Delaware River Watershed fracking ban enacted

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Photo by Susan Owens, DRBC.

LIVINGSTON MANOR – The Delaware River Basin Commission, Thursday, permanently banned fracking throughout the Delaware River Watershed.

Catskill Mountainkeeper was one of several organizations calling for the ban and its Associate Director, Wes Gillingham, called the vote a victory for the environment.

“We now have the largest frack-free region in the country. There is a ban in Vermont, there is a ban in New York and now a ban in the Delaware Basin and all of that area will be protected from that horrific industrial activity,” he said.

The DRBC voting members, the governors of the four states that are part of the Delaware River Watershed – New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and a federal representative for President Biden from the Army Corps of Engineers, voted to enact the regulations that were pending since the public comment period closed in March 2018. All four states voted to approve the ban; the Army Corps representative abstained.

Action was also taken towards the proposal of regulations covering the import and export of frack wastewater and water for fracking, which could lead to the adoption of a bank on the import of wastewater produced by fracking for its processing and discharge in the region and the export of water from the basis for use in fracking outside of the watershed.




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