Plan to ALLOW Fracking > Marcellus Shale!

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration is considering a plan that would allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing near the Pennsylvania border, according to a report issued.

Under the plan, gas drilling and high-volume hydrofracking would be allowed in only the thickest portions of the Marcellus Shale, which stretches across the Southern Tier. That would limit hydrofracking to counties such as Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Steuben and Tioga, according to the report, which cites a "senior official at the state Department of Environmental Conservation and others with knowledge of the administration's strategy."

Additionally, permits would be limited to municipalities that have signaled support for hydrofracking, and the technique would be banned in the Catskills Park.

Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Cuomo, said nothing is final.

"No final decision has been made and no decision will be made until the scientific review is complete and we have all the facts," he said in a statement.

Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner Joe Martens told Gannett's Albany Bureau in April that a community's support or opposition would likely be a consideration if the agency were to move to allow high-volume hydrofracking, a technique in which water, sand and chemicals are injected into underground shale formations to release natural gas.

"I think logically where there is less resistance and less opposition and there is not a local land-use plan in place, I think those will be easier to permit than in other places," Martens said at the time. "That's not to say that we're going to prohibit them in other places, but it's a consideration we have to carefully view."

The DEC is in the midst of an environmental and regulatory review of the technique, which is expected to be finalized at some point this year. No permits for high-volume hydrofracking can be approved until that review is complete.