Anti-fracking activists at a rally in New York in October 2012. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/credofracking/8071729677/"> CREDO.fracking</a>/Flickr
After years of wrangling between environmentalists, lawmakers, and fossil fuel companies, New York’s top public health administrator said he would ban fracking in the state, citing health risks.
From the New York Times:
The Cuomo administration announced Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State, ending years of uncertainty by concluding that the controversial method of extracting gas from deep underground could contaminate the state’s air and water and pose inestimable public-health risks.
“I cannot support high volume hydraulic fracturing in the great state of New York,” said Howard Zucker, the acting commissioner of health.
That conclusion was delivered publicly during a year-end cabinet meeting called by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Albany…The state has had a de facto ban on the procedure for more than five years, predating Mr. Cuomo’s first term. The decision also came as oil and gas prices continued to fall in many places around the country, in part because of surging American oil production, as fracking boosted output.
New York is the second state to ban fracking, after Vermont did so in 2012. That move was largely symbolic, since Vermont has no natural gas to speak of. New York, by contrast, would have been a prize for the fracking industry, thanks to its massive share of the Marcellus shale formation.
“This is the first state ban with real significance,” said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney in New York for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “My head is still spinning, because this is beyond anything we expected.”
The fracking battle in New York isn’t quite over yet, Sinding said. Now the attention of activists will turn toward proposed infrastructure projects in the state—like a gas storage facility by Lake Seneca and an export facility on Long Island—that would handle natural gas from fracking projects in neighboring states like Pennsylvania.
This post has been updated.
