Not One Well Until the Science and Facts on the Health Impacts of Fracking are Known

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The future integrity of New York State’s water, environment, and public health hangs in the balance as Governor Cuomo is poised to make a crucial decision on fracking without first completing a comprehensive health review that should underlie the required environmental impact statement and inform regulations that would govern the gas industry.

Riverkeeper and its lead prosecuting attorney, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have joined with Bill McKibben, Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Steingraber and a coalition of environmental groups to demand that not one well be drilled and no decision be made by the state until the essential health review is conducted and the public is given the opportunity and needed time to comment on that review. It is critical that the issue of fracking be subject to an open and transparent review process before any decision is made to go forward with such an industrial process that will have longstanding and far reaching effects on the health and wellbeing of New York residents throughout the state.

The governor must resist pressure from the industry and other special interest to move forward with fracking in New York based on criticized and unproven economic benefits to the state and keep his promise to wait for the science and facts before making his decision. Governor Cuomo’s number one responsibility should be to protect and serve the people of New York State who put him in office.