Riverkeeper Blogs

On Monday, University at Buffalo President Satish Tripathi announced the immediate close of the University’s Shale Resources and Society Institute (SRSI), citing the lack of faculty with expertise in fields associated with energy production from shale and its lack of credibility due to its financing […] More

Riverkeeper applauds Department of Health (DOH) Commissioner Nirav Shah for appointing three highly-regarded public health experts to review the Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) analysis of health issues in its Revised Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (RDSGEIS) on fracking.  The experts—Lynn Goldman, Dean of […] More

Elected Officials to Protect New York (EOPNY), a group of over 500 county and local representatives representing millions of New Yorkers throughout sixty-one counties in the state, held a press conference yesterday calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo to adequately study the negative socioeconomic impacts of fracking. More

Today, pro-fracking organizations are gathering in Albany under the banner “Real People for Real Jobs” to urge the state to put a rubber stamp on its fracking plan, claiming it will bring jobs and revenue to upstate New York. We want all New Yorkers to […] More

Riverkeeper is encouraged that the state will not make a decision on fracking until NYS Health Commissioner Nirav Shah completes his newly-announced review of the health analysis in DEC’s environmental impact statement on fracking. More

Governor Cuomo may release his plan to open parts of New York to fracking before Labor Day.  Cuomo’s deeply-flawed plan reportedly won’t initially include any new DEC inspection staff, taxes or levies on the drilling industry to pay for the community costs of fracking, or a […] More

The Times Union commentator, Fred LeBrun, reports that DEC is prepared to move forward with fracking permits on a limited scale with no new DEC inspection staff, no taxes or levies on the drilling industry to cover the costs of fracking to the state or […] More

This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will conduct no further testing in Dimock, Pennsylvania, on the basis of its findings that the water in Dimock is largely safe to drink. The EPA results, however, do not refute the fact that Cabot […] More

This morning, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court issued a decision striking down the heart of Pennsylvania Act 13 – the provisions that largely preempted municipalities from zoning gas drilling and related activities – as  unconstitutional, null, void and unenforceable. The court also struck down the provision […] More