January 4, 2013 Attn: Draft HVHF Regulations Comments New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 625 Broadway

Albany, NY 12233-6510 Dear Commissioner Martens, Please accept the following comments regarding draft regulations on High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing. First I must state that I am submitting this letter under protest. According to state law, regulations should be based on an EIS that precedes them. The DEC has shown indifference to the many individuals, organizations, and local governments who must respond over the holidays, and little regard for a deliberative process of decision-making based on science and welcomed public participation. I believe the rulemaking process currently underway is severely flawed. Notwithstanding this, I submit the following comments relating to floodplain setbacks. Section 560.4(a)(4) and Section 750-3.3(a)(3) of the draft regulations prohibits the location of a well pad within a 100-year floodplain. This provision is inadequate for several reasons. The 100-year flood standard has been breached three times in upstate New York over the last five years, indicating that currently designated floodplain maps are sorely out of date. This clear trend toward more flooding and extreme flooding events in watersheds of the Delaware River and Susquehanna River poses an enormous risk if drilling is allowed. Without accurate floodplain maps, the DEC could permit drilling in areas that are now effectively floodplains, based on the 2006, 2010, and 2011 events. The DEC even notes in the 2011 revised draft SGEIS that the 100-year floodplain maps need to be updated. By failing to require that this happen before drilling is authorized, the DEC is consciously condoning the use of bad data and thus putting people, the environment, land, and livelihood in serious jeopardy. The 2011 rdSGEIS (Section 6.2) acknowledges that flooding is one of the ways in which uncontrolled release of drilling brine and flowback fluids can occur. In addition, any chemicals or fuels that are stored on a well pad or elsewhere on a well site could potentially be released into the environment if flooding takes place. Although well pads are prohibited in the 100-year floodplain, the draft regulations fail to address other gas development activities or infrastructure that may be present at the well site or within the spacing unit, such as storage of HVHF materials, equipment, tanks, trucks, vehicle parking areas, and pipelines. These industrial features could negatively impact floodplains; and if flooding occurs, infrastructure, storage tanks, and equipment could be damaged, resulting in leaks or contamination. DEC should make it a priority to update floodplain maps wherever drilling may be authorized. (More accurate maps have been prepared for Broome County using LiDAR technology, but this has not yet occurred in other potential drilling areas.) Where updated floodplain maps are not available, drilling should not be permitted.

Where updated floodplain maps are available, the draft regulations should require that either the 500-year floodplain be used, or a permanent safety buffer of at least 500 feet be established around updated 100-year floodplains to provide greater assurance that floodwaters will not come into contact with fracking material. The draft regulations should be revised to explicitly prohibit tanks, chemicals, material storage, pipelines, access roads, parking or other ancillary gas development activities in floodplains, whether such features are located on the well pads or elsewhere at a well site or within a spacing unit.

Sincerely,