No fracking on county land

Legislators indicate

more study and mitigation needed

By FRITZ MAYER

fritzmayer@riverreporter.com

MONTICELLO, NY — As the debate regarding hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, rumbles on throughout the region, the lawmakers in Sullivan County have decided that there are too many uncertainties about the process to have it occur on county-owned land.

At a meeting at the Public Works Committee at the government center on March 11, lawmakers voted to pass a resolution establishing county policy that fracking “shall not be allowed on property owned by Sullivan County until potential and environmental impacts are indentified and addressed.”

The resolution cited a long list of possible negative impacts from fracking, including the financial burden on taxpayers for monitoring water quality, the impact on local roads from increased truck traffic and threats to health and the environment.

In a separate resolution, lawmakers approved sending a letter to the House of Representatives and Senate in Washington D.C. urging federal officials to amend national laws that would “adequately safeguard the environment and the public from any environmental and health risks” associated with fracking.

The resolution noted that fracking and gas drilling is not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other federal environmental laws that cover virtually every other industry.

NYS weighs in on finances

The county move came about a week after New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released a statement saying that he is pressing gas drilling companies to reveal “regulatory risks associated with unconventional natural gas extraction including hydraulic fracturing.”

As a trustee of the $129 billion state retirement fund, he has filed resolutions with five gas drilling companies: Chesapeake Energy Corp., XTO Energy Inc., Range Resources Corp., Hess Corp. and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. The resolutions ask the companies to summarize risks for stockholders, as well as what policies the companies might adopt to minimize the risk of contamination of water, soil and air.

DiNapoli said one of the companies, Cabot Gas & Oil, attempted to block the resolution from a shareholder vote, but the Securities and Exchange Commission in late January issued a letter disagreeing with Cabot that the company had legal grounds to keep the resolution off the shareholder ballot at its annual meeting this spring and so the resolution will go before the stockholders.