ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo split the fracking baby yesterday, extending tomorrow’s deadline to adopt regulations for the controversial gas drilling but without sending the issue back to the drawing board.
Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation filed for a 90-day extension, which requires the agency to issue a revised set of rules and open them to public comment for 30 days.
The move gives the state Health Department more time to finish its review of the potential health impacts of drilling for natural gas by blasting into upstate shale with a high-pressure chemical, sand and water mix.
The extension comes as drillers, landowners, farmers, contractors and business advocates launched a print and radio ad campaign pressing New York to join Pennsylvania in creating jobs and cutting carbon emissions by allowing high-volume hydraulic fracturing, which environmentalists warn could harm drinking-water supplies and create pollution.
Pro-fracking state Petroleum Council Executive Director Karen Moreau called the extension a “fair and appropriate step.”
But anti-fracking advocates introduced the group “Concerned Health Professionals of New York” and a Web site outlining what they called the health risks of hydrofracking.Cuomo’s DEC has said the practice could create more than 50,000 jobs in upstate New York.