ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York's health commissioner said
Monday he won't wait for completion of any of the pending gas drilling
studies, which could take years, and instead plans a recommendation to
the governor "in weeks" on whether the state should approve hydraulic
fracturing.
Health Commissioner Nirav Shah also said he met with
researchers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Geisinger
Health System in Pennsylvania within the past two weeks.
A person
close to Gov. Andrew Cuomo had told The Associated Press in February
that the governor discussed the Geisinger health study as key research
for his decision and helped cool momentum toward making a decision to
allow a limited number of test wells that would be closely monitored.
Environmental
lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had spoken to Cuomo about the study,
said in an interview that he believes the Geisinger review is pivotal.
"Nobody
ever said that we were waiting for the studies to be finished," Cuomo
said Monday. "The Department of Health was going to be looking at those
studies and see if there was anything constructive in those studies."
Instead,
Cuomo said they would discuss early findings with some researchers.
Preliminary results of the Geisinger study are expected within a year.
Cuomo
will make a decision on whether to allow the potentially lucrative
drilling in the economically distressed Southern Tier. But he has faced
increasing opposition from environmentalists who claim "fracking" will
threaten public health and drinking water.
"We will call them up,
look at them, talk to them and find out," Cuomo said. "Maybe they are
useless, in which case they are useless. Maybe they have some
information that is instructive, in which case we will use the
information."
That's what Shah said he did with the Geisinger and the EPA.
"I
anticipate we will be done in the next few weeks," Shah told reporters
at Cuomo's news conference Monday. He said he sees no scenario in which
New York would delay a decision for the final results of the studies.
The
Geisinger study will look at detailed health histories of hundreds of
thousands of patients who live near wells and other facilities that are
producing natural gas from the same Marcellus Shale formation that New
York would tap. Unlike most studies funded by advocates or opponents of
hydrofracking, this study would be funded by the Sunbury, Pa.-based
Degenstein Foundation, which is not seen as having an ideological bent.
Cuomo
also said Monday that he doesn't believe bills will pass the
legislature seeking to delay a decision until those studies are
completed. The Assembly's Democratic majority wants a two-year
moratorium, while the Independent Democratic Conference, which shares
control of the Senate, has a bill that would delay action until the
Geisinger report and lesser studies are complete.
"I don't believe
that bill passes," said Cuomo, who insists science will determine his
choice. "We're not looking for a political resolution here."
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