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Full Interview with DEC Commissioner about 40,000 Fracking Comments

DEC Commissioner Joe Martens estimates the agency has received 40,000  comments in the public comment period  which just ended on January 11th on a draft environmental impact study to permit hydro fracking on some private lands in New York State.

Martens says a team of 58 staffers, mostly engineers, will go over all of the documents, and will shortly post all of them on the DEC website.

Martens says the timetable going forward towards the final environmental impact statement will be measured by “months and not years”, but can’t he can’t give an exact date when the work will be finished . At the same time, the commissioner says he and his staff won’t waste time, and are “not dallying."

The DEC commissioner, in a statement January 11th, said “if” fracking goes forward, New York will have the most “stringent” standards in the nation.  The commissioner says the future of fracking is still an “if”,  he does not want to “prejudge” the process, and says there could be something in the comments that the DEC has not yet heard of.  Martens also says that if the regulations were too strict and unfairly hindered the drilling industry, then he would consider revising the rules at some later date.

Click on the audio player above to listen to the full interview with Commissioner Martens.

Karen DeWitt is Capitol Bureau chief for the New York Public News Network, composed of a dozen newsrooms across the state. She has covered state government and politics for the network since 1990.