Judges Uphold Fracking Bans

Two communities in New York have won court battles against the practice of hydraulic fracturing. Judges in each case ruled that the community has local authority over fracking.

Two Judges in New York, in separate rulings, have said communities have the authority to ban hydraulic fracturing, also known as ?EUR??,,????'?????<

In the more recent ruling, State Supreme Court Judge Donald Cerio decided that New York State's regulatory powers did not overrule a municipality passing a law governing land use. In June 2011, the town of Middlefield passed a zoning ordinance prohibiting oil and gas drilling, as well as other heavy industry.

A local resident brought the suit against the town arguing that only the state could regulate drilling. The plaintiff was a landowner who had signed a lease granting drilling rights to a gas company. In the suit, the plaintiff claimed the town-imposed ban denied her the economic gains that she would have had because of the leases.

The Middlefield ruling was issued on Feb. 24. Earlier in the week, Justice Phillip Rumsey offered a similar opinion in a lawsuit challenging a drilling ban in the town of Dryden, N.Y.

Unlike the Middleton case, which had a local landowner suing the town, the Anschutz Exploration Corporation of Denver, Colo, brought the Dryden suit. Anschutz Exploration has spent more than $5 million leasing and developing 22,000 acres in that town.

As reported at landscapearchitect.com earlier this year, the New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects drafted a letter to the state?EUR??,,????'?????<https://landscapearchitect.com/research/article/16173

Supporters of hydraulic fracturing have vowed to appeal one or both of these decisions.

So far, more than 50 New York communities have enacted gas-drilling bans at the urging of residents who have circulated petitions saying the potential benefits of development aren't enough to risk polluting water supplies, endangering public health, and transforming a rural landscape into an industrial one.