Scott Stringer: State Must End Threat to NYC's Drinking Water

By Scott Stringer, Huffington Post

"How could any one well be so profitable that it would be worth damaging the New York City water system?"

With that pointed question, Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, explained his company's decision last week to refrain from drilling for natural gas in New York City's upstate watershed.

Now it's time for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to show as much concern for New Yorkers' drinking water as the industry it regulates and permanently ban drilling in the Catskill / Delaware watershed.

The new application of a drilling technique called "hydraulic fracturing" has recently made it possible to extract great supplies of natural gas from an underground formation stretching across the southern tier of New York State called the Marcellus Shale. By fracturing the shale with the aid of chemically-treated water pumped deep into the ground (a single well can consume 3 million gallons), natural gas can now be captured in a commercially viable way.

Experts estimate that New York State's natural gas reserves may be large enough to meet national demand for a period of 20 years. Energy companies are eager to get started, and the economic payoff for upstate New York's recession-strapped families and municipal governments would be substantial.

But neither these benefits, nor last week's pledge by Chesapeake Energy eliminate the need for Governor Paterson and the State environmental agency to step...

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