The debate continues, but for now, one side is able to wipe the sweat off their brow.
Hydrofracking in Central New York has been put on hold.
The Senate is still shaky about how to proceed with the Marcellus Shale. They passed a bill putting a moratorium on hydrofracking. The bill passed 48-to-nine.
The unknown is scary
SU Geologist, Dan Curewitz, understands why the moratorium passed: People are afraid.
“If they don’t know what’s happening and all of the sudden they see all of this nasty smelling water and big trucks,” he said. “They get concerned, as they should be.”
The key is educating the population.“People just aren’t educated about hydrofracking,” he said. “And I think that geologists and drilling companies in particular do a bad job of explaining what’s going on and how [everything] works.”
(For more background information, watch this report from NCC’s Christie Witt)
Curewitz pointed to BP oil spill as proof.
“There are thousands of offshore drilling operations, and all it takes is one bad set of circumstances,” Curewitz said. “Most people haven’t worked on a drilling rig [and don’t] understand how fracture mechanics in rocks work.”
Hydrofracking involves drilling thousands of feet underground and injecting a well with carcinogen laced salt-water. The result is improved oil and natural gas collection. It has been a regular practice for a century.
Fracking not a new science
“I know that hydrofracking can be done, and has been done quite safely, with little impact to the surrounding rock,” he said. “I also know it has been done very poorly.”
Colleague, Paul Fitzgerald, is worried about the prospects of damaging the water supply. If a drilling operation malfunctions entire aquifers could be damaged and residents wells ruined.
“I’m not anti-fracking,” he said. “I’m anti compromising our water supply.”
Fitzgerald also compared fracking to the BP disaster in the gulf.
“Things do go wrong,” he said.
The State Senate passed the bill the hopes an extra year would help structural geologist, hydrologists, drilling companies and the general public on the same page.
“I think the combination of the unknown, the poorly explained and what you can see with your own eyes, which has made people weary,” Curewitz said.
And education, he said, is the key to ending the debate.
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