Binghamton Bans Fracking; Serious Allegation by Councilman
After a 3 1/2 hour public hearing and a short recess, Binghamton (NY) City Council last night convened in regular session to vote on several matters, including Local Law 11-7, a law “to effect a prohibition of natural gas and petroleum exploration and extraction activities, underground storage of natural gas, and disposal of natural gas or petroleum extraction, exploration and production wastes.” City Council members voted 6-1 in favor of the two-year ban on fracking, joining other cities around the state like Buffalo and Syracuse that have done the same.
A vote like this must be viewed in context. The Binghamton City Council has seven members, all of whom are Democrats. Just a little over a month ago in the fall election, all seven seats were up for election. Three of those seats were won by Republicans who will join City Council on January 1, 2012. Additionally, two of the sitting Democrat council members did not run for re-election and will be replaced by new Democrats. Bottom line, five of the seven Council members in 2012 will be new—four Democrats and three Republicans. This was legislation passed by a very lame-duck group of officials with an agenda.
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New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens continues the delay and stall tactics he’s become known for on the issue of shale gas drilling in the state. The latest Martens delay came this week when he asked an outside consulting firm—Ecology & Environment—to take a closer look at costs fracking would create for local communities.
In a year-end “media gathering” with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the governor recounted his administration’s accomplishments for his first 12 months in office, and then he turned his sights on 2012. At the top of his agenda for next year? Drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shales.
A new Marcellus drilling law (highlights of the law listed below) passed in a special session of the West Virginia legislature and has been signed by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin into law. Yesterday, the WV House of Delegates voted 92-5 and the Senate voted 33-0 to pass the measure, known as the “Horizontal Well Act,” which was immediately signed by the governor.
Last Friday, Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard Labuskes, Jr. denied an appeal from 11 families in the Carter Road area of Dimock Township, PA who were asking that water shipments from Cabot Oil & Gas be restored. The 11 families, from an original group of 19 families, decided to not accept a remediation solution ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that directed Cabot to pay the families up to twice the value of their homes and to install filtration systems that would remove all methane from their water supplies.
Does fracking cause earthquakes? MDN has covered various stories in the past on this topic. It seems likely that injection wells (not hydraulic fracturing, but the wastewater from fracking being injected deeply in disposal wells) in some locations have been tied to earthquakes in some areas. Notably, when injection wells in Arkansas stopped pumping pressurized liquids into the wells, earthquakes in the area all but stopped (
On Thursday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft findings of its investigation into groundwater contamination in the small town of Pavillion, Wyoming (a copy of the EPA draft report is embedded below). The EPA says that water in the town contains chemicals consistent with chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Fracking has been used in a number of nearby gas wells. Needless to say, major media outlets like the AP, and anti-drilling environmentalists, are breathlessly calling this the “smoking gun” and declaring that fracking really does cause groundwater contamination after all (ban it now!). Not so fast…