New York State's ban on fracking is a hard-fought victory that will no doubt have reverberations around the world, so what’s next in the fracking fight?
When the oil and gas industry came to the small town of Dryden, NY, with plans to start fracking, things didn’t turn out quite how they expected. Find out how a group of neighbors turned the tables on a powerful industry—and changed the fracking game forever. View the photo essay.
The Court ruled that the towns of Dryden and Middlefield can use local zoning laws to ban heavy industry, including oil and gas operations, within municipal borders.
In 2010, Helen Holden Slottje, a lawyer in upstate New York pioneered a legal strategy to keep fracking out of communities using local zoning laws. Four years later, her hard work and bravery was rewarded with the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes referred to as the “Green Nobel.” Read about Helen’s work, and listen to an interview where she discusses how and why she became involved in the fracking fight.
In mid-December the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found Act 13 is unconstitutional. This is a law that allowed state government to override local communities’ zoning decisions to limit hydraulic fracturing or fracking. The decision stems from a lawsuit by seven Pennsylvania municipalities, a doctor and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. Earthjustice submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, representing 22 organizations, including Marcellus Protest, Lehigh Valley Gas Truth and Berks Gas Truth.
