Better late than never, I guess: Three PDF's popped on the New York Department of Environmental Conservation Minerals Division web site here, sometime during February 2013.
The documents — which represent an annual tradition customarily not gotten around to until more than a year has passed — cover drilling and mining activity statewide during 2010, such as it was.
But a check of the internal properties riding with the files shows the last date of revision would have been Feb. 11, 2013.
Why is this significant?
Well, as in all matters of faith and politics, you're free to choose your spin:
• (Anti) The DEC is so underfunded and overwhelmed by its legacy duties it can't even get an annual report out until more than two years have passed. (These civil servants will never be in a position to oversee shale gas development, should it ever come to that.)
• (Pro) Must be all the work on that shale gas SGEIS is finally over, since staffers apparently now have enough free time to catch up. (The science is in; it's up to the governor now; God help us.)
The reports themselves are pretty good reading, if you happen to be of the frame of mind to take an interest in the matter-of-fact, historical context for mineral resource extraction in New York — everything from surprisingly uncontroversial deep geothermal well drilling in Manhattan, to mining for garnet (the state gem) in the Adirondacks.
If, on the other hand, you're looking for more fodder on a steady diet of public indictment of this enterprise, this unemotional bureaucratic presentation will undoubtedly turn your stomach.
"In your lifetime, you'll never see drilling in New York State; maybe your kids' lifetime, but not yours" — Binghamton Press Metro Editor Ed Christine explains his paper's long-standing anti-drilling bias to local (pro) landowners, Feb. 4, 2010
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