Earth Equity News

New York Landowners Fighting Regs that Could Limit Fracking. By Edith Honan, Reuters, February 17, 2010. "New York landowners whose properties sit on the gas-rich Marcellus Shale are pushing back against calls for greater environmental regulation, saying it has halted the U.S. gas drilling boom at the New York border. Their concerns have opened a new front in the gas drilling wars, in which environmentalists and neighbors opposed to seeing gas wells in their back yards have put a drag on the exponential growth of onshore U.S. natural gas production. A group of landowners who stand to earn a windfall from leasing their property to companies like Chesapeake Energy gathered in the town of Binghamton recently to push back against claims that drilling could pose health hazards. 'This is a very depressed area and this is something that will turn this whole community around,' said Dan Fitzsimmons, 54, a leader of the Joint Landowners Coalition, which includes 17,500 families. 'If people are educated with the facts and not with environmental scare rhetoric, I think this thing will move along very quickly,' he said. Development of the massive Marcellus Shale in several northeastern states holds the promise of providing the United States with an abundant, relatively clean domestic energy source, but environmental concerns that shale gas drilling could contaminate drinking water have created regulatory risk."