RUMSON — Following suit with Middlesex County and nearby Red Bank, Rumson has officially taken action against the impacts of hydraulic fracking.
The Borough Council passed a resolution on Feb. 25 supporting pending state legislation that seeks to prohibit the treatment, storage or disposal of potentially harmful byproducts from natural-gas drilling operations.
While actual drilling is not likely to encroach on Rumson’s borders, Mayor John Ekdahl said the coastal community is vulnerable to the chemical components that could be used in fracking operations upstream.
“Given our location, we felt that we should go on the record so that there is less of a chance that these byproducts could find their way here,” he said in a Feb. 27 interview.
According to the resolution, fracking has resulted in “millions of gallons of contaminated water flowing back out of the well, causing dangers and uncertainties for wastewater treatment plants, the environment, and health and safety of the public.”
While pending bills in the state Senate and Assembly wouldn’t explicitly ban fracking, they would clamp down significantly on the potentially dangerous side effects of the process.
Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a similar bill last year. Members of the local grassroots advocacy group QuenchNJ, which championed the Rumson resolution and similar legislation throughout the state, said Christie will soon have a chance to “right his earlier wrong.”
“As individual municipalities and counties demonstrate support for a ban, we expect the governor to reassess his earlier veto,” said Diane Burke, a Rumson resident and co-founder of the group.
“When the bill reaches his desk this time, we hope he will represent the people correctly and sign it into law.”
QuenchNJ co-founder Christine O’Rourke said powerful outside interests can often influence environmental policies when they are decided at the highest levels of government. Local resolutions such as the one passed in Rumson are a significant part of the groundswell of support necessary to make a change, she said.
“If we are to set sights on global goals, it will be local actions, which serve to move an entrenched representation from the bottom up,” she said in a March 2 email.
New York currently has a statewide moratorium in place against the controversial practice, but the long-standing ban faces an uncertain future.
The Marcellus shale, a large deposit of underground natural gas, ranges across both New York and Pennsylvania, where fracking operations have been going on for years.
Ekdahl said in an interview that the borough’s resolution would be forwarded to the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders in an effort to raise support for a statewide ban.
“If enough towns in Monmouth County follow suit, it might catch the attention of the county,” he said. “If enough counties do it, it will probably catch the attention of the state, and they may come out with a similar stance to what New York has done.”
The Middlesex County freeholder board approved a countywide fracking ban in December, the first such ban in the state. Red Bank, Howell and Monmouth Beach have all passed resolutions in support of bans in recent years.
More information on local fracking laws can be found on www.quenchnj.com or www.foodandwaterwatch.org.