Donald Siegel's recent letter calling for the state and general public to trust the state Department of Environmental Conservation's scientific regulators when it comes to extreme gas extraction is a hard sell ("Trust scientists on hydrofracking," April 14). He forgets the public has seen the quality of the regulations and has good reason to be concerned.
Take the department's inconsistent setback rules. According to one of DEC's filings, aquifers that are "shallow in nature" are "susceptible to contamination" from hydrofracking; therefore, in the case of shallow municipal water supplies, DEC scientists determined a 2,000-foot setback is necessary to give workers time to implement mitigation measures in the event of a surface spill or leak.
Oddly, this remedy does not apply to the state's thousands of shallow residential drinking water wells prevalent in the countryside. Only a 500-foot setback is deemed necessary to protect those. Why? The scientific regulators offer no explanation for this discrepancy.
Do surface spills move more slowly in rural areas than they do near municipal water supplies?
Are drilling chemicals and flowback waste less toxic when spilled near drinking water wells in the countryside than near municipal drinking water supplies?
Perhaps someone can help clarify the science behind this regulatory discrepancy and help to restore public trust in the DEC's Division of Mineral Resources.
Bob Applegate
Cortland