Deadline for NY Fracking Regs Slips Again…Or Does It?
This is without a doubt the most difficult article MDN has had to author—on many levels. Yesterday, New York’s Commissioner of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Joe Martens, announced he would not release the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) today, Feb. 13, because of a delay he’s blaming on the state health department. We previously reported that if the SGEIS was not released today, final regulations would not be adopted by Feb. 27 to allow fracking to move forward. In a statement yesterday, Martens seemed to say that’s not necessarily the case. His statement is confusing and contradictory, and frankly no one fully understands it.
MDN will break this all down and tell you what we know, what we don’t know, and what we think will happen. We have statements from State Health Commissioner Shah and DEC Commissioner Martens along with comments from various organizations with their interpretation of what it means. We will take you through the process chapter and verse—so this is a long post. We won’t keep you in suspense: We don’t know exactly what to make of Martens’ comments. It’s muddled, we believe intentionally so. The real person to keep your eye on in this theatre of the absurd is Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who seems to want to have his cake and eat it too…
Read More “Deadline for NY Fracking Regs Slips Again…Or Does It?”
Pennsylvania is doubling their natural gas output every year by using fracking. So is West Virginia. Ohio has now joined the fracking club and is ramping up their natural gas production. All of the states in the northeast “neighborhood” are fracking—without water contamination, without pollution problems, without a negative impact on “public health,” et cetera et cetera. All except New York, which continues to dither over its decision to frack. Why? Politics. Not science, not health concerns. Politics.
Although the latest public comment period for proposed new drilling rules in New York officially closed on Jan. 11, we’re just now learning about the “comments” (more like a treatise) made by the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York (IOGA of NY) to the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), filed on the closing day of Jan. 11.
A very important legal decision in New York potentially affects all New York landowners with and without drilling leases who have seen a sharp jump in their property assessments. A Broome County, NY Supreme Court judge has just ruled in favor of four Tioga County, NY landowners who sued to have their property assessments reduced, believing their assessments were unfairly raised because of the perceived increase in land value from the possibility (i.e. “speculation”) that the land may one day see Marcellus Shale drilling.