A Nov. 29 deadline to finish the state’s review of hydrofracking will be blown, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today.
Cuomo said a new health panel would not be realistically able to complete its review by next week. It would mean a new round of public comments for the controversial regulations that have been drafted by the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s review of hydraulic fracturing.
“We want a proper process. We want it expeditiously as possible. I don’t see how we get it done by next week,” Cuomo said on 1300-AM (WGDJ).
The state Department of Health last week released the names of three outside experts to assist in reviewing the DEC’s regulations. They will advice on potential health impacts from hydrofracking, which is a technique in which water, sand and chemicals are injected into underground shale formations to fracture the rock and release natural gas.
Environmental groups have warned about the health hazards of hydrofracking, particularly in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale that extends across the Southern Tier. The gas industry has pushed Cuomo to allow for fracking, saying it would be a boon for the region’s economy.
The DEC’s report—known as the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement—was first released in July 2008 and must be finalized before permits for high-volume hydrofracking are issued. The report won’t be completed until the health-specific review is done, the DEC announced in September.
Cuomo has disputed that the extra review is not a step back for the completion of the regulations, despite criticism from drilling proponents.
One of the experts on the health panel told Gannett’s Albany Bureau last week that they were charged with completing their review by mid-February—which would fall in line with a 90 extension of the regulations the state is expected to seek.
4 Comments
I urge you, Governor Cuomo, to make sure this panel investigating the health affects of fracking does a thorough and unbiased job. Please make sure that they are not influenced by the false claims of the energy industry, and that they entertain the good science that has gone into reporting the bad effects of fracking, including water pollution and overuse, air pollution, release of radiation including radon contained in the fracked gas, toxic dust, as well as others.
I would like to believe that you genuinely are looking at the real evidence and have not been bought off by the industry.
If Governor Cuomo wants a “proper process”, he should seek an independent study conducted in an open fashion and not accept it until it has been peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal. The effects of air pollution, water pollution, and soil pollution from radon, silica, undisclosed fracking compounds, and noise are not to be dismissed. It is time to realize that an approach to energy that is this controversial is a sign of our self-destructive addiction to fossil fuels. It is far better to move on to renewable energy. The longer we wait, the more it will cost.
Whatever has been done in the way of a health study has been done in secret by the DEC and possibly not by people with expertise in public health. If DEC had worked with the Department of Health and independent professionals on a full health risk assessment and then released for the public to see, we might have some confidence in the result. As it is, there will be a review of DEC study of health impacts by three people, who even though having proper backgrounds for the review, will not be reviewing a full health risk assessment.
I believe the governor and the DEC should have listened to the public comments as far back as the Scope and the first draft of the SGEIS. By not doing so and then reacting belatedly to the clear call of the public on the health issue, they are betting the house that these three reviewers will bless what was done. If those three call for a full health risk assessment or, once the public sees what has been done and law suits start to be filed, DEC and Cuomo will have wasted many months only to have to start over with a full assessment.
Executive Order 41 calls for horizontal drilling with fracking to be evaluated comprehensively. The only way to accomplish this in the area of public health is with the completion of a comprehensive Health Impact Assessment, which is an independent, quantitative study done to national/international standards. This kind of study will look at all aspects of public health, including impacts on sub-groups such as infants, pregnant women, children, and the elderly. It also studies the full range of impacts, including socioeconomic.