{"id":51330,"date":"2014-12-22T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=51330"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:27:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:27:09","slug":"new-york-fracking-ban-reverberates-nationally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/12\/new-york-fracking-ban-reverberates-nationally\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Fracking Ban Reverberates Nationally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Activists say the ban will embolden the anti-fracking movement in several states.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"new<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The news took even the most seasoned environmental activists by surprise: After years of review,\u00a0Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday<\/a>\u00a0that New York state would ban hydraulic fracturing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can barely contain myself,\u201d said Nadia Steinzor, the eastern coordinator for national nonprofit Earthworks. \u201cEven though Cuomo recently said he was going to make a clear decision, we were not expecting something as exciting and straightforward as this.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York state\u2019s decision comes two years after the state Department of Health initiated a review of the possible health effects of hydraulic fracturing, a process in which thousands of gallons of water\u00a0is mixed with chemicals and sand and pumped deep into the earth to break up gas-rich shale rock formations. The process has been approved in dozens of states across the U.S. and has often been touted by supporters as an economic boon to struggling regions, including next door in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s decision is particularly significant because the Marcellus and Utica shale regions, two of the most productive gas plays in the world, lie underneath the state. While there is some debate over the economic benefits of fracking, there\u2019s little doubt that if New York were to legalize the practice it could have reaped billions in revenue and created hundreds or thousands of jobs. By banning the practice, Cuomo has become one of the first state leaders to endorse the idea that the potential health and environmental effects of fracking outweigh the potential economic benefits. Vermont is the only other state with a ban on fracking, although Vermont doesn\u2019t sit atop shale.<\/p>\n

Activists hope that Cuomo\u2019s decision will spark more bans across the country. \u201cThe fact that they took such a clear conclusion on these health risks sends a very strong signal that will reverberate nationwide about the risks to water, land and health,\u201d Steinzor said.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens recommended the ban Wednesday after reviewing the results of Acting Health Commissioner Howard Zucker\u2019s long-awaited\u00a0report on the potential health effects of fracking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked myself, \u2018Would I let my family live in a community with fracking?\u2019 The answer is no,\u201d Zucker said in a statement. \u201cI therefore cannot recommend anyone else\u2019s family to live in such a community either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s report stopped short of definitively saying that fracking can affect air quality, water quality, and the health of those that live near it. But it said the majority of scientific literature showed there were enough questions about those potential effects to warrant a ban.<\/p>\n

The hydraulic fracturing industry called the ban a political move.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor clearly understands where important constituencies lie on this issue and he\u2019s acknowledged that,\u201d said Frank Macchiarola, executive vice president of government affairs at America\u2019s Natural Gas Alliance, a trade group. \u201cHe is a first rate student of politics and he has been his whole life, and every decision he makes is filtered through that political lens.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York has had a moratorium on fracking since 2008. The ban won\u2019t be made official until early 2015, but that hasn\u2019t stopped activists from speculating about how it will affect fracking across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor once a state leader is recognizing the seriousness of this,\u201d said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney at EarthJustice. \u201cI would hope that it would give other political leaders courage to step forward and admit what we know about the health effects, what we don\u2019t know about the health effects, and take a more cautious approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several activist groups \u2014 from Pennsylvania to Colorado to California \u2014 said the decision would breathe new life into their anti-fracking campaigns. Pennsylvania activist Stephen Cleghorn said he would submit a request to Gov.-elect Tom Wolf to issue a point-by-point response to New York\u2019s health study.<\/p>\n

Of course, New York\u2019s decision is not a panacea for those against fracking. The practice has made billions of dollars in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere, with other states lining up to take advantage of their resources. Even Maryland, which sits atop very little natural gas, is\u00a0now poised to legalize the process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even with a ban, New York has been inundated with fracking infrastructure \u2014 pipelines, gas compressor stations, waste disposal sites and storage facilities. The same day New York announced its ban,\u00a0dozens of activists were arrested<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Seneca, New York<\/a>, for blocking the entrance to a recently-approved methane storage facility. That project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which means only federal intervention could stop it.<\/p>\n

Activists say the Seneca project shows that while Cuomo\u2019s decision was important, it was only the first step toward getting more political leaders to pay attention to their movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still gas infrastructure projects that are alarming, and many of those are controlled by the federal government,\u201d said John Armstrong, a New York\u2013based anti-fracking activist. \u201cThat shows the failure of Obama\u2019s environmental policy. Maybe he should take a lesson from Cuomo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Activists say the ban will embolden the anti-fracking movement in several states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}