Tagged: dec

Transporting the millions of gallons of water, as well as equipment, sand, and other materials needed to hydraulically fracture a natural gas well requires quite a few truck trips, to put it mildly.

One well site could require up to 3,399 one-way truck trips [PDF], according to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's 2011 draft environmental impact statement (dSGEIS) on hydrofracking.

All those trips by heavy trucks can quickly beat up and wear out roads if they're not built to handle it.

New York State is poised to issue its final plans for regulating hydrofracking. But even with a decision imminent, there’s no guarantee this controversy will die down.

Instead, the fight will likely head to the courts.

Every 10 years or so, the Department of Environmental Conservation goes out to Little Galloo Island, 20 miles off the coast of Cape Vincent in Lake Ontario, to survey waterbird populations there. The island, with a few dead trees, some grass and a rocky shoreline, is a haven for colonial waterbirds, with nests of Caspian terns, herring gulls and tens of thousands of ring-billed gulls – the standard seagull seen throughout the north country.

Every spring, a state Department of Environmental Conservation biologist drives along north country highways at dawn or dusk, stopping every so often to pull over and listen to the nature sounds.

She's listening for the distinctive “peent” of the singing American woodcock, a brown speckled bird a little larger than a songbird with a long, narrow beak for pulling earthworms out of the newly thawed ground.

A new report from Environmental Advocates of New York is questioning the state's regulation of wastewater from oil and gas wells. The study is based on about 100 drilling applications filed with the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Earth Day came and went in New York  without too much discussion of what many environmentalists believe to be the biggest issue facing the state- when and where the gas drilling process known as hydrofracking will  occur.

Bowing to pressure from environmental groups and the public, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is extending the public comment period on its draft hydrofracking regulations.

As local officials forecast a robust and growing economic impact from maritime shipping, they warn that impact worth many billions of dollars is threatened with extinction.

The Department of Environmental Conservation held the first of four public hearings on hydrofracking Wednesday.More than 800 people descended on the vacant Dansville Middle School to rally both for and against the controversial natural gas drilling technique.

Earlier this week, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) released an updated version of its fracking regulations for its watershed. 

The commission oversees an area that covers four states - New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware - and provides water to more than 15 million Americans, including New York City.

But a top official in one of those states says he won't play ball on the draft regulations.