NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City urged state lawmakers on Wednesday to ban natural gas drilling in its watershed, saying the process used to extract the shale gas threatened the city's drinking water. U.S. | Green Business Shale gas trapped deep underground is considered one of the most promising sources of U.S. energy, and the biggest city in the United States has joined environmentalists and small-town neighbors of drilling operations in trying to limit its exploitation. The drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," involves blasting through rock with a mixture of water, sand and a proprietary list of chemicals that are used to split the shale formation and free trapped gas. "Based on the latest science and available technology, as well as the data and limited analysis presented by the state, high-volume hydrofracking and horizontal drilling pose unacceptable threats to the unfiltered fresh water supply of nine million New Yorkers," the city's acting Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, Steven Lawitts, said in a statement. "These activities cannot be permitted in the watershed. The risks are simply not worth it," Lawitts said, putting the city at odds with the gas industry, which considers shale drilling completely safe.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City urged state lawmakers on Wednesday to ban natural gas drilling in its watershed, saying the process used to extract the shale gas threatened the city's drinking water.
U.S. | Green Business
Shale gas trapped deep underground is considered one of the most promising sources of U.S. energy, and the biggest city in the United States has joined environmentalists and small-town neighbors of drilling operations in trying to limit its exploitation.
The drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," involves blasting through rock with a mixture of water, sand and a proprietary list of chemicals that are used to split the shale formation and free trapped gas.
"Based on the latest science and available technology, as well as the data and limited analysis presented by the state, high-volume hydrofracking and horizontal drilling pose unacceptable threats to the unfiltered fresh water supply of nine million New Yorkers," the city's acting Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, Steven Lawitts, said in a statement.
"These activities cannot be permitted in the watershed. The risks are simply not worth it," Lawitts said, putting the city at odds with the gas industry, which considers shale drilling completely safe.
ASUNCIÓN, Dec 23 (IPS) - It all started with a warning on the quality of bottled water in Paraguay. But concern has now spread about the extent of pollution of the country's underground water reserves.The Patiño aquifer "can no longer be recommended as a source of bottled water, because it no longer meets the conditions for water quality," Félix Villar, a member of the Paraguayan Association of Water Resources and a professor at the National University engineering school's groundwater department, told IPS. According to the National Office on Environmental Health, 40 percent of this land-locked South American country's population of 6.1 million uses water from the Patiño aquifer, which lies below Greater Asunción. The aquifer stretches for 173 square kilometres beneath the capital, which is in the most densely populated and urbanised Central department (province), and under part of the Paraguari department, in the southwest of the country. The water quality problem hit the headlines when the National Food and Nutrition Institute (INAN) issued a press release in late November on the results of tests it had carried out on mineral water from 11 bottled water companies, saying faecal coliform bacteria had been found in some of the samples. The statement caused a commotion, with consumer groups demanding that the agency, which is under the Public Health Ministry, release the names of the firms that had been monitored. But INAN refused to provide the names of the companies, and downplayed the issue, saying it involved isolated incidents and that the firms had already corrected the problems.
