Whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing or are not even sure what it is, the process of drilling for natural gas called hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") could be coming to New York State. The Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a revised Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program after public comments received in 2009, and today is the last day they will be accepting public comments on it.
According to the New York Times blog:
On Tuesday, gas industry representatives and supporters of the extraction process known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing hand-delivered thousands of letters to state officials in Albany arguing for the economic benefits of horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The drilling method involves injecting chemically treated water into shale formations underground under high pressure to release natural gas.
Not to be outdone, environmental and grass-roots groups hand-delivered more than 12,000 comments, nearly 500 letters and a petition with more than 20,000 signatures to the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. The gist of the feedback was that the state proposal is still deficient after revisions and needs significant further work.
If you'd like to comment, visit here by midnight.
They ask--among other things--that you "base your comments on your own reading of the documents...[s]ummaries which you read on the Internet or in newspapers may not be complete or accurate, and some on-line articles may be out-of-date." Of course, we're not all geologists, so you'll probably want to do at least a little research if possible.
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