OXFORD – The hydraulic fracturing debate is heating up in the Village of Oxford as trustees settle in tonight at a public hearing on a one-year moratorium on shale gas drilling. The meeting, set to begin at 7:30 p.m., has been moved to the Oxford American Legion to accommodate the anticipated crowd.

The proceedings in this tiny Chenango County locale of 1,450, are significant because if Oxford does enact a moratorium, it would be the only municipality in New York to prohibit drilling where the industrial activity will most likely occur. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Chief, Joseph Martens, has listed Chenango County as one of the Southern Tier counties where the Marcellus Shale would first (because of the formation’s sufficient depth) be developed.

While Oxford was finalizing its plan over the past month, the City of Binghamton’s moratorium on natural gas drilling, imposed in 2011, was struck down following a lawsuit filed by a Vestal-based landowners coalition and five businesses.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process whereby large quantities of water mixed with chemicals, solvents and sand are shot down through a well shaft more than a mile underground and then veer horizontally, targeting shale formations. The intense pressure and fracking fluid breaks open fissures in the rock, the sand keeps the layers propped open and the gas is released to be captured at the well head. Opponents of the process argue that chemicals contained within both the fracturing fluids and the formation wastewater might somehow escape through the shaft and contaminate the water table. Landowner groups wanting to lease their land and companies wanting to develop natural gas say the process is safe, and point to the NYDEC’s draft permitting regulations which would require three layers of cement casings around the steel well shaft.

Village Mayor Terry Stark said yesterday that he didn’t anticipate a vote at tonight’s hearing because one of the board’s most adamant opponents to drilling, Trustee Dale Leach, would be absent. The proceedings will be recorded for Leach to review. The board has 60 days from the hearing to entertain a vote.

The village board voted 3 to 2 in October to proceed with the moratorium, with Trustees Matthew T. Voce and Leach voting against it (only because Leach’s motion to outright ban drilling failed) and the Mayor, Joseph S. Spence and John O’Connor in the majority. The village has studied natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing all year and various members have traveled to well and compression station sites in Pennsylvania. The public was invited to special presentations by experts advocating for both sides of the controversy. The planning board proposed a draft moratorium for the village’s consideration in late September.

Stark called the ordinance “a legal document that takes into consideration everyone’s concerns.” He said it originated because the village’s zoning laws didn’t specifically address gas drilling. The anti-fracking movement in Oxford was begun in July when resident Irving Wesley Hall asked Stark and the village’s planning board, led by the mayor’s wife, Anna, to address the issues surrounding shale gas drilling in the village’s comprehensive plan.

“I’d like to think this represents a political scientist’s dream of a responsible, active citizenry,” Hall wrote in an email to The Evening Sun. “As our country confronts an unparalleled economic and ecological crisis, Oxford may provide one model for the nation’s salvation.”

But others, including Trustee Voce, say existing zoning already prohibits drilling within the village’s borders and a moratorium on such would be redundant.