Having balanced the budget and tem pered property taxes, Gov. Cuomo is now focusing on New York’s most pressing need of all: creating jobs.
Cuomo appears poised to allow hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” — which uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and some chemicals to extract natural gas from underground rock formations — in some 85 percent of the Marcellus Shale area Upstate.
His staff today will officially release a 900-plus-page report urging Albany to begin issuing permits. After a 60-day comment period, Cuomo is expected to give the OK.
It’s terrific news for New York’s economy — particularly in the Southern Tier, where large quantities of natural gas are just waiting to be extracted.
And where residents are beyond desperate for work.
Indeed, not only would New York become a major new source of relatively clean energy — natural gas; the move is also sure to spawn a whole new industry for economically sclerotic Upstate, generating thousands of jobs.
That’s what’s happened elsewhere in the country where fracking is allowed — including, notably, neighboring Pennsylvania, where tens of thousands of workers have found jobs at companies that employ the process.
Alas, in New York, enviro-radicals got then-Gov. David Paterson to ban the process, pending further study.
They claim that fracking can taint drinking water. Hyperbolic media reports and films like the pseudo-documentary “Gaslands” further fueled public fears.
Yes, there have been fracking accidents — but no lasting damage, and no harm has been done to water supplies.
Even in New York, a 2009 state report urged officials to let drillers frack away.
Since then, the Department of Environmental Conservation commissioned mountains of research conducted by independent consultants and spent more than 10,000 hours studying the issue.
And the DEC still wants to ban fracking in watersheds for the city and Syracuse, on land within 500 feet of primary aquifers and on state-owned property.
That’s a reasonable compromise.
(Mayor Bloomberg said he was satisfied, and even Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver seems open to it, after having balked at first.)
But don’t expect the greenies to buy in.
They’ll no doubt keep up the hysteria — because they are opposed to hydro-carbon-based energy, no matter what.
To hell with them.
Cuomo’s on the right track.