CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is among investors who have filed shareholder resolutions with nine oil and gas companies asking them to disclose their plans for managing water pollution and risks with natural gas hydraulic fracturing operations.

DiNapoli’s involvement comes because he is the sole trustee $132.8 billion state pension fund, which invests in various companies, including some in the oil and gas industry.

"Oil and gas firms are being too vague about how they will manage the environmental challenges resulting from (hydraulic fracturing)," DiNapoli said Friday in a statement. "The risks associated with unconventional shale gas extraction have the potential to negatively impact shareholder value."

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method of retrieving natural gas from previously unreachable locations by shooting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to break up shale formations and retrieve gas.

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