BAINBRIDGE – The Town of Bainbridge got the ball rolling on Tuesday night by becoming the first town in Chenango County to officially endorse the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s ability to allow development of natural gas and regulate it in a safe, responsible and competitive manner.
The Town of Preston and the Town of Guilford followed suit last night, and the matter is expected to come before the council in the Town of Afton tonight. A moratorium on gas drilling was to have appeared on the agenda at the Oxford Town Board meeting last night, but calls to council members were not returned by press time.
Environmental regulators have been compiling and composing safe drilling procedures since 2008 when concerns were raised about high-volume hydraulic
fracturing, the method which made it economically feasible to extract oil and gas from the Marcellus Shale. Fracking, as it’s called, unlocks trapped gas by injecting a well with millions of gallons of highly pressurized water mixed with a solution of soap, sand and chemicals that some worry has the potential to contaminate drinking water.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYSDEC officials indicated in late April and again on Monday that permitting and drilling would begin first in those Southern Tier municipalities that have expressed sentiment to proceed.
The Bainbridge and Guilford councils adopted a resolution written and proposed by the Central New York Landowners Coalition. It is the same document that has been circulating in townships since being first proposed to the Chenango County Natural Gas Advisory Committee in May.
The Preston Town Board unanimously adopted a much shorter and original resolution, which read: “Whereas New York State has been working for nearly four years to create a comprehensive plan for development of its natural gas resources and whereas Governor Cuomo has said that a community’s desires should be considered in the permitting process, now therefore be it resolved that the Preston Town Board would support a natural gas development plan implemented and administered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation which would safeguard all aspects of the local environment, recognize the established rights of property owners and hold the natural gas industry to the same standards as other industries within the state.”
Preston Councilman V. Peter Mason made the motion to approve the resolution. “This is nothing new for us,” he said. “It has been our philosophy for quite a while and now it’s in actual paragraphs.”
Flanagan said his board faced no opposition during discussions of natural gas drilling that have been ongoing since 2006, when a natural gas well was first drilled in Preston.
