Marcellus Shale Press Coverage

ELMIRA-- New York's chief environmental officer was fired, after a memo critical of layoffs became public.

Governor Paterson's office confirmed the firing of State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis, who's led the agency since 2007. The governor's office instructed the DEC to cut another 209 workers by the end of the year.

There's been so much talk about hydrofracking in the Southern Tier, but for the most part, students have been left out of the conversation. Monday night was their chance to hear about the issue from some notable names. Our Carmen Perez attended a forum at Binghamton University and has more from the newsroom.

VESTAL, N.Y. -- Monday was a unique opportunity for students to get up to date on the gas drilling debate. About 400 people came out to listen to gas drilling opponents speak their mind on the issue.

VESTAL -- Eight thousand it wasn't, but a standing-room-only crowd gathered Monday in Binghamton University's Mandela Room for a discussion on the risks of natural gas drilling featuring some of the loudest critics of the controversial hydraulic fracturing process.

The forum, organized by a BU student group, attracted about 400 people, the majority students with a handful of community activists and landowners.

As the second 12-hour EPA meeting session began on Wednesday, some pro-drilling demonstrators said they are starting become somewhat tired of making their case.

“People are getting burnt out on it,” said Marchie Diffendorf of the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York. “It just keeps going on and on, and nobody trusts what the state’s going to do next — let alone the EPA.”

Diffendorf said the meeting was just one more event amid the three-year process of lobbing to bring natural gas drilling to New York State, and defend the use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing nationwide.