NORWICH – For the past two years, local economic planners and educators have been making forward-thinking preparations for developing Chenango County’s natural gas reserves in subterranean shale formations.

And now, with the new chief of the state’s environmental conservation department stating yesterday that New York won’t wait for a federal ruling regarding hydraulic fracturing, those plans can’t come to fruition too soon.

In his presentation before the Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee Jan. 25, contracted consultant Steven Palmatier outlined a list of firms interested in coming to the area and described new training programs that may be offered locally.

Palmatier, who was hired in 2009 as the county’s economic development consultant for the natural gas industry, said he has met or talked with various companies that design well pads, operate frack water (from hydraulic fracturing) treatment plants, redevelop brownfield sites for drilling, build aggregate gravel bed plants and manufacture remote, well-monitoring devices.

The consultant said he is working with Commerce Chenango and local realtors to identify sites that are available in the county. Most of the firms he is in contact with already have offices in Pennsylvania where drilling in the Marcellus Shale is well underway.

“The gravel company has 1,500 employees moving around to build roads for gas companies in Pennsylvania. Why not in Chenango County instead of having counties and towns do roadwork?” he said.

At present, the only natural gas development in Chenango County is being conducted by Norse Energy, Inc., and only from deposits within sandstone formations such as the Herkimer. However, Norse isn’t the only company that has leased rights-of-way and mineral rights in anticipation of New York’s revised regulations for hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus and other shales this summer. The others are: Chesapeake Appalachia LLC, Lenape Resources, Whitmar Exploration, Talisman USA, EOG Resources and XTO Energy.

A business that is interested in redeveloping environmentally contaminated industrial sites would clean them up before drilling, and possibly create an industrial park around the wells where the natural gas can be used or where the supply base for the natural gas drilling industry could locate, Palmatier said.

There are 12 brownfield sites in the county, according to the Chenango County Planning Board. When the idea to target them for drilling was first mentioned at a planning board meeting late last winter, member Perry Owen, of Norwich, commented, “It would be very exciting if each one has the potential for natural gas. The companies could pay to clean them up.”