CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

The estimated population of Pulteney is about 1,300.

At times Sunday it looked like every one of them was crowded into the Pulteney Fire Hall to discuss the proposed plan to deposit contaminated wastewater in a former natural gas well.

More than 300 people came to hear a panel discuss the plan. Chesapeake Energy approached Pulteney officials last fall about the plan to dump the wastewater, which is generated from the hydrofracking process, into a well about a mile west of Keuka Lake.

Around the same time, Chesapeake submitted a permit application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to convert the old well into a disposal well.
Injection wells are a method used by gas drilling companies to dispose of the waterwater created by high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – which is a process used to tap the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation.

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