Natural Gas is Great, But We Need to Protect Water.

Reducing oil imports and use of coal for generating electricity by increasing the availability of Natural Gas is a great step in the right direction. We need American Energy Independence and cleaner fuels for electricity. But, most importantly, we need water and air to survive. The State of New York has completed a survey of environmental risks in gas drilling, which will lead to tougher restrictions on drillers to protect our water supplies from pollution during gas drilling.

Read more at: http://www.propublica.org/feature/new-york-drilling-study-a-big-ste...

Here's an excerpt:

New York's recently released review of the environmental risks [1] (PDF) posed by natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale offers the clearest picture yet of the chemicals used in the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing.

The document makes public the names of 260 chemicals, more than eight times as many as Pennsylvania state regulators have compiled. The list is the most complete released by any state or federal agency and could help answer concerns about hydraulic fracturing in Congress and in states where gas drilling has increased in recent years.

The review also takes another dramatic step by proposing that in certain situations companies that drill in New York be required to report the concentrations of the chemicals they use to state regulators, thereby creating a suite of information that environmental scientists say is essential to investigating water pollution from drilling. New York would be the first state to make such a demand.

The industry has been reluctant to release information about the chemicals it uses, because it considers them a proprietary trade secret. While New York has made the names of the chemicals public, it seems likely that the data about their concentration will be shared only with state officials.

The 800-page environmental impact assessment also proposes a slew of safeguards for well construction, waste disposal and water protection. If those rules are finalized after the ongoing public review period, New York's environmental protections for gas drilling would be among the strongest in the nation.