Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens says one day after the public comment period has closed, a 58 member staff is still opening boxes, but he expects the number of comments on a draft environmental impact statement for hydrofracking in New York State to reach 40,000.
Commissioner Martens says all of the comments will be soon be posted on the DEC website, but he can’t say how long it will take to review them all. He says the process will likely take “months”, but not years.
“We don’t want to waste time either,” said Martens. “We’re not dallying in our review of this.”
Martens says the future of fracking in New York is yet to be determined, he says there could be “new information” in the comments that the DEC has not yet heard of, and he does not want to “prejudge” the process.
The public comments range from complaints from environmental groups that the impact statement does not fully address public health effects or the impacts of industrialization on the state’s rural areas, to concerns from the Independent Oil and Gas Association, which worries the new rules may be too strict. IOGA says the proposed rules “will not result in environmental protection”, but will instead “set an unreasonable bar” for drillers, and make New York uncompetitive with other states. The Association says the regulations would prevent gas companies from drilling on 50% of land parcels that they have already identified in the Southern Tier as desirable for drilling, and could unnecessarily delay drilling.
The DEC commissioner, in a statement January 11th, said “if” fracking goes forward, New York will have the most “stringent” standards in the nation. Martens also says that if the regulations were determined to be too strict and unfairly hindered the drilling industry, then he would consider revising the rules at some later date.
