Gas issue bubbling up in NYC?

NEW YORK CITY — The day before Governor Paterson signed new gas drilling legislation, a lengthy report about horizontal drilling in the Marcellus Shale aired on public radio station WNYC. It was co-produced by New York City-based ProPublica, which, according to its website, “is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” A day after Paterson signed the measure, July 24, the Long Island-based newspaper Newsday ran an editorial that said that the legislature had mishandled the bill, and that the governor should declare a moratorium on drilling permits for the new technology.

Is this a sign that the red-hot issue upstate is gaining growing awareness in the city?

The answer from New York State Assemblyman Jim Brenner of Brooklyn was “I believe so.”

Brenner has some friends and former constituents who live in Brooklyn and have a second home in the Upper Delaware Valley. From them, he learned about the gas drilling and the possibility of negative impacts to the watershed, which supplies the city with drinking water.

More recently, a constituent who was unaware of his involvement with the proposed moratorium brought to him her concerns of possible drinking water contamination because of gas drilling here.

Brenner introduced a bill in June that called for a statewide ban on horizontal drilling in the state. It didn’t gain any traction, but he says he will introduce it again, possibly in an amended version, when the legislature reconvenes in the fall.