Last night, R. sent me a link to an Albany Times-Union article based on investigations by WNYC and ProPublica about the gas drilling nightmare. Today is the deadline for the Guv to sign (or not) Assembly bill A10526 which streamlines the permitting process and greatly increases the permissable well densities.

This morning the audio popped up on TOD: Local. I highly recommend listening to this, and if you are a New Yorker, call the Governor’s office and ask for a veto.

[UPDATE 7:27 PM EDT]

More links. Here’s Delaware Riverkeepers’ brief on gas drilling in NY and PA. And in case anyone thinks the DEC can or will protect air, water, habitat and people, some reports by EANY.

Unfortunately it looks like the Governor signed the rushed-through last minute bill. What’s quite disturbing to me is that, according to Judith Enck (interviewed on WNYC yesterday), the bill was actually written by the DEC staff. Patterson is also directing the DEC to do more assessment of the impacts to water, air, noise, soil and so on. Will the staff be beefed up? Probably not as NY is facing large budget deficits. But how will the DEC have time to do all the research and assessments necessary? They’re obviously busy drafting legislation at the behest of the gas companies to streamline their permitting and making it easier to put more wells in.

[UPDATE 7/24 12:17 PM EDT]

Found a blog on Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin area in Texas, which is apparently the formation most similar to Marcellus. I have an opportunity to attend a conference in Ft. Worth in September, so I hope to check out some of this first hand. Some of the reports are showing leases worth $17,000 per acre signing bonus, with royalties of 25%.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.