CBS News reports that New York State is about to approve fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, the practice of firing high-pressure liquids at rocks below Earth’s surface to fracture them and release natural gas. CBS doesn’t offer additional details, only that the state will “issue guidelines after Labor Day.” But there probably won’t be widespread fracking in New York; more likely there will be a limited amount of possibly hazardous fracking near the Marcellus Shale Formation in counties along the Pennsylvania border. The Marcellus Shale Formation “may hold enough natural gas to supply the U.S. for two decades,” Penn State geosciences professor Terry Engelder told BusinessWeek. The Times reported in June that Governor Cuomo’s administration considered permitting fracking only in communities that expressed support for it, and with regulations requiring a buffer zone between water sources and drilling areas. And then when all those communities get rich, fracking will spread to the rest of the state, if we’re not all dead from contaminated water.
