Olive, NY Town Board Votes to Ban Fracking

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Another town in New York has decided to ban hydraulic fracturing—this one in Ulster County:

No fracking for now. Members of the Olive town board reached that decision unanimously at a town board meeting Tuesday evening.

The board’s decision places a moratorium on the exploration, extraction, disposal and storage of natural gas within town limits for a year.

"In our view, you know, this has been going on for a long time, but we’ve only really been into in for the last six months. And you get reports from Pennsylvania and all over that don’t sound so good. We would like to follow through on it and do it with more facts," said Town of Olive Supervisor Berndt Leifeld.

Town officials say the temporary ban also includes the transportation of any hydro-fracking byproduct on roads traveling through the Town of Olive.

There are two cases making their way through New York courts now that challenge the legality of local towns and municipalities enacting total bans of hydraulic fracturing—one case from Dryden and the other from Middlefield (near Cooperstown).

In the case of the newly passed ban in Olive, MDN wonders if the razor sharp town board members know that they’ve just banned every propane delivery truck and tractor trailer hauling propane tanks for outdoor grilling from their roadways? Yeah, propane is one of the “byproducts” of fracking. Smart people there, “you know”, who run the town of Olive.

*YNN (Apr 10, 2012) – Olive town board says no to fracking

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