Friday, April 27, 2012

Local opposition to fracking will be considered, DEC chief says

ALBANY -- The head of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation signaled Thursday that a community's support or opposition to hydraulic fracturing will be considered if the gas-extraction process is ultimately allowed.

DEC Commissioner Joe Martens said local land-use rules will "continue to be a consideration" in the permitting process for gas drilling. So far, 95 municipalities in New York have issued a ban or moratorium on hydrofracking, according to New Yorkers Against Fracking.


Link here for more about this story

Link here to Interactive map: NY communities that have a fracking moratorium or fracking ban

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an absolute double standard. Why should a community's opposition to fracking, carry any more weight than a community's opposition to industrial wind turbines,which the state has supposedly dismissed as overlyburdensome.

the world has gone nuts!!

Anonymous said...

This is not just nuts.
Even if Fracking is not allowed in New York State, this statement shows bias.
The DEC now has an obligation to consider Local opposition to all energy source otherwise this gives discriminatory preference, defining the states bias toward wind energy , and opens the door to challenge siting decisions under article 10 in a court of law. As federal law dictates, environmental justice must be considered.
The basic idea of environmental justice is that minority and low income communities should not be disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, and that these communities and their individual members should have a meaningful say in the decisions that affect their environmental exposure.

Stay Focused said...

Make no mistake.

There is very definitely a bias at the DEC, the PSC, and NYSERDA against an energy source that produces carbon vs. one that does not.

In the minds of some people at those agencies that fact alone trumps all other considerations -- cost, scenic degradation, intermittency and unreliability, bird mortality, intrusive noise, property value loss, etc.

In short, the bias is unequivocal:

Natural gas -- bad
Wind -- good

And in their weird thinking they would conclude that nothing as beautiful as a "wind farm" could ever be a source of social injustice.

We are dealing with ideology that thinks that a double standard in this matter is perfectly appropriate!