Marcellus Shale Press Coverage

At a debate over hydraulic fracturing on Thursday night at Cornell, six experts from various disciplines debated the practice’s implications for the environment and the economy in New York State and the U.S.

The speakers drew on their personal experiences with the controversial practice, which involves injecting chemicals and water into the ground at high velocity to extract natural gas.

John Holko, president of Lenape Resources, an oil and gas company that has drilled in New York State for 30 years, opened the debate by arguing in support fracking for what he called its economic and energy benefits.

We need to “move forward,” Halko said. “You can’t prevent the process, just mitigate issues.”

However, Walter Hang, founder of Toxic Targeting Services, a watchdog group for environmental violations, argued that brine, a liquid containing toxic metals produced in fracking wells, could potentially contaminate drinking water and have a negative impact on the environment.

Asked to address the potential economic effects that the fracking industry could have on New York State, Hang said that the economic success experienced by communities where fracking occurs would not be sustainable in the long-term.

No matter how you look at it, Hang said, “fracking hurts New York State.”

Searchable maps with information about thousands of unplugged, abandoned gas and oil wells in upstate New York are being made available by an environmental data collection company.

Walter Hang, president of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting, says the details about 5,046 old wells in 38 counties had not been available to the public.

There are more than 5,000 unplugged and abandoned wells across New York State.

And, they pose a threat to homes, drinking water sources and wetlands. That's according to Toxics Targeting, Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan and two anti-fracking groups. They highlighted their concerns Friday morning. Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting, who got the information from the Department of Environmental Conservation, says the gas and oil wells can leak and cause contamination. He's calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo to withdraw the state's revised SGEIS, which are the preliminary fracking guidelines, so the unplugged well issue can be properly addressed in the report.

Walter Hang says, "DEC's assertion that they've never had contamination problems, that these issues really aren't an issue, that the existing regulations are fine, that's entirely contradicted by this data."

Steuben County is home to 619 unplugged and abandoned gas, oil and other wells that are a threat to public health and safety, according to the head of an Ithaca-based environmental database firm.

Another 41 of these wells are in Chemung County, 46 in Tompkins County, 11 in Broome County and seven in Tioga County, said Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting Inc.

BINGHAMTON — Years after an Allegany County family found crude oil pouring from its showerhead in 2008, they still don’t feel comfortable drinking their water.

A tank of brine continuously pours contaminants into a western New York lagoon. Across the state, nearly 5,000 abandoned oil and gas wells haven’t been properly capped.

Walter Hang, president of an Ithaca-based environmental database firm, Toxics Targeting, on Wednesday released a set of documents he says indicate shortcomings in the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulation of conventional oil and gas drilling, and lead to questions about whether the agency is equipped to regulate hydrofracking.

ALBANY, N.Y. — State regulators claim a strong record of oil and gas drilling oversight, but their own reports reveal thousands of unplugged abandoned wells and other industrial problems that could pose a threat to groundwater, wetlands, air quality and public safety.

Annual reports and incident reports prepared by Department of Environmental Conservation staff and reviewed by The Associated Press run counter to the agency's long-stated assertion that the types of problems reported in other states have been prevented in New York by strong regulations.