CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

In New York, where there's the prospect of a natural gas drilling boom, there's another question: what lessons from the spill can be applied to drilling in the Marcellus Shale? State environmental officials are reviewing new regulations that would apply to deep horizontal wells used in combination with hydraulic fracturing. The unconventional combination has never been used in New York.

(Hydraulic fracturing - hydrofracking, as it's commonly called - is an extraction method where a mix of water, sand, and chemicals is forced down a well at high pressure to break apart the rock and release the gas.)

The BP spill illustrates that it's cheaper and better for the environment to prevent pollution as opposed to cleaning up a disaster, says Dereth Glance, program director for Citizens Campaign for the Environment. And once pollution occurs, she says, there's no guarantee you can clean it up.

Detailed plans need to be prepared in anticipation of any problem that might arise, Glance says.

Sally Howard, a member of the Federation of Monroe County Environmentalists, says there should be safety measures and backup safety measures to protect fresh-water resources from contamination. Howard wasn't speaking on the group's behalf.

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