This infographic is included in a new fracking report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. A larger version can be viewed
by clicking here.
Citing health concerns, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
announced at a cabinet meeting Wednesday that his administration is banning hydraulic fracturing—fracking. Most environmentalists oppose the technique, which uses chemicals and water under high pressure to pry oil and gas from tight geologic formations of shale. The governor had recently hinted he would present his decision on the matter before year's end.
The decision is almost certain to create waves well beyond New York.
The state has maintained a moratorium on fracking since 2008, recently renewing it in May 2013 with a two-year extension. A poll commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council found nearly 80 percent of New Yorkers supporting the moratorium across party, gender, race and geographic lines.
Thomas Kaplan and Jesse McKinley report:
The question of whether to allow fracking has been one of the most divisive public policy debates in New York in years, pitting environmentalists against others who saw it as a critical way to bring jobs to economically stagnant portions of upstate.
Opponents of fracking rallied outside Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s fund-raiser in Manhattan on Monday. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has prided himself on taking swift and decisive action on other contentious issues like gun control, took the opposite approach on fracking. He repeatedly put off making a decision on how to proceed, most recently citing an ongoing—and seemingly never-ending—study by state health officials
The decision came just as the long-awaited, state-commissioned health report on fracking was released. Acting State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard A. Zucker said the report shows “significant public health risks” and added that he wouldn't want to live in a community where fracking is allowed.
More after the fold.
Eco-activists have been battling with the natural gas industry, state officials and the state courts for years. They were all smiles Wednesday. Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said Cuomo “set himself apart as a national political leader who stands up for people” instead of the energy industry.
Just Tuesday the NRDC released its own report on hydraulic fracturing, Fracking Fumes: Air Pollution from Hydraulic Fracturing Threatens Public Health and Communities. A press release noted:
“The health risks from fracking are not limited to what’s in our drinking water—oil and gas operations are also poisoning the air we breathe,” said NRDC senior scientist Miriam Rotkin-Ellman. “While industry continues to try to sweep the impacts of fracking under a rug, the science keeps revealing serious health threats—for workers, families living nearby and entire regions with heavy oil and gas activity.”
In Texas and North Dakota, fracking in the past few years has led to a boom in oil production. In the latter case, that's put the state near the bottom of unemployment statistics as thousands of well-paying jobs have attracted oil workers from across the nation. That boom depends on oil being priced high enough to pay for fracking operations that are more expensive than conventional drilling. It now is threatened not only by environmental activists concerned about both health and eco-impacts, including climate change, but also by world oil prices falling so far that they could make fracked oil too costly in a least some cases.