GOVERNOR

NJ will vote for fracking ban in Delaware River basin, Murphy announces

Dustin Racioppi
NorthJersey

New Jersey will vote to ban fracking in the Delaware River basin, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Thursday, but the fate of a related and contentious practice is still in question.

Gov. Phil Murphy said in Phillipsburg on Feb. 1 that New Jersey will vote to ban fracking in the Delaware River basin, countering former Gov. Chris Christie's position on the issue.

Murphy said during a news conference on the banks of the Delaware in Phillipsburg that his administration would join Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania to vote in favor of the fracking ban when it comes up again, possibly this year. Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, is the process of using a high-pressure liquid to drill the earth for oil and gas deposits. The practice is highly controversial because of its harmful impacts on the environment.

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The Delaware River Basin Commission has had a temporary moratorium on fracking in the basin since 2010 but has begun the process of making it permanent.

Under Murphy’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Chris Christie, New Jersey abstained from a vote held last September by thecommission to ban fracking in the basin, which supplies drinking water to 15 million homes in Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The three other states voted in favor of the ban, and the commission is in a public comment period before another vote. 

“New Jersey is reversing course,” Murphy said. “Fracking puts our health and safety and the health and safety of our environment in our communities at risk. It is a direct threat to our water and runs counter to our values.”

Passage of the fracking ban needs a simple majority vote, according to the governor's office. 

Environmental groups praised Murphy’s decision but remain worried about wastewater dumping in the basin and taking water from the basin for fracking elsewhere.

“Having a partial ban that actually allows the dumping of fracking waste still puts the drinking water and environment of the basin at risk. Dumping fracking wastewater is dangerous because it contains over 600 different toxic chemicals, many of them carcinogenic. This could lead to pollution and contaminated drinking water,” Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said in a statement. The organization has been working for 10 years to pass a fracking ban in the basin.

And even though there is no fracking in New Jersey, the “unnatural and toxic chemical cocktail” used in the extraction process “can and will end up in New Jersey,” said first lady Tammy Murphy, who is taking a significant role in handling environmental issues.

“Even if fracking stays on one side of the river, the chemicals won’t,” she said at the news conference.

Murphy’s announcement continues a week of public events focused exclusively on the environment. He signed executive orders to develop the state’s offshore wind program and to re-enter the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Besides announcing his intent to vote in favor of the fracking ban, Murphy sent a letter Thursday to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe, who heads the basin commission, clarifying his administration’s support for the fracking ban and its commitment to the environment.