A meeting has been scheduled for August 12 in Binghamton to determine the scope and design of the EPA study regarding the potential effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water. This is one of four meetings scheduled this summer in regions around the country where hydraulic fracturing is occurring or is likely to occur in the future. According to a pressconnects.com article, “the meetings will provide public information about the proposed study’s scope and design and give the public a chance to comment. The EPA hopes to complete the study design by September. Its Office of Research and Development plans to have initial study results available by late 2012.”

In the same article Assemblywoman Lupardo stated that she believes New York “is at least two years ahead of the EPA in thinking through the ramifications and regulations for hydraulic fracturing.” Once the DEC is finished with its recommendations, Lupardo believes that NYS will have the strictest drilling regulations in the country.

Assemblywoman Lupardo is right in her assertion that New York will have the strictest regulations in the county. The NYS DEC has been working diligently for the past two years on the sGEIS and can best develop regulations regarding hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in New York. The rules should be state specific. The geology of natural gas drilling in New York is different than it is in Texas, Wyoming or Colorado and each state is best equipped to determine its own regulations.

That said, the study is moving forward and will likely result in some form of federal recommendations for the states. Input from geologists and petroleum engineers who understand the drilling process in New York should be presented at the study design meeting as well as a presentations regarding the potential economic uplift NYS will likely achieve from development of the Marcellus Shale. The fact and science of drilling need to be at the center of this debate. Over 1 millions natural gas wells have been fracked in the United States without incident of water contamination and further study is unlikely to yield a different result.