New York Delays Fracking Report

We’re a lit­tle late with this, but here’s more infor­ma­tion about New York State’s deci­sion to delay a report on new hydraulic frac­tur­ing reg­u­la­tions, until early next year.

From the New York Times’ “Green” blog:

The panel’s report had been due next Tues­day. But mem­bers say that state agen­cies like the health and trans­porta­tion depart­ments are hav­ing a tough time com­ing up with bud­get fig­ures by then that the panel will need to fig­ure out what resources are needed to mon­i­tor the drilling oper­a­tions, known as hor­i­zon­tal hydraulic frac­tur­ing or fracking..

The panel is now expected to work through Feb­ru­ary before pro­duc­ing its recommendations.

New York State’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tion is in the midst of fin­ish­ing an envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment and rules to gov­ern the con­tro­ver­sial drilling process, which involves inject­ing water and chem­i­cals into rock deep under­ground under high pres­sure to extract nat­ural gas.

The pro­posed drilling has raised broad con­cern about poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal and health risks, includ­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of ground­wa­ter contamination.

The department’s com­mis­sioner, Joe Martens, has long said that he expects drilling per­mits to be issued next year under the new regulations.