State Sen. Tony Avella, right, held a hearing in Albany on hydrofracking last week. Photo courtesy NYS Senate
State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) held a public forum on hydrofracking in Albany last week, during which time individuals testified that the process to extract natural gas may not prove to the the economic boon for which advocates have hoped.
The forum, “Economic Realities of Hydrofracking,” was attended by oil and gas industry executives, economists, and real estate professionals in an effort to discuss what Avella called the gas industry’s exaggeration of the economic benefits of hydrofracking versus the economic realities being faced in states that are utilizing the controversial process, including Pennsylvania.
“After hearing time and time again about the huge economic benefits New York will receive if high volume hydrofracking is permitted throughout the state, I felt it was time we actually heard from experts whether these benefits are being overstated and if there are any negative economic impacts which have yet to be revealed to the public,” Avella said. “After today’s public forum I am more convinced than ever that, given the potential for devastating effects on the environment and public health, the overstated economic benefits and the underrated severe negative economic impacts, do not justify the risk we would be taking to allow hydrofracking in New York.”
Hydrofracking is the process by which natural gas is extracted and entails injecting water laced with chemicals into the ground at high pressure to break rock. A 2010 report by then-Manhattan Borough President and now city Comptroller Scott Stringer stated that seven states in the country have reported “serious incidents” of water contamination and explosions near sites where companies have used hydrofracking.
A 2008 report from the U.S. Land Management Bureau said groundwater in Sublette County, Wyo., which has one of the country’s largest natural gas fields and where hydrofracking was commonly employed, was contaminated with benzene, a substance that has been linked to cancer and nervous system disorders.
“The way gas companies grow and increase their share prices is to keep adding to their reserves of gas each year,” former Mobil Oil Executive Vice President Lou Allstadt said at Avella’s forum. “They carefully allocate their investments where the prospects look best. In spite of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s exuberant forecasts, there just isn’t enough gas in New York state to attract a drilling boom.”
Jannette Barth, an economist from the Pepacton Institute, said that “DEC’s economic assessment of shale gas developments in” the state “exaggerates benefits and ignores many costs.”
“Research shows that American communities with extractive industries, such as shale gas development, have not experiences the positive economic impacts that were desired,” Barth continued. “These communities have instead experienced negative impacts associated with the well-known resource curse and the boom and bust cycle so characteristic of extractive industries.”
By Anna Gustafson
