“This is really the kiss of death for drilling in New York.”
Bloomberg reports:
Bans on natural gas drilling in two New York towns were each upheld by state judges this week.
Middlefield, New York’s 2011 ban on gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing, was upheld by State Supreme Court Judge Donald Cerio Jr. yesterday, according to Tom West, an attorney representing Cooperstown Holstein Corp., a dairy farm that challenged the ban. On Feb. 21, State Supreme Court Judge Phillip Rumsey said the Town of Dryden’s ban on drilling wasn’t preempted by state law.
The local bans target hydraulic fracturing for gas, a process in which chemically treated water is forced underground to break up rock and free trapped gas. Environmental groups say the process threatens drinking water supplies.
“This is really the kiss of death for drilling in New York,” West said in an interview. “No prudent operator is going to invest in leases in New York if those leases are at the mercy of a zoning ban”…
In one of the two towns, the drilling is two miles straight down, below the water-table and not even fracturing shale, which “fracking” is! But don’t “bother” the objectors and their legal attack-dogs with the FACTS! On the other hand, I don’t feel too sorry for the firms, if they’re NOT going to use the “No-water” LPG-injection process. With NO water injected, NO POSSIBLE WATER is contaminated, so LPG-injection is THE way to operate. Also, the drilling reps would then NOT feel they have to drink beakers-full of “fracking-compounds” to show in another-way that water is not at risk, which, face it, could be FATAL to the Rep and is NOT recommended. A corrupt-group of attorneys, imo, pandering to ignorant locals,imo, makes things bad for New York, but if “slant-drilling” WAS being used (–which in one case, it is NOT), the gas-driller COULD merely go one county over, and access plenty of gas FROM the adjacent county. I think many States are dying-off, economically, due to “NIMBY-ism”, and perhaps those states/counties that won’t co-operate with NON-FRACKING gas-drilling, or Non-polluting LPG-injection, should PAY more, per resident, for gas. Are any of the local officials getting a “donation” to their retirement, by the law firm? Of COURSE NOT! Such would be illegal, no doubt, but one could wonder? –Good comments, guys. So much for the “Empire State” now seemingly turned into a “Vampire-State” with Major Bloom-BORG..as it’s “major”…problem, imo. Can’t you imagine, Bloom-BORG, intoning, “Fracking is Futile”…with all apologies to “Star-Trek, 2nd Gen.”
With horizontal drilling I’m not sure why this is such a big deal. I would think you could angle drill from elsewhere. Perhaps they got an insane judgement claiming turf all the way to the center of the planet thus preventing even angle drilling from out in the county somewhere a whole lot smarter than the towns. I’ll bet these towns are either bedroom communties for the big cities or have had a recent influx of libtards.
I’m all for them banning the drilling if they also forego burning or using electricity and nitrogen fertilizer made from it.
No wonder Florida gained 2 house seats and New York lost 2.
It’s no great mystery why the Empire State is withering on the vine. Economically the state is like most liberal ones–in hock up to their ears and with people leaving in droves. I’m sure that the windmills will provide enough meager power for the remaining population, although they will even then need huge federal subsidies.