It’s official: New York bans fracking (GGT)

[GennGreymane]

http://rt.com/usa/270562-new-york-fracking-ban/

New York State officially banned fracking for natural gas by issuing its final environmental impact statement, concluding a seven-year review. The environmental agency said fracking posed risks to land, water, natural resources and public health.

The release of the environmental impact statement on Monday concluded seven years of analysis by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). It first issued a moratorium against fracking in 2008.

The agency received a staggering 260,000 comments over various drafts of its environment impact statement. In 2009, more than 13,000 public comments were made on its draft. A revised draft issued in 2011, which involved four public hearings around the state, received another 67,000 comments, and the second draft, with regulations over permit conditions, received an additional 180,000 comments.

“After years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts, prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing is the only reasonable alternative,” said DEC Commissioner Joe Martens in a statement.

Read more
EPA finds no ‘widespread, systemic’ danger to water from fracking
“High-volume hydraulic fracturing poses significant adverse impacts to land, air, water, natural resources and potential significant public health impacts that cannot be adequately mitigated. This decision is consistent with DEC’s mission to conserve, improve and protect our state’s natural resources, and to enhance the health, safety and welfare of the people of the state.”

New York has now joined Vermont, which has prohibited fracking since 2012. In the spring, Maryland approved a moratorium until 2017.

Oil and gas groups have threatened to sue the New York, but the attorneys at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, are confident the DEC’s review “will withstand legal challenge.”

“We salute Governor Andrew Cuomo’s refusal to bow to industry pressure. He had the courage to do what no other state or federal leader has had the courage to do: let the available scientific evidence dictate whether fracking should proceed in New York,” Deborah Goldberg, Earthjustice Managing Attorney, told EcoWatch.

The Marcellus Shale – a rock formation that sits under New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – contains large natural gas deposits of interest to oil and gas companies. The method for releasing the gas, involves drilling vertically and then horizontally blasting the rock apart to release the gas using chemically treated water at high pressure.

The fracking method has yielded tens of billions of dollars of profits for oil and gas companies, and turned the US into an energy supplier rather than an importer. However, the methods used have led to national protests and complaints over air and water pollution, increased earthquakes, property devaluation and health impacts.

Read more
Texas gov Abbott sued feds at will before squashing local efforts to ban fracking
Dozens of towns and cities in New York had also enacted bans against fracking within city limits, a development which had implications for waste disposal and the increased costs of maintenance for rural roads used for increased trucking.

Governor Cuomo announced on December 18, 2014 that the state would ban fracking, which led to a quickly gathered celebration outside his New York City offices in Midtown.

The former New York City Commissioner for Environmental Protection, Al Appleton, told RT at the time that the interesting thing about the environmental movement was that it involved not just a lot of people power, but an enormous amount of technical and intellectual power as well.

“Fourteen-thousand comments were made on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Many, if not most of those comments, were complicated technical comments about the geology of the shale, the character of the chemicals, the movement of groundwater,” he said, adding that there was an overwhelming body of material.

“When the Commissioner stepped up to the plate, he was facing dozens of groups that had done detailed health analysis so it was not just, ‘We don’t like this!’ but, ‘We have very good reasons for not liking this.’”

The governors in the major oil and gas producing states of Texas and Oklahoma, meanwhile, signed legislation in the spring barring local municipalities from local prohibitions against fracking. In Texas, the law overturned a vote passed by residents in the city of Denton to ban the operation in the city limits.

Discuss

(reminder, this is for New York State only and the states that had airleady banned it and is not a nation wide ban*

[ringpriest]

It will be amusing to count how many Republicans who pretend they are in favor of "states' rights" when it comes to things like marriage and healthcare will suddenly become outraged at a state asserting its rights (not against it's own citizens, but against corporate interests).

[Mistame]

New York is like the Kansas of the east coast.

[Olo]

Anti-science populist fearmongering. At least they're not going after nuclear.

[Garnier Fructis]

Anti-science populist fearmongering. At least they're not going after nuclear.

Insofar as we no longer have methane (read: potent GHG) leaking into the atmosphere due to fracking, this is a good thing. They may ban it for the incorrect reason, but there is still a solid scientific reason to ban it.

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It will be amusing to count how many Republicans who pretend they are in favor of "states' rights" when it comes to things like marriage and healthcare will suddenly become outraged at a state asserting its rights (not against it's own citizens, but against corporate interests).

Corporations are citizens, too.

[ringpriest]

Corporations are citizens, too.

I'll believe that once Texas executes one.

[apepi]

Wait, New York has oil? I think it is time to invade them,I mean free them form their small sodas. (wtf does ggt mean?)

[Mistame]

Wait, New York has oil? I think it is time to invade them,I mean free them form their small sodas. (wtf does ggt mean?)

Genn Greymane Thread. It's his shtick.

[Calfredd]

Wait, New York has oil? I think it is time to invade them,I mean free them form their small sodas. (wtf does ggt mean?)

Greymane Global Trends.

[Reg]

Wait, New York has oil? I think it is time to invade them,I mean free them form their small sodas. (wtf does ggt mean?)

Natural gas. And the soda ban never went through

[Kulanae]

Insofar as we no longer have methane (read: potent GHG) leaking into the atmosphere due to fracking, this is a good thing. They may ban it for the incorrect reason, but there is still a solid scientific reason to ban it.

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Corporations are citizens, too.

If you are concerned about the infinitesimally small amount of methane that could be released by fracking......how do you intend to stop the millions of cubic meters of it from being released in Siberia?

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My opinion is that NY is free to pass any law they wish......it's their state.

Fracking has been in use for decades in the oil industry with no more incidents of contamination than in any other industrial operation, and zero ground water contamination. There has been a few incidents of minor surface water contamination, but that happens in other industries as well. Personally I think the issue has been overhyped and NY politicians are bowing to uninformed pressure.

[Conspicuous Cultist]

I'll believe that once Texas executes one.

Since corporations are people, I wonder what would happen if a corporate building topples over and kills two-three people in the process and it gets charged with manslaughter? I genuinely can see them tying every brick to the execution chair and giving it a lethal injection because a corrupt judge has the corporation's money.

[Garnier Fructis]

If you are concerned about the infinitesimally small amount of methane that could be released by fracking......how do you intend to stop the millions of cubic meters of it from being released in Siberia?

Methane has been measured at those sites already. It's not a could, it's an is. And just because you have a bigger problem elsewhere doesn't mean you ignore problems here.

There's also the issue where the release of arctic methane is exasperated by climate change which will be contributed to by our release of GHG's, so...

[Deleted]

It will be amusing to count how many Republicans who pretend they are in favor of "states' rights" when it comes to things like marriage and healthcare will suddenly become outraged at a state asserting its rights (not against it's own citizens, but against corporate interests).

Pretty much why people call Republicans a buncha hypocritical, corporate slaves.

[Saladbar]

Fracking has been in use for decades in the oil industry with no more incidents of contamination than in any other industrial operation, and zero ground water contamination. There has been a few incidents of minor surface water contamination, but that happens in other industries as well. Personally I think the issue has been overhyped and NY politicians are bowing to uninformed pressure.

If you think fracking hasn't caused any groundwater contamination you are delusional. Sealing wells is part science, part engineering, part art form, and part luck. Seals fail, it's a reality.

The industry just takes advantage of the fact that you can't directly see groundwater flow and contamination, so they can always come up with some other explanation, no matter how ridiculous it may be. It's impossible to prove things 100% one way or the other, so you have to rely on common sense.

[Skeppio]

Greymane Global Trends.

I personally think it should be "Genn o'clock News" instead.

[GennGreymane]

I personally think it should be "Genn o'clock News" instead.

I must hire u as my publicist

[Skeppio]

I must hire u as my publicist

I accept payment in cash, Apexis Crystals and rare mounts.

[GennGreymane]

I accept payment in cash, Apexis Crystals and rare mounts.

all I got is gummy bears

[Skeppio]

all I got is gummy bears

I'll take it!