Despite 7 Year Itch, NY Fracking Ban Holds; CA on Fence

After a seven-year review, last month New York formalized a state-wide ban on fracking. “After years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts, prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing is the only reasonable alternative,” Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said to the Associated Press. “High-volume hydraulic fracturing poses significant adverse impacts to land, air, water, natural resources and potential significant public health impacts that cannot be adequately mitigated.” You’d think other mega-states like California might follow suit, right? Wrong.

As SF Gate reported, the California Council on Science and Technology recently presented a study that found more than half the fracking wastewater in California is dropped into unlined pits–900 of them in the San Joaquin Valley alone–that could contaminate groundwater.

Researchers acknowledged that “no state agency has systematically searched for water contamination or a link to earthquakes…fracking can use so many different chemicals—two-thirds of which have unknown effects on the environment—that contamination could slip by undetected.”

“We found little evidence of any impacts, of groundwater contamination, and we found few studies that actually looked for that contamination,” said lead researcher Jane Long. “The fact that we haven’t looked for it is an issue.”

Well, duh.

In Oklahoma, researchers found that fracking causes earthquakes. In New York, seven years of study lead to a ban.

Until California properly studies the impacts of fracking, I think it should stop. Don’t you? If so, click here to join me in petitioning Governor Jerry Brown to stop fracking California.