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How would the Town of Lansing look with active drilling in the area?  Presenters from the Tompkins County Council of Governments Task Force on Gas Drilling will be in Lansing next week to try to answer that question.  The task force's mapping workgroup has compiled a look at what impact fracking could have on county municipalities including Lansing, and will be presenting the information to interested town officials and residents Wednesday.

Tompkins County Planner Darby Kiley says that the presentation next Wednesday and others being conducted in other townships in the county are primarily aimed at municipal legislators to give them more solid information on what risks hydrofracking bring to their towns, and what tools they have available to regulate drilling in a way that does not interfere with municipal long term planning and local quality of life.  It is also for residents who want to learn more about the issue, facts, rather than rumor, fear, and hyperbole that has played a major role in the debate in Tompkins County.

"There is zoning, there are a couple of water protection pieces that we've been looking into," says Kiley.  "One is the flood damage prevention law, which every town has on its books.  It has to do with one's participation in FEMA and insurance rate maps.  We're making sure the towns know that's up to date.  For some of the towns we're looking at well head protection local laws.  If a town has municipal water that comes out of a well you can put protection around that."

Kiley will be presenting Wednesday with Task Force Member Art Pearce.  They will show aerial views of landscapes in states where drilling is active, envision where well pads might go in Tompkins County and the Town of Lansing, present well placement possibilities as they relate to houses, streams, steep slopes and schools in accordance with currently proposed NYS DEC regulations, and help understand how access roads and pipelines affect the landscape.  They have been taking this show on the road, presenting in Ulyssis last week, and planning another presentation in Dryden.

Some towns are saying they don't want any drilling whatsoever within their borders.  Kiley says the towns of Ithaca, Dryden, and Ulysses are putting definitions of natural gas and petroleum exploration into their zoning language and saying that it is prohibited throughout the town.  Lansing has virtually ignored the issue, with the Town government taking a luke warm look at a possible road protection local law to prevent heavy trucks from damaging town roads.

"The County is looking at that along with TCOG," Lansing Supervisor Scott Pinney said at the May Town Board meeting.  "Kathy Miller has been to quite a few sessions on that.  Other than that we haven't actually done anything other than looking at protecting these roadways."

But Kiley says there are more tools that could be accessed, both to regulate drilling itself and the activities drilling brings with it.   She says that Towns have a say in flood damage protection laws as to where wellhead development is.  She says ancillary uses can also be regulated, including pipe yards, stock piling and other pieces, especially along state highways.  She says that site plan review will also be a tool that towns already have.  Planning boards can regulate adequate access, traffic analysis, setbacks, landscaping and buffering as they do for other projects.

"We're talking about the municipal tools that are available," she says.  "We're looking at road protection and public safety.  The public saafety side of it has to do with working with the County Department of Emergency Response, making checklists, and some of that information coordinated."

A local road protection law would have limited effectiveness, in part because most of the roads in Lansing that drilling company trucks would use are state roads that are not within the Town's jurisdiction.  Some neighboring towns are looking at zoning laws, which they do have jurisdiction over.  Kiley says the options are prohibiting it or allowing it, and specifying which zones in the town would be appropriate.

This map (from tcgasmap.org) shows where gas exploration companies have leased drilling rights in Lansing. The brown shows areas where surface rights have been granted. Orange marks leases where it is not known whether surface rights have been granted, and tan shows leases with no surface rights. Myers Park, on the edge of Cayuga Lake, is marked in orange, denoting drilling rights have been leased but possibly not with surface drilling rights."In the Town of Lansing where the southern end of town has a lot of residential and other useage you might think that is not as good an area for gas drilling," she says.  "But if the Town said it is OK with it in the north where there is a lot of agricultural land and a lot more leases have been signed they might want to actually say that in their zoning."

Kiley advocates going slowly to make sure that the risks are understood, and that regulation and best practices are in place to make sure that the county's natural features and way of life is not negatively impacted.  It is more about doing it the right way than not doing it at all.

"It's with an eye toward protecting what we have," she says.  "In other parts of the country, the areas are not as densely populated.  When people think about what's gone on in mining and natural resource extraction in other parts of the country, it's different than this situation here, especially in Tompkins County.  We rely on agriculture, tourism, and the scenic beauty of the area.  Anything that could change that in a negative way could impact what we appreciate about this area.

"Even if organic farming were pushed out that would be a loss to our community.  A lot of people say the gas has been in the ground for four hundred million years -- or that's how old the rocks are -- and it's not going anywhere.  So trying to do this in a thoughtful way that doesn't negatively impact our landscape or way of life would be beneficial."

Then there is the financial element.  Kiley says most of the money will go outside of the county, while most of the risk is here.

"People will be getting royalty checks once the wells are paid for," she observes.  "Some people will benefit, but of all the leases in Tompkins County only six percent of the population will benefit.  The other 94% of us will pay the costs in more truck traffic, more road usage, worrying about the threats."

Mapping the possible impact on the county will provide a valuable tool for municipalities to see what they are facing, and to better plan strategies for interfacing that with their long term plans.

"I use gas in my own home, so I see that it's a necessary part of our lives at this point until we transition into something different or better," Kiley says.  "We try to come at this in an unbiassed fashion to try to be realistic and meet the needs of the municipal government.  It's not about keeping gas drilling away.  It's about how you want your town to look using your updated comprehensive plan.  If you said this is how you want your town to look in 15 or 20 years how could gas drilling coming into your community impact that vision, and what could you do to protect it?"

The presentation is set for next Wednesday, June 29th, at the Lansing Middle School Auditorium at 7pm.  It is free and open to the public.

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