Curt Coccodrilli
Wayne County Landowner
NWPOA Executive Committee

NWPOA is on a full-steam campaign to find out why the DRBC is refusing to do its duty and act upon already drafted regulations governing gas drilling – regulations that have sat in limbo since September, 2011.

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has, as many readers know, simply opted to sit on already drafted regulations of natural gas drilling in the basin since September, 2011, in a stunning display of government malfeasance that throws the Constitutional rights of every Upper Delaware region landowner down to the ground and stomps all over them.

The Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA) is fighting back to reclaim our rights as property owners.  We issued a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demand to the agency, which was blithely rejected by their FOIA officer, appealed that decision and got an acknowledgment from the Commission Secretary that we were, in fact entitled, to much of the information we had requested, although she did everything possible to make securing of it a daunting task.  NWPOA, though, will not be deterred and we are submitting a revised FOIA demand for e-mail and other correspondence between DRBC management and key opponents of natural gas drilling.

Here are the main elements of NWPOA’s revised FOIA demand, which speak for themselves:

The Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA) is in receipt of your response, dated May 15, 2013, regarding our appeal of FOIA officer Richard Gore’s denial of our March 25, 2013 FOIA request.  You have over-ruled Mr. Gore’s determination in certain parts and suggested NWPOA narrow its request in other parts.  This letter sets forth our narrowed request.  We offer this more specific request without giving up, as to other parts of your decision, any later right of appeal pursuant to Section 2.8.9.C of the Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure.

Background

NWPOA submitted its original FOIA request on March 25, 2013, which was summarily dismissed by Mr. Gore on April 11, 2013.  His denial was not only late, but also non-specific and, as NWPOA learned later, was the ONLY such blanket denial issued in six and one-half years and 245 requests, according to the Commission’s FOIA log later provided to us.

During that same period, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network made numerous requests, including one all-encompassing request in 2008 for “all materials relating to natural gas well drilling in DRB 1/1/08 to present,” which yielded two letters e-mailed to the Riverkeeper on September 2, 2008, at no charge.  Yet, NWPOA was told its request for “any and all correspondence, e-mails and other written communications including phone records between DRBC staff and staff individuals, volunteers, and/or board members” of groups such as the Delaware Riverkeeper “between January, 2008, and March 26, 2013″ couldn’t be honored because it “requested data or information about which the Commission does not maintain records.”

Likewise, the Commission managed, on June 16, 2010, to honor another Riverkeeper request made the very same day for “National Park Service letter re: natural gas development in Delaware River watershed,” which was photocopied and e-mailed.

The DRBC, it seems, is nearly always able to produce e-mails upon request when the requesting party is the Delaware Riverkeeper.  When it, in late 2011, wanted copies of “PSC/Dupont Chambers Works natural gas wastewater emails to DRBC” it got them.  It renewed that request in early 2012 and got a CD full of e-mails it appears, and once again, at no cost.

When the NWPOA requested copies of communications such as e-mails and written correspondence, though, the DRBC decided it didn’t have any records of those and no records of communications with the Riverkeeper, even though it obviously did have such records right there in the FOIA log.

Also, it could have, as in three other cases, simply asked NWPOA to narrow the scope of its request or invited a representative to review its files. Instead, NWPOA received a flat denial  and when it appealed this denial to DRBC Executive Director Carol Collier, you responded by finding Mr. Gore had erred but wouldn’t directly say so.

You then specified a laundry list of problems dealing with NWPOA’s request and indicated the DRBC would require prepayment in the amount of $650 and a written agreement to bear the full cost of assembling the requested records before the DRBC would begin honoring the request.

The Riverkeeper, by contrast, got charged a only $1.60 for 233 photocopies related to a 2011 Village of Deposit, N.Y., application to renew an existing groundwater withdrawal.  By comparison with the way the Riverkeeper has been treated, the DRBC is clearly going out of its way to discourage this FOIA request.

Notwithstanding this unequal treatment, Mr. Gore’s clearly wrong actions and the considerable fee involved, we are attaching a check in the amount of $650 as demanded and have narrowed our request below.  We will also sign the appropriate agreement, but NWPOA expects to be treated in precisely the same manner as the Riverkeeper, with the identical form of agreement.

Our revised FOIA demand includes requests for all e-mail and other correspondence relating to NWPOA, the moratorium now in effect and relationships with individuals such as Josh Fox and his film production company.

DRBC Secretary Pamela Bush Trying to Confiscate Phelim McAleer’s Film of Carol Collier

What will this FOIA produce?  We simply don’t know, but we do know there has been an altogether too cozy relationship between the DRBC and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which seems to receive favor after favor, while NWPOA has to beg, plead and pay for any information.  Maya van Rossum, the Riverkeeper, has also long served on a DRBC committee, which includes no one from the upper basin or, at the moment, the regulated community.  We are determined to find out the exact nature of that relationship and why the DRBC feels free to deny the citizens and landowners of the Upper Delaware their rights, among which is due process.