Energy group, environmentalists point to contradictions in DEC fracking document
Posted by CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE at 9:12 AMNot all of the negativism directed toward the proposed rules for regulating hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in New York is coming from anti-fracking organizations and individuals.
The American Petroleum Institute, a Washington D.C.-based group representing the oil and gas industry, continues to review the 736-page document but has joined environmental groups and others with concerns about pumping huge volumes of chemically laced water into the Marcellus shale formation to release the natural gas trapped in the dense rock.
The institute favors fracking/horizontal drilling but says New York's proposal, released Friday, doesn't go far enough to meet the needs of the industry -- particularly the sections that ban drilling on state-owned land and within the watershed areas of New York City and Syracuse.
"Ending the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing is hardly great news in the development of one of the world's largest resources of clean-burning natural gas if it still leaves much of the Marcellus Shale region off-limits to responsible development," API President/CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement.
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