Water

Above: Fox being handcuffed during a House of Representatives hearing in Washington, DC, on February 1, 2012. Video posted by Earthjustice.

The Huffington Post and Politico have the news that anti-gas-drilling activist and filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Fox is an influential voice in the debate over the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, which is poised to become legal in New York.  Read more

The Daily Freeman is reporting today that the planned expansion of the NYC-owned Margaretville wastewater plant has been completed.

The expansion will now enable residents in the area who had individual septic systems to tie into the plant. The private systems are considered at risk of contaminating water resources.

The expansion, which began in 2009, cost the DEP approximately $7.4 million.

Image: The Pine Hill Wastewater Treatment Plant’s Sewer Collection System Sevice Area along Route 28. An extension to 20 additional properties, which was voted into law by the Shandaken town board last week, is indicated in orange on the map.

The Town Board of the Town of Shandaken voted unanimously to adopt a New Sewer Use Law at a special hearing and board meeting last Thursday, January 12, 2012. There were a bipartisan group of 14 residents of the town present at the hearing, most of them residents of Pine Hill (out of approximately 175 households in the hamlet).

The new sewer use law calls for an extension of the Pine Hill Sewer District to include about 20 properties that are not currently hooked up to the hamlet's wastewater treatment system.

Background on Sewer Use Law

Residents of Pine Hill pay no user fees for use of the sewage system in the hamlet due to historical circumstances shared by only a few other communities in the Catskills. All of the costs of the Pine Hill wastewater treatment plant are covered by New York City.  Read more

The public comment period for the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) about hydraulic fracturing in New York State closed yesterday with more comments than any other state environmental issue ever.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens issued a statement yesterday about the high volume of comments about high volume hydro-fracking that hinted that the public's input will be reflected in the final version of the document:

There has been an unprecedented response to this issue with tens of thousands of comments submitted. All comments are being carefully considered as we develop the final rules and conditions for high-volume hydraulic fracturing ... We expect additional improvements will be made to the 2011 draft based on the comments submitted during this comment period.