By Anne Marie Garti

NOTE: This PDF shows how hydraulic fracturing — known as fracking’ or ‘fracing’ — works. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed using this method of drilling to get natural gas from the earth in Upstate New York.

Fifteen years ago, hundreds of people attended a hearing about a water filtration plant that the city Department of Environmental Protection was proposing to build in the Jerome Park Reservoir. In response, the city agency altered its scope of work for an environmental impact statement (EIS) to include: (1) new studies on possible sites and (2) a “no filtration” option.

Over the past few months, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) held six hearings on its scope of work for a supplemental EIS that would enable extensive drilling for natural gas across half the state of New York. But this time the agency that will be doing the EIS — the DEC — may not be listening to the public.

The Department of Enviormental Conservation is mandated by state law to help the industry extract as much oil and gas as possible, as efficiently as possible. And to stop local governments from interfering with oil and gas development, the state has removed almost all “home rule” provisions. This means that towns cannot establish zoning, set-back, noise or other regulations to restrict drilling.

The DEC’s draft scope of work was woefully inadequate. Yet it has put its environmental review on a fast track and expects to have a final impact statement done by next summer.

Hundreds of people came to the hearing I attended upstate, and almost all of them called for either no gas drilling, or very strict regulations. Only a handful of people spoke in favor of drilling. These included institutions and individuals who would reap economic benefits: industry representatives, elected officials and landowners who had leased their land.