These hearings have brought many of these important concerns to light, and we applaud the Council's initiative in calling for them. While others can speak and have spoken more insightfully as to the environmental impact of fracking, I am testifying today to share with you all what we believe to be one of the most important economic and ultimately environmentally friendly benefits that Philadelphia and Pennsylvania can derive from Marcellus Shale, a substantial investment in energy conservation. Marcellus Shale has been described as a vast resource, and no 20 doubt it is potentially significant, but like all fossil fuel, it is finite. Renowned energy investment banker Matthew Simons described shale gas as having a very limited lifespan of 30 to 40 years. It is absolutely critical that 265 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 Pennsylvania reduce its demand for energy as deeply and quickly as possible in order to be able to withstand -- (Applause.)
-- in order to be able to withstand the relentless economic pressure of rising energy prices. This can be achieved by instituting a severance tax in Pennsylvania and dedicating at least ten percent of any tax on gas extraction to the support of energy-efficiency initiatives for all natural gas, propane and fuel oil customers statewide. Most states, if not every one of them, with a shale gas asset, the three largest being Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia, already have a natural gas extraction tax. Yet, Pennsylvania does not. Pennsylvania must ensure that a substantial extraction tax is passed in order to pay for all damage attendant to hydraulic fracturing and related industrial practices, and it should 266 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 invest at least ten percent of this tax in energy savings for residents throughout the Keystone State. Currently, the beneficiaries of Marcellus Shale gas are the gas industry and select private landowners. Yet, all Pennsylvanians feel the burden of high energy prices. This is especially true for consumers of natural gas, fuel oil and propane. Pennsylvania Act 129 mandates that electric utilities institute programs to help consumers save energy and reduce their consumption of energy, but no such mandate exists for natural gas utilities. In addition, many of Philadelphia's low-income households, about 40 percent of them, are heated using fuel oil or kerosene, non-utility resources that lack desperately needed energy conservation programs. Not only would this money serve to reduce energy bills for vulnerable customers, but it would also stimulate the economy. Businesses saving on energy 267 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 costs are more financially sound and will be better equipped to grow and invest in job creation. And an infusion of severance tax money into the energy-efficiency market will create green jobs, as businesses and individuals are called upon to perform energy audits and install energy-efficiency measures. This is especially relevant given the testimony of the economist earlier who was talking about whether the jobs will be local. Energy-efficiency jobs, especially home audit and energy-efficiency measure installation, are local jobs. It is essential for all Pennsylvanians to benefit from the Marcellus Shale by using revenue from the extraction to help reduce their energy consumption this year and every year. Investing at least ten percent of the tax in the increase of energy efficiency of residential, commercial, municipal and industrial customers across the state 268 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 will pay lasting economic, social and environmental dividends statewide. It will also help prepare us for the even higher energy prices which will inevitably follow when the shale gas resource is depleted. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. (Applause.)
Thank you. I have one last question for the panel. The Early Protection Warning System, how are you guys plugged into that?
DRBC is one of the members. We worked very closely with Philadelphia on that, and we're one of the co-hosts for the workshop in October. And we do see the value of expanding it. I'm working with my staff now to figure out how best to do that.
There's a complementary system in place as well through Pennsylvania's Emergency 269 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 Management Agency, or PEMA. If we would have an accident at any type of industrial facility that had a release or a discharge into a river or stream, that Emergency Management Agency can get that and does get that word out to suppliers that their intakes might be in danger. So there are other sort of safety nets. I don't think it is as intensive as was being described earlier, nor is it specific to this particular industry, as was described for that Early Warning Network.
Well, one of the pieces we will take from this is that that warning system, the earlier, the better. To the people who are closest to the drilling, to the people down river, that process has to be kind of consistent, and everybody -- I know when we have a certain list of numbers that in fact when something happens in Philadelphia, these are the ten people that have to be notified. It seems to me 270 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 that something so important, something so vital to life should have that same kind of early, early, earlier the better warning system. So we're going to look at that as one of the recommendations.
I think you're spot on with that, and I think technology today provides us an opportunity to do that in ways that weren't possible before. Two points that I skipped over that I'm sorry I should have mentioned. One was, in the discussion of the Schuylkill River, which I understood was sort of where your drinking water came from --
-- the portion of the Marcellus that underlies the headwaters of the Schuylkill River is at present understood to not be valuable for its gas content, that tectonically that 271 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 rock has been altered and changed and heated, and the current understanding of the Marcellus is that it is not a resource.
Yeah. I think it will be a long time before you see any drill rigs up there. However, we do have four other shales that we have already received permit applications for, two shales, one called the Rhinestreet, another called the Burkett, that are above the Marcellus and two, the Mendota and the Utica, which are below the Marcellus. So there are other shale resources under consideration by industry as well.
Well, what we can take from this drilling can help us to be prepared for future applications, if there are any --
-- based on the danger and the way that we're 272 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 ferreting this gas. So I want to thank you all, and particularly you, I agree many of the residents of the City of Philadelphia don't understand clearly what is to come. Energy prices and conservation are going to be as essential as the mortgage crisis or as critical in our thinking to survival as income. Because when we spend money on utilities, that's money that we don't spend on food. So thank you. Thank you all. Can you introduce the last panel, and I do mean last.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Shalom Center; Sisters of Saint Joseph Sustainability Center; the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania; Maya van Rossum, Delaware Riverkeeper Network; and Margery Stein Schab, New York H20.
Yes. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 Arthur Waskow. I am Director of The Shalom Center, which is now 27 years old. It's a national Jewishly based organization with its offices here in Philadelphia. They have been since 1984, '83. S. public 12 policy, including energy policy. And the 13 issue that we're about to face, it may 14 seem as somewhat surprising that a 15 3,500-year-old tradition would have 16 anything to say about a very new 17 technology, but, in fact, the issues that 18 we're facing around the question of the 19 Marcellus Shale and its implications for 20 human and other forms of life are in fact not so different from those faced many years ago. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 sacred science which is encapsulated in one of the great icons of this city, the Liberty Bell, would be an easy way to pluck out one's story from actually dozens that we could talk about. The line on the Liberty Bell, proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof, was -- the liberty it was talking about, if we were to look back at Chapter 25 of Leviticus, was not what we might consider freedom of the press, let's say. It was about the freedom of human beings and the earth to pause to rest, to reconsider what should be done, not to be worked to the utmost technological power even of that time, which was less oppressive and less intrusive than the technological power we have in Arian today. That's in Leviticus 25. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 pretty amazing and, in fact, the Torah has a whole discussion of the economics of it. Because as people said, Well, wait a minute, how are we going to be able to make a profit and grow food -- enough food for people to eat if we do that, and the Torah answers. But first I want to quote then something that happens in the next chapter of Leviticus where the Torah says, Now, what happens if you don't pause to reconsider, to let the land rest? What happens if you try to make it work to its absolute most efficient? And the Torah's answer is, The land will get to rest on your head through famine, through drought, through plague, through locusts, through exile; that is, people having to leave where they have lived. The land will get to rest. And that's exactly the question that we're facing. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 economic efficiency out of the Marcellus Shale or do we risk the poisoning of the water of the citizens of Philadelphia, which will produce a kind of exile, a kind of disaster in health, in economics and in every other way you want to think about it. What did it mean to pause? What did it mean to say for one year out of every seven, we do not make the earth rest? Was this just, quote, religion or was it based on observation and science? Well, we know now in fact that what the Torah answered to those who said, We won't have enough to eat, the Torah answered, There will be more blessing, more food if you pause. We know now that in fact what we call letting the land lie fallow or rotating crops, we know that that in fact produces more blessing, more abundance than if we tried to get every last ounce. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 unfruitful. Well, what this means in our generation is taking enough time to pause to think through the real implications of what we could do, and several facts about this very issue, Marcellus Shale, suggests that the pressure to move quickly is based on this shortsighted notion of super profits rather than the sense that over generations not to force Philadelphia, half the State of Pennsylvania, into exile, into disease, into disaster by trying to get super profits in a few years. Why is it that the EPA was told not to do a serious study of the impact of this kind of shale drilling? Because the shale drillers embodied in that case by former, thank God, Vice-President Cheney said, No, we don't want to have anybody look, we don't want to have to pause to find out what the true impacts would be. That's already a danger signal. /ENVIRONMENT - RES.
100515 If the businesses involved are so desperate to make short-range super profits that they can't bear to have an examination of the full impact, the full effect, that's already a danger flag. )
And a second one we have seen inside the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the last two weeks. When the issue arose of this cockamamy supposed investigation of supposed terrorist organizations, which turned out to include in fact practically entirely peaceful, peace-committed and utterly non-violent public advocacy groups like the groups that are opposing instant exploitation of Marcellus Shale, what was the reaction of the head of the Pennsylvania Homeland Protection office? The first thing that came out of his mouth to the whistleblower was, Wait a minute, we went into this and this that you're proposing to make public, it is going to damage the companies that do 279 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 Marcellus Shale work and it will help the advocates of wait a minute. Why was that the first reaction of an official of the State of Pennsylvania, whose obligation ought to be to the people, not to those companies? (Applause.)
So in a kind of ironic way, the line on the Liberty Bell, which wasn't originally about that kind of liberty, turns out to be implicated when that kind of liberty, the liberty of the earth as well as human beings, to pause and to think, when that kind of liberty is jammed up against the wall for the sake of super profits turns out that the kind of liberty we call civil liberties are also in danger. Again, a danger flag that we should pay attention to. So this 3,500 years of wisdom, which is not just wisdom plucked out of the sky but wisdom grown out of the earth by farmers and shepherds and people who 280 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 grew olive trees as they watched from year to year and decade to decade and generation to generation, as they watched for what the sacred wisdom was of how to keep a culture in a society in tune with the land, out of which that culture and society could grow, and without which that culture and society couldn't grow at all, that wisdom, ancient and utterly contemporary as well, is what we should be paying attention to. Thank you. (Applause.)
I will go on the record and maybe out on a limb and say that was the most interesting application of this testimony that I've heard today.
I heard some of my -- I saw some of my Native American friends, who I won't point out, but they were nodding in agreement to some of the spiritual implications of letting the 281 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 earth rest and the nature balance implied. But I'm going to try to get us out of here at a reasonable hour, so we're going to -- I'm not going to ask you any questions. SISTER MARY ELIZABETH: Thank you, Councilman Jones. My name is Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark, a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia. I am Director of the Sisters of Saint Joseph Earth Center in Chestnut Hill and Special Assistant to the President for Sustainability of Chestnut Hill College. I am also representing Genesis Farm in Blairstown, New Jersey, an organic farm. I'm a Board member of Genesis Farm. For the past 11 years, the congregation of Sisters of Saint Joseph have had a commitment to the issue of sustainability, especially about the issue of water and the health of planet earth. As a result, we've educated and advocated about the respectful treatment 282 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 of water. The issue of drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale region has serious moral consequences and thus, for this reason, is a concern of ours. I urge you as City Council, as our immediate representatives, to insist that the ethical standards of purification of our drinking water be enforced on any possible contaminants from the drilling. There ought to be a moratorium on drilling until it has been shown to be absolutely safe for the Delaware River, the source of our drinking water. This is only one of the issues that threaten our planet caused by the potential drilling. Another issue such as deforestation is a major concern of ours. Twenty percent of global climate change is caused by deforestation worldwide. Legislation prior to the actual drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale 283 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 region ought to include investigation into the health-related effects of any toxic chemicals or especially radioactive ingredients resulting from the drilling and entering the Delaware River. In addition, when researching the components of hydraulic fracturing fluids that may seep into the groundwater, investigations by the DEP ought not to be funded by any money coming from vested interests in the profit of the drilling. The ethical implications of political gain or profit by individuals must be examined by those creating legislation to protect the health of Pennsylvania watersheds. Every means available for honest investigation ought to be employed by the State Legislature. As members of our City Council, you are in a prime position to call for this ethical behavior. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. 284 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 Thank you. We have five people testifying with two mikes. So please share and speak into the mike and give us your name and then your testimony.
I'm Shireen Parsons. I'm a community organizer with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which is based in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. We work in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine, Boston, Washington state, California, Ecuador, and what we do is called right-spaced organizing. What I'd like to tell you here is, you do not have a fracking problem. You have a democracy problem. We have a democracy problem in this nation. And we assist communities, free of charge, to fend off corporate assaults by exercising their God-given inherent local governing authority. And we have over 120 communities in Pennsylvania alone that have stood up to the unjust structure of 285 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 law that renders us subordinate to corporate interests in the State Legislature. They have stood up to this unjust structure of law and enacted binding local laws, ordinances, that affirm and assert their local governing authority, strip corporations of their constitutional rights of personhood. They're not persons. They're legal fictions created by the state. And because of their great wealth, their rights trump ours every time. (Applause.)
The state will not save us. The regulatory agencies will not save us. Our regulatory system was not set up to protect human environmental health. Our regulatory system was designed to serve as a barrier between corporate industries and we, the people. When our regulatory agencies permit a corporate activity, they legalize it, which means that we, the 286 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 people and our communities, have no 3 rights to protect ourselves. We can't regulate it further. And the EPA was created in 1970, our state regulatory system, subsequently, and now by every -- by all indications, our soil, water and air is far more contaminated than before our regulatory system arose. Regulations permit harm. They legalize harm. (Applause.)
That's what their job is. And they say to the corporations, With a permit -- this is what a permit does. You may spew this much filth into the soil, air and water. You will be self-monitoring. You will be self-reporting, and good luck and rake in the profits. And that is what our regulatory system does. It's working perfectly as it was designed. The City of Pittsburgh is concerned about gas fracking, and a couple of weeks ago, Councilman -- I can't remember his name. I haven't met 287 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 him, but anyway a Councilman submitted a local ordinance that was drafted by the Legal Defense Fund that affirms their right to local self-government, strips corporations of their legal rights as persons, affirms the right of every living thing to clean air, clean water and clean soil, and bans gas fracking within the boundaries of the City of Pittsburgh. (Applause.)
Other communities -- we are getting calls daily from communities throughout the Marcellus Shale and people who are -- communities that are downstream from the Marcellus Shale drilling. I got called by somebody in Brooklyn, New York saying, Help us, we are downstream from the Marcellus drilling. So what we are asking these communities to do -- and this is preliminary -- before they would enact an ordinance banning drillings in their own 288 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 communities, is to pass an ordinance in support of the Pittsburgh City Council in trying to protect its community. And this is not -- an ordinance is not legally binding in any way. This is a show of support saying we agree that we should be able to exercise your inherent governing authority. We agree that you should be able to protect your water and your community. And so this is simply a support measure. I have a copy here in my folder and I'd like to leave it with you, along with my card, and I would like to come back and talk to the full Council at some time about what we can do for the City of Philadelphia. This is the other big city in Pennsylvania. You are downstream, and you must protect yourselves. (Applause.)
We don't need a severance tax. The severance tax is an incentive to communities to roll over and 289 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 say, Okay, come and rape us, we'll get a little money out of it. We do not need any more studies. We know what it does.
All right. It would be helpful to get the Councilman's name. My attorney there is --
Because we're going to contact them. That's an intriguing concept there.
Actually, I have a copy of that ordinance. I marked it up, but I'll give it to you.
In Philly, an ordinance is law. Resolution is non-binding. So we will look at the possibility of resolution.
Yeah, the resolution is non-binding, but I encourage you to talk about doing a binding law, an ordinance, protecting the City. 290 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515
We're going to spread the mike around there. State your name and give your testimony, please.
My name is Phoebe Coles. I am here testifying on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. I am a Board member of the Philadelphia League. I am representing Roberta Winters, who is our state Board Director and Marcellus Shale specialist. I'm just going to summarize some of the testimony and tell you what's coming up for us. In May of this year, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania completed a year-long study of natural gas 291 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 extraction from Marcellus Shale, including its ramifications for Pennsylvania water, air, infrastructure, agriculture, forest, tourism and economy. Today our testimony is based on member consensus. We have 40 or so chapters in Pennsylvania and thousands of members, and they were polled. And basically most important to this hearing today is that we are encouraging our legislators in all of our communities to extend the moratorium on drilling on the Delaware River Basin and really look at what the aspects of the harm could be to the environment. We're also encouraging the severance tax as well. One of the things coming up from us is, as we know that some of these issues are already being addressed, we are looking statewide at the issues of pipelines, which I think will be especially important to Philadelphia as the pipelines need to come through here to get to the Delaware port to get the 292 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 gas out of the state, as well as looking at the eminent domain issue. For pipelines we're actually having a meeting on Saturday, October 9th in Radnor -- in Wayne at the Radnor Township Building.
Sure. Saturday, October 9th, at Radnor Township Municipal Building in Wayne, we will be having a meeting to start to talk about the pipeline issues that are coming into this area, starting at 10:00 a.m. And I just encourage you to look at the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania's website to look at their position, which has already been stated, and look at some of the other ways that Philadelphia can be involved with all of the regions in Pennsylvania. Thank you.
Thank you. Can you state your name for the record. 293 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515
Sure. I'm Maya van Rossum. I'm the Delaware Riverkeeper and my organization is the Riverkeeper Network. I know I'm last, but I have some, I think, pretty important information to share with you about the importance of the Delaware River, economic information, which I know is a focus of today's hearing. Earlier the economist who spoke had some very interesting information, but one of the things that he specifically said was that he was missing the information about the values of the Delaware River and recreational uses and income of the river, and so I'm going to be specifically speaking to that set of issues today and touching on a couple of other things. As you know, I hope you know, the Delaware River attracts visitors from all over the world and all over the region, and they come here and they spend lots of money and they enjoy themselves, 294 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 including right here in Philadelphia. For those people who live here, the Delaware River is giving us clean drinking water. It's also giving us memorable recreation. It's giving food. There are a lot of people -- you go out, you can see the folks fishing along the banks of the river and the Schuylkill to try to get clean, fresh fish to help feed their families. And it provides good-paying jobs and supports a lot of our local economies. It is the backbone of a number of local economies in this region, upstream and down. Now, the gas drillers, they like to talk jobs a lot. They talk numbers, they talk income, they talk jobs and the economies. Well, we believe, I agree, this is about jobs, but this isn't about the few jobs that they may bring here on a limited basis or the workers they're going to bring in from out of town to work here for a short period of time, but this is about the jobs, the 295 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 good-paying jobs, that they're going to take away from people who live here in Philadelphia, up river and down river today, and it's about the jobs that they're going to rob from future generations because of the harm that they're going to inflict on the river and on the land. I do want to mention too that the gas drillers really try to shape this as a property rights fight, and they try to bring in those who are leasing the lands and have them assert their claim to get the income from the gas drilling. Well, we also believe that this is a fight about rights, but it's about the right to life and it's about the right of communities to make sure that pieces of property within the community are not used in a way that harms everybody else. That's not okay. Our rivers shouldn't be used that way and our land shouldn't be used that way. (Applause.) 296 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515
But that's what the gas drillers want to do. You've heard a lot about the devastation that gas drilling is going to reap on our river and on our land, from the pollution to the deforestation, to the depletion of the water, to the traffic, to the odor, to the noise, to the runoff. Now, Dr. Martin -- and I want to get it right, because I think you were asking about it, or Councilwoman Blondell. He began his talk by saying he wants to talk about what will happen when we do things right, when the gas drillers do it right. And he can go and paint his pretty picture about what will happen if everything goes right, but the fact of the matter is, we know that the drillers aren't doing it right. We already know that they're doing it devastatingly wrong. And there's a great report that was put out recently by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association. They looked at two and a half years of gas drilling in 297 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 the Marcellus Shale, and they found already 1,435 violations of law, 952 of which they have identified specifically as having potentially a direct impact on the environment. And these are not little paper violations. We're talking about the discharge of industrial waste onto the ground, pollution of Commonwealth waters and drill cuttings, brine and oil being discharged into streams in violation of the law, drilling close to a wetland or a body of water without a permit. And these are specifically, those particular violations I identify, are the ones that are environmentally harmful. Exceeding the level of wastewater in their impoundments so that you could -- you're at risk of catastrophic failure or discharge, the improper burying of drill cuttings, inadequate blowout prevention and, of course, the list goes on and on. So we already know that the drillers aren't 298 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 doing it right. And we also know that our states and the Delaware River Basin Commission don't now have the knowledge or the legal capacity to force them to do it right, because they haven't bothered to do the cumulative environmental impact analysis that's necessary, and they haven't bothered to put in place the regulations that are needed to make sure that the drillers don't hurt us. And that's not okay. So the drillers aren't going to do it right, no matter what the pipe dream Dr. Martin would like to paint. And I'll also say that the fact of the matter is that the gas drillers don't have the ability to do it right at this point in time, and one good example is the treatment of wastewater. Dr. Martin said, Well, it's the problem of the drillers what to do with their wastewater. If they can't get it clean enough and bring it up to standards, 299 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 well, that's on them, that's not on the rest of us. But we all know that's not true. If the gas drillers are allowed to create volumes and volumes of toxic, contaminated water, they're going to need to do something with it, and if they can't figure out how to do it the right way, they're going to do it the wrong way or they're going to do something they characterize as the right way, but we all know is the wrong way. And really right now there is not in place the treatment technologies or the facility to handle the flow-back water that is coming out of these gas drilling operations, and, in fact, it is so bad -- (Applause.)
-- that the solution they're talking about is, besides trying to force through simply a dilution method of treatment, is, All right, let's inject it into the ground and let's try to safely harbor it away from everybody else. Well, there are two 300 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 problems with that. First off, if you inject this contaminated water into the ground, as Dr. Boufadel had said, I mean, there is always the worry that it will break free. And this is very seriously toxic, contaminated water. And so if we don't do the right analysis, it may break free. But even if it doesn't, the loss of that fresh water that they've now contaminated with toxins is significant and meaningful. We can't afford, our river can't afford, our communities can't afford, our earth can't afford the loss of that fresh water. And we're talking about millions upon millions of gallons of fresh water over time being lost and harbored away underground, never to be seen from again. We have a limited supply of fresh water in this region, in this world. We can't give it to the gas drillers to toxify and steal from us. (Applause.)
/ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 back on point -- I had to speak to Dr. Martin's points. But as you also heard earlier from the Philadelphia Water Department, they are investing very heavily in watershed protection and restoration and, in fact, have already invested, I think, $25 million was the figure that we heard. Well, allowing the gas drilling to go forward is going to be totally counterproductive for the City of Philadelphia, because while Philadelphia is working so hard investing $25 million in restoring the watersheds that provide it clean, fresh drinking water, the gas drillers are going to be destroying that very same land and very same water source. So we're undermining the efforts and the investments of the City of Philadelphia if gas drilling is allowed to move forward. S. foreign oil. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 nonsense. We did hear -- we heard some claims that all this gas is going to come directly to Philadelphia. Well, the one distributor acknowledged that that's not in fact true. There's no guarantee that it's going to come here. But we also know, and we know for a fact, that much of the gas to be extracted from the Marcellus Shale in the Upper Delaware is already planned for shipment overseas to places like China, Japan, Norway, France and India. S. So it's not weaning us off of anything. It's giving the gas drillers more profits as they ship it off, and we're still dependent on the fossil fuel sources. In terms of global climate change, people did speak to that, so I won't speak to that, except for the summary statement that the gas drilling, when you look at it from cradle to grave, is not going to make global climate change better. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 the truck traffic and the dirty diesel fuel that they'll be using for the 1,400 truck trips that have to happen for every single one of these 10,000 to 50,000 wells, and the loss of trees. Now, though, really to speak directly to the point of the economic ramifications for Philadelphia and for the region from gas drilling, there are many. Destroying the health of the river is going to drive business away from Philadelphia. That's one of our biggest concerns. Businesses increasingly look to settle, particularly their headquarter operations, to settle in beautiful areas that are attractive, that are well renowned, like Philadelphia. If we lose the river, we lose the cache of a healthy river, then we're going to drive this big business away. We also are going to be putting directly in jeopardy jobs, eco-tourism and recreation and river-related jobs. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 Riverkeeper Network titled "River Values" that lays all of this out in great detail, but I want to highlight a few of those economic jobs that are going to be harmed. In just one year, the upper reaches of the Delaware River brought to local communities over 367,000 white water paddlers who spent over $20 million, contributed almost $10 million to our local economies and supported 447 jobs. There are canoe liveries 15 that operate along the Delaware River. 16 Some of them employ as many as 200 17 people. Some of them have an attendance 18 of 60,000 or more in a given year. That 19 means that one livery alone can create 20 gross revenue of more than $3 million a year for our region. One canoe livery alone. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 they would be today -- resulted in over and a half million dollars in local 4 business revenue. This revenue supported 5 348 jobs. It provided over three and a 6 half million dollars in wages and over 7 $719,000 in local taxes. And that 8 investment translated into almost $30 9 million in local economic activities. 10 River festivals up and down the 11 river, because the river is so clean and 12 beautiful and healthy, a lot of 13 communities celebrate it, including 14 Philadelphia. Lambertville's shad fest, 15 by example, draws 30,000 to 35,000 people 16 to that community for one brief weekend 17 to celebrate our clean and healthy Delaware River.
That generates a tremendous amount of business for that community. Just a few weeks ago Philadelphia had another river-focused festival on the bank of the Delaware River. That brought income. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 restaurants and hotels that market themselves in terms of their relation to the river, and actually some hotels charge over $100 more for a room if it faces the river than if it doesn't. And then, of course, we've got lots of boating along the Schuylkill and lots of boating along the Delaware, rowing, paddling, motorized boats. The Schuylkill has hosted over regattas in 12 a single year, some of them bringing as 13 many as 5,000 visitors from all over the 14 country to enjoy Philadelphia and our 15 beautiful, clean rivers. 16 And this nonsense that the 17 Schuylkill is not going to be fracked, 18 you know, the Marcellus Shale is there, 19 the drillers will be coming. But both 20 the Schuylkill and the Delaware are at risk from the drilling, and so is their boating and their fishing, which, of course, is very, very common along both rivers. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 restoration of the Delaware River and all the work that goes into accomplishing that isn't just important in terms of these local economies and these jobs, but it's also directly important in terms of the health and safety of our communities, because the woodlands and the forests that are in the upper waters -- in the headwaters of the Delaware protect us from flooding and flood damages. And we have communities already along the Delaware River that suffer from catastrophic flooding, and if we further remove the vegetation and deforest the Upper Delaware in order to accommodate natural gas drilling, we're putting these communities downstream at tremendous risk from increased flood damages. And who has to pay when we have to help them rebuild and restore and clean up? Everybody in the region. We pay for it through our tax dollars and through our hearts, because it's very hard to witness that when it happens year after year. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515
I will. We have to talk about the drinking water, though, and we have to say that both Philadelphia and New York City understand that to best protect your drinking water, you best protect the source. And experience has shown that for every dollar you invest in watershed protection, you get $7.50 up to $200 of economic savings in the form of not having to put in new infrastructure and water treatment. And, in fact, New York City has invested $1 to $1.5 billion in protecting the Upper Delaware in order to save itself $10 to $20 billion. So I will say in conclusion that the one thing that you heard from the Basin Commission today is, Carol Collier talked about the Special Protection Waters regulation, and I will tell you those regulations were created and put in place because of petitions by 309 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. They finally put them in place. They're now doing us great good when it comes to natural gas drilling. She talked about the money coming for the environmental analysis. She talked about the creation of gas drilling-specific regulations, but the thing that she mentioned that I think gets lost a little bit in the noise, because of the political pressure, particularly from Governor Rendell, the Basin Commission is not going to wait for the outcome of the cumulative environmental assessment before doing their regulations. They're going to do it backwards. They're rushing through regulations. There's a lot of political pressure on the staff to make the regulations that are being drafted weaker than what would have come out. And once those regulations get out the door, the drilling happens. And that cumulative environmental assessment and analysis 310 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 that's going to be completed over the course of the next one, two, three years is going to be useless, because the damage will be done. So we really need the City of Philadelphia to stand up, stand strong and stand not just in support of the Basin Commission doing it the right way, doing the environmental analysis, then the regulations, but we need the City of Philadelphia to be reaching into Harrisburg, telling Governor Rendell and all of those legislators that they need to stand with Philadelphia to defend our drinking water supply, not with the drillers to damage it. Thank you. (Applause.)
I heard a lot of testimony today, but that last part, the cart before the horse part, is resonating for me.
/ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 I am the last one, and what I prepared is kind of, in a sense, a conclusion for a very interesting day. But I want to make two points of correction. The first point is, when the representative from the PADEC was here, he said we began to get permits for the Marcellus in 2005. I have a friend who says there's no such thing as a coincidence. Like I am here in the town where I was born. Here I am again. And 2005 was the year the energy bill was passed that allowed for gas drilling in this high-impact hydraulic fashion to be exempt from the Clean Water Air, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Drinking Water Act. That's the same year that they applied for permits in the Marcellus. That's one thing. The second thing that was said is that a well would produce 30 years of natural gas. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 order to have a lot of output, you have to drill lots of wells. I mean, tens of thousands, if not more, wells. This is from Chesapeake. I just witnessed a presentation from the New York lobbyist from Chesapeake, and for some reason, this chart is no longer in their presentation. So I will leave this with you and then I'll go to my prepared remarks, but I want to thank you, Councilman Jones, for doing this and for Councilwoman Blondell for doing this and for being so patient through all the testimony and all these hours, and I am so happy that you scheduled me and I'm so happy that I came and that I heard everybody, and I will be back more than I ever thought I would be in Philadelphia. I'm here today representing NYH20, which is a New York advocacy group for clean drinking water. I was born in Philadelphia. I now live in New York. I do not own a house in either rural Pennsylvania or upstate New York. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 the prospect of drilling in the Delaware basin with high-impact hydro-fracturing doubly pains me because of Philadelphia, where I came from, and New York is where I now live. I read an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune, and I quote one sentence, "Residents and municipal officials are trying to balance the benefits of money and jobs with the right to clean water and air. " How can we possibly live and thrive without clean water and air? This is our most basic right, more basic than our right to vote, more basic than democracy, more basic than our economic system. It is the most basic service we ask our government to protect, is the right to live healthy, productive lives. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 money goes to the energy companies. It does not benefit the states, because there'll be increased healthcare costs, infrastructure repairs, new water treatment plants, all of which may cost billions of dollars. As for jobs, the high-paid welders and riggers come from out of state. There will be some jobs for vendors to service those high-paying jobs, but all this will approximately last five years per well site, but the polluted water and air will remain for generations. We are in a battle. The 20th century fossil fuel industry is reluctant to assume its smaller role in the 21st century. Green energy is knocking at the door. Exploration for black energy has become expensive and dangerous, because there is no easy way available anymore. We have witnessed the worst spill in history just this past summer. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 have been spills, fires and a dangerous blowout of a rig in early June. Many communities have seen their real estate values plunge, because who will buy in a community with questionable aquifers. Now the birth place of our nation, born in the age of enlightenment, may succumb because of the threat to its water supply from hydraulic fracking in the Delaware River Basin. I submit to you -- and I'm not going through the whole article -- there was an article in the New York Times this past Sunday in their series called Beyond Fossil Fuels. It is an article about homes that can be built with no need of a furnace even in cold climates.
Quote, "America's drafty building methods amount for as much as 40 percent of its primary energy use, 70 percent of its electricity consumption and 40 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions. /ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 black energy technology, because we do not need the increased capacity of black energy. We certainly do not need to use it if it will foul our water supply of this great city. " So I left the article with you. You will see that this means jobs that will last forever, jobs that can be made now. They are doing this construction of these homes in Europe and there are only 13 here, but we do have the green jobs. They're available now. It's up to our government to let them spring and prosper and flourish, and these will be jobs for generations. And thank you very much for doing this. )
I wanted to say that we as Councilpeople often deal with constituent groups, none with such patience, none with such endurance and none with such passion as I've heard today. 317 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 If my colleague Marian Tasco were here, she would say act in haste and repent in your leisure. Act in haste and repent in your leisure. If nothing else, we've learned that we need to slow down, take a hard look at what we are about to enter, because the ramifications can last a hundred years. So what we are going to do is take what we've learned today, digest it and produce a report with recommendations. My colleagues and I are going to take seriously and look at a resolution that may call for two things. One, that the Governor consider the moratorium until at least after the study. And in my capacity as a Philadelphia Gas Commissioner, I want to present a resolution calling for the moratorium of non-use of Marcellus Shale drilled gas to stop the fracturing at all costs. (Applause.)
And with 318 9/28/10 - TRANS./ENVIRONMENT - RES. 100515 that, this Committee is recessed to the call of the Chair. Thank you for your patience. (Applause.) (Joint Committees on Transportation and Public Utilities and the Environment concluded at 3:55 p.m.) - - - 319 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on September 28, 2010, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. -------------------- MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)