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It is a day of disappointment, but also a day of resolve, for landowners in New York State. Yesterday, the NY Supreme Court Appellate Division in a 4-0 decision ruled towns have the right to ban hydraulic fracturing and natural gas drilling. MDN has previously chronicled the long fight against a simple majority of three town board members unilaterally stripping away the rights of all property owners in a township to allow natural gas drilling. The matter came to a head when lawsuits were filed in two of those cases, the towns of Dryden (Tompkins County, near Ithaca), and Middlefield, (Otsego County, near Cooperstown)--seeĀ
Town Frack Ban Cases Heard in NY Supreme Court Appellate Division for important background information.
The 77,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York, whose lawyer, Scott Kurkoski, represented a JLCNY member in the Middlefield case, has responded to the loss (below) by saying they intend to appeal the decision to the next, and highest, court in New York--the Court of Appeals. MDN has a copy of the court's decision (embedded below), reaction from the near-orgasmic anti-drilling eco-nuts, and our view of what it all means for the future of drilling in NY...
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