ALBANY – A mid-level state appeals court ruled last week that New York State municipalities can use their local zoning laws to ban hydraulic fracturing.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process which involves pumping highly pressurized water and chemical additives into underground shale formations, allowing for the harvest of hard to reach deposits of methane gas.

Thursday’s ruling involved a court case between Norse Energy Corporation USA, as the appellant, and the Town of Dryden, as the respondent.

The court decision involved interpretation of state law that says regulation of the oil and gas industry rests solely with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Norse lawyer Thomas West had argued that the law is intended to prevent waste of oil and gas and protect the mineral rights of multiple landowners.

“When a municipality says you can’t drill here, you have the ultimate waste of the resource and destruction of the correlative rights of the landowners,” he said during oral arguments in March.