is popularly imagined.