In November, New York will elect a new governor the new administration will be the one that has to deal with gas permitting, and should be given the chance to fully assess the risks of drilling and to identify appropriate regulatory policies. The moratorium would expire on May 15, 2011, giving additional time for the New York State Department of Energy Conservation (DEC) to fully assess the risks of hydro-fracking. One extremely reasonable bill is still very much alive in the legislature that would delay industrial gas drilling until we better understand the implications of these new technologies-specifically hydraulic fracturing-for the environment, human health, and our quality of life.Īssembly Bill 11443-B and Senate Bill 8129-B propose to impose a temporary suspension of the use of hydraulic fracturing (hydro-fracking) in New York's Marcellus shale. We still have time to insist on a moratorium on shale gas drilling in New York. How much proof do our state legislators need before they take the bold-but necessary-step and halt industrial gas drilling in New York until its risks are properly assessed? The BP Gulf disaster serves as a potent reminder of the risks associated with unchecked, unregulated fossil fuel extraction. Reports of air pollution, water contamination, fish kills, livestock deaths, and health problems are piling up in Wyoming, Ohio, Colorado, West Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, and right next door in Pennsylvania. A single well pad can contain 16 wells, spaced as little as 10 feet apart - shale gas drilling has industrialized countless acres of rural landscape and is already starting to encroach upon neighborhoods and schools. Well pads, condensate tanks, waste pits, pipelines, and access roads are often placed only a few hundred feet from residential homes. The gas industry is expanding voraciously in Pennsylvania, drilling more and more wells every day. Four days later, a Marcellus gas well in West Virginia, just southwest of Pittsburgh, exploded and severely burned seven people.
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The company didn't install an appropriate pressure-control system-a basic safety requirement. It could not be controlled until after the well had spewed 35,000 gallons of waste, over the course of 16 hours. On June 3, a gas well in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, erupted into a 75-foot geyser of gas, wastewater, and sludge. Rather, it is the third explosion of the summer in the Marcellus Shale region, and only one incident in a long list of accidents, spills, leaks, and unexplained health complaints.
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