Full New Jersey Assembly To Vote On Fracking Measure
TRENTON, NJ (CBSNEWYORK)- The New Jersey Assembly Environment Committee voted Thursday on the controversial issue of hydraulic fracturing.
The Committee passed a bill that would limit the treatment, disposal, and storage of the waste water from the procedure, also known as hydrofracking or fracking, within state lines. The bill will then head to the full Assembly for a vote.
The hope of the measure is to ensure the safety of New Jersey's drinking water, reported WCBS 880′s Levon Putney.
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The practice of fracking has inspired much debate between environmentalists, gas companies, and the government as fracking has become a more popular method of natural gas extraction.
In New Jersey, environmentalists in support of the bill have said that fracking generates a large amount of a waste water by-product that may leach into natural sources of drinking water.
Paul Carluccio of Ringoes, New Jersey, an environmentalist and supporter of the bill, spoke out in front of the Statehouse in Trenton, claiming that current treatment methods are not effective enough to ensure the safety of the drinking water in his home state.
"There's 270 proprietary chemicals that are used in the fracking concoction." said Carluccio. "It's full of toxins: benzene, arsenic, radiation, alanine."
"It goes into a stream. It goes into a pond. It drains. It rains. It goes into the Delaware River," he added. "You've got 15 million people drinking out of the Delaware River."
Assemblywoman Connie Wagner, D-Paramus, who introduced the bill, also spoke out about the potentially harmful effects of storing and treating fracking fluid in New Jersey.
"The last thing we need or want in New Jersey is the dumping of radioactive waste, especially the waste produced by someone else's callous environmental practices," she said.
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