New York Fracking Report Underscores Quake, Climate Risks

The environmental assessment brings New York State one step closer to banning fracking

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New York is  closer to becoming the first fossil fuels-rich state in the U.S. to ban fracking indefinitely because of the climate-changing methane it could emit and , air pollution and water contamination it could cause.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo  in December that fracking, short for the natural gas extraction process called , would be banned in New York, where the energy-rich Marcellus shale holds up to 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The state followed up this week with a 2,000-page final environmental report outlining why it would be better off without the environmental, climate and public health implications of the process.

No other energy-rich state has successfully banned fracking beyond a handful of local jurisdictions. In Maryland, where two counties in the western part of the state overlie the Marcellus shale, the legislature has passed  on fracking, which expires in two years. The New York ban is an administrative action that could be reversed by a future governor.

Fracking, which has brought about the U.S. shale oil and gas boom along with advancements in drilling technology, has several climate implications. Perhaps most significantly, extracting and transporting natural gas  of methane, which is about  as potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

But natural gas produced using fracking is also leading to the displacement of carbon-heavy coal as the nation’s primary fuel for electric power generation. The Obama administration’s  and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s  call for major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, the primary drivers of climate change.

“The most obvious climate change question is: Will abundant natural gas and cheap natural gas lead to the phaseout of coal-fired power plants or slow the adoption of renewable electricity, and that dynamic, more than anything else, will determine the greenhouse gas consequences,” , professor of environmental and earth system science at Stanford University, said of the ban. “The decision to leave the fossil fuel in the ground clearly affects cumulative emissions and long-term climate change.”

New York State’s answer to that question is this: Replacing coal with natural gas may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it may also  in solar and wind power and energy efficiency measures because those clean energy sources could become less cost-competitive with fossil fuels.

“In the long term, New York’s policies are directed towards achieving substantial reductions in GHG emissions by reducing reliance on all fossil fuels, including natural gas,” the report says.

Abundant natural gas streaming from Upstate New York wells would also come with intolerable human health and environmental costs, including degraded air quality from increased amounts of vehicle exhaust and particulate matter in the air, and possible groundwater and surface water contamination from poor well construction and chemical spills, according to the report.

The state is also concerned about earthquake risks associated with fracking. Last month, the U.S. Geological Survey published a study showing that oil and gas development, specifically deep underground injection of wastewater from fracking operations, made Oklahoma  than California in 2014, posing a major risk to life and property.

The final environmental report on fracking doesn’t yet ban it in New York, however. State law requires the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to wait 10 days before issuing a legally-binding findings report, which is expected to implement the ban.

Climate Central. The article was

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