What's Next on the Fracking Front?
December 16, 2010
Riverkeeper Team
At this time last year, citizens around the state were hunkered down trying to make sense of one of the worst environmental impact statements they had ever seen. Just as horror stories of drinking water contamination were pouring in from around the country, New York seemed hell-bent on a path toward increasing industrial gas drilling upstate.
It’s amazing what a difference a year can make. Despite vetoing critical legislation last week that passed both the state Senate and Assembly with overwhelming bi-partisan support, the Governor made a smart move in directing the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to issue a revised environmental impact statement before allowing horizontal hydrofracking to begin.
New York continues to be the only state in the country to establish a moratorium on horizontal hydrofracking. The Governor’s order acknowledges what Riverkeeper and an ever-growing statewide coalition have been saying since day one: industrial gas drilling is a risky business and DEC’s current environmental review was so fatally flawed that the state could not move forward on its basis.
To be clear, Governor Paterson did not do the right thing on all fronts. By carving out an exception for vertical wells that do not yet exist, the Governor did not save any jobs and did not ensure comprehensive protection of water quality statewide.
But Riverkeeper and our partners in the environmental community will be watching closely to make certain that industry does not side-step environmental review by first conducting an onslaught of vertical drilling and then converting those vertical wells to horizontal wells. Moving forward, we’ll be doing everything we can to urge the incoming Cuomo administration to develop a set of formal regulations that adequately safeguard water quality before the drills hit the ground.