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Chair Cahn after frack vote.
Even if Connecticut allowed for the storage or repurposing of natural gas waste within state boundaries — which it does not — New Haveners can rest assured that the city now stands in direct opposition to the introduction or use of “fracking” chemical byproducts anywhere in the Elm City.
That’s because on Monday night, the Board of Alders voted to amend the city Code of Ordinances to include language that prohibits the introduction, storage or use of any liquid or solid waste that results from the natural gas and oil extraction method known as “fracking.”
“The prohibition of waste associated with the drilling and extraction of natural gas and oil is hereby declared necessary for the protection of the health, safety, welfare and property of the residents of the City of New Haven,” the amended ordinance reads.
The ordinance states that fracking is poorly regulated and results in the pollution of rivers and the poisoning of people; and that the city must be proactive in protecting itself from the importation of toxic fracking wastes.
The ordinance not only bars the acquisition or storage or sale of natural gas or oil waste anywhere within the city. It also explicitly prohibits city contractors from using any materials containing fracking waste in the construction or maintenance of city roads or properties.
Click here to read the full amended ordinance.
Alders meeting Monday night.
Fracking is a controversial method of energy extraction that involves injecting water or other chemical liquids at a high pressure into subterranean rocks to force out existing oil or natural gas.
Connecticut does not have any oil or gas deposits. Therefore no fracking occurs within the state.
But Pennsylvania has over 10,000 wells, according to a report from the Food & Water Watch, and that state is looking to ship solid and liquid fracking wastes to at least eight other states in the surrounding area.
Connecticut has a moratorium on accepting fracking wastes into the state that extends through July 2018. In May 2017, the state House of Representatives voted to pass a more permanent ban on accepting fracking wastes into the state, but that bill was tabled by the Senate.
But according to Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola and Environmental Advisory Council Chair Laura Cahn, the state’s prohibitions were not strong enough. The city needed to join the over 20 towns through Connecticut, as well as New York City and the entire state of Vermont, in standing strong against the mere prospect of toxic materials finding their way into the city.
“Fracking waste is stuff that’s been buried under the surface of the earth for millions of years, and it’s very toxic,” Cahn said after Monday night’s vote. She said that experts have identified over 900 toxins in fracking waste, and that many of them are radioactive. She said that liquid fracking waste is eight times saltier than sweater, and that the liquid and solid waste alike pose a serious threat to everyone and everything in an environment where that waste is stored.
“We do not want this stuff in Connecticut,” she said. “It would be impossible to remediate. And I believe as a coastal state we have a unique responsibility to keep our soil and our air and our water pristine.”
Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola.
DeCola, who is the co-chair of the City Services and Environmental Policy (CSEP) committee, agreed with the protective and comprehensive nature of the approved ordinance amendment.
“We went deeper than the state,” he said. He said that the state’s moratorium only covers a few of the many different toxic components of fracking waste.
DeCola said that fracking waste can end up in unlikely places, like brines for de-icing roads.
“We have to be vigilant,” he said, “because, when someone wants to build a building, we have to ask: where did you get that fill?”
Cahn called this prohibition one step in the Environmental Advisory Council’s larger mission to steer New Haveners away from non-renewable, environmentally-risky resources and towards more sustainable fare.
“We really don’t want fracking,” she said. “It’s causing earthquakes in the Midwest. We just want to encourage people to use cleaner, safer, better sources of energy and not rely on shale oil.”
Big Picture
The ordinance amendment was one of two environmental actions that alders took on Monday night to further solidify the city’s commitment to a cleaner future.
Alders voted to adopt the Climate & Sustainability Framework, a 41-page plan for how the city can cut carbon emissions 55 percent by 2030. Click here to read the full report.
“We’re trying to be ahead of the curve,” DeCola said about the need for the city to encourage the use of green technologies like solar panels in order to mitigate its environmental impact going forward.
The report lays out six strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, ranging from promoting renewable energy programs to passing laws to require more efficient energy and water consumption in new buildings to continuing to build cycling and pedestrian corridors as alternatives to automobile transit.
Cahn singled out the city’s recent resolution to impose a voluntary ban on certain lawn pesticides as one more way that the city has committed itself to a variety of “planet-saving” initiatives.
So long as we are benefiting from the primary products of fracking, we have a responsibility for the byproducts. Give up the natural gas. Using it in a "pristine" environment just externalizes the costs to communities less able to resist them.