NYPIRG Delivers Anti-Fracking Petitions

The New York Public Interest Group delivered 10,000 signatures from New Yorkers to Gov. Andrew Cuomo today, urging him to protect New York’s drinking water from the dangers of hydrofracking.

“New York must not allow the same shoddy level of water quality protection that Pennsylvania has,” said Brendan Woodruff, NYPIRG’s hydrofracking campaign organizer. “The supposed drilling boom in Pennsylvania is looking more like a boondoggle and the students and citizens who signed these petitions call upon Governor Cuomo to ensure that lax regulations and limited enforcement are not permitted in New York.”

Last week an accident in Leroy Township Pennsylvania created a spill of thousands of gallons of chemical-tainted waste water from hydrofracking.

The battle over hydrofracking is heating up as the state’s moratorium on fracking comes to the end and the DEC is schedule to present a new draft environmental impact statement for public review.

NYPIRG GATHERS OVER 10,000 THOUSAND SIGNATURES ON

PETITION TO GOVERNOR

Protect New York from Dangerous Drilling Practices

ALBANY, NY― College students and advocates with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) presented New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo with a petition signed by over 10,000 New Yorkers.  The petitioners urge the Governor to protect drinking water in New York from the gas drilling method known as hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale, a deep rock formation under the earth’s surface stretching through West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State, which has been an increasingly dangerous source of gas for the last several years.

New York State is poised to allow drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale and other low-permeability gas reservoirs such as the Utica Shale formation using a drilling method known as hydrofracking. However, this drilling method is fraught with problems that the state did not address during its first draft environmental plan –the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). Through Executive Order, the public is getting another chance to comment on the proposed drilling guidelines and this time, NYPIRG is urging the Governor to carefully consider all of the risks associated with this natural gas extraction method and not allow hydrofracking to be permitted in New York State unless and until it is proven to be safe.

“New York must not allow the same shoddy level of water quality protection that Pennsylvania has,” said Brendan Woodruff, NYPIRG’s hydrofracking campaign organizer. “The supposed drilling boom in Pennsylvania is looking more like a boondoggle and the students and citizens who signed these petitions call upon Governor Cuomo to ensure that lax regulations and limited enforcement are not permitted in New York.”

NYPIRG urged Governor Cuomo to learn from the mistakes happening to our neighbors in Pennsylvania, which experienced yet another environmental disaster last week when a drilling well blew out during a hydrofracking operation sending thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water into nearby waterways. This comes on top of the recent scathing articles on hydrofracking in the New York Times; especially the one that revealed that Environmental Protection Agency documents showed the levels of radiation in drinking water due to drilling for natural gas in some places in PA were significantly higher than previously recognized.

According to Laura Haight, NYPIRG’s Senior Environmental Associate, “The state has the opportunity to address inadequacies in the SGEIS and this time they must thoroughly assess the potential impacts hydrofracking can have on our environment and broaden the scope of the study to include additional concerns, especially how to handle all of the toxic wastewater that is generated from hydrofracking.”

NYPIRG’s petition also calls for the state’s environmental review to allow the public sufficient time to review the revised plan.  In addition, NYPIRG calls upon the plan to address the cumulative impacts of hydrofracking; to ensure that everyone’s groundwater and surface water is protected so that New Yorkers do not meet the same fate as their neighbors in PA; to adequately address where the millions of gallons of water will come from, and to require that gas companies fully disclose all chemicals.

New York has a de facto moratorium on hydrofracking in place while the environmental review process is underway. NYPIRG calls upon Governor Cuomo to put good science ahead of profit.

The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) is a statewide, nonpartisan,

not-for-profit research and advocacy organization. College and university students elected from NYPIRG’s 20 campus chapters direct NYPIRG. NYPIRG areas of concern include; government reform, environmental preservation, consumer protection, fiscal responsibility, health care and higher education issues.

For more information on natural gas drilling in New York, visit: www.nypirg.org/enviro/drilling/