NY DEC Com. Joe Martens Sends Letter to NY Landowner Group
Dan Fitzsimmons, president of the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY), received a letter from NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens last week (see a copy embedded below). It seems Gov. Andrew Cuomo personally asked Martens to respond, in writing, to the JLCNY’s concerns about the latest delay in the release of new fracking regulations—the delay to allow for a public health review. The latest number on the NY moratorium clock (on the right) shows New York’s ban on high volume hydraulic fracturing is 4 years, 5 months and 15 days old—so far. The patience of New York’s landowners is wearing thin.
According to the letter, Gov. Cuomo and Martens want the JLCNY to know, well, nothing new that we don’t already know! It’s the gesture itself that’s important—the fact that Cuomo and Martens took the time to write. Martens’ gesture in sending the letter gives the JLCNY reason to be “cautiously optimistic that the DEC will soon complete the SGEIS and regulations,” according to an email MDN received from Fitzsimmons.
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A draft assessment written in early 2012 by the New York State Dept. of Health, at the request of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), offers us insight into the state’s thinking about potential public health impacts from fracking. The opinion expressed by the health department (and the DEC), at least at that time? If the DEC’s proposed new fracking regulations are adopted, shale drilling would be safe and public health would be protected.
Once again, anti-fracking elected political leaders in New York (people who need to be voted out of office, see their names below) are trying to pressure the waffling Gov. Andrew Cuomo into extending the new public comment period from 30 days to 90 days. A group of them sent a letter to Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Joe Martens requesting the extension (dated Dec. 21, copy of the letter embedded below).
What’s this? The mostly-anti-drilling Associated Press appears to be throwing in the towel and admitting the DEC is likely to release new fracking rules in New York in February?! Indeed they are. But at the same time they are only too happy to cast doubt on when drilling might actually begin (hint—don’t plan on it next year):
The out-of-control New York State Attorney General’s office (Eric Schneiderman, AG) continues to be, well, out-of-control. We’ve just learned that in October Schneiderman’s office launched an ethics investigation against board members of several townships in Broome County, NY—board members who voted on a resolution that says, in essence, “We’ll wait for the DEC before we make any decisions about whether or not to allow fracking in the town.” Those resolutions are widely seen as pro-drilling, even though the language is neither pro- nor anti-drilling.
