NEW YORK – A number of environmental organizations Wednesday spoke out in opposition to natural gas drilling in the New York City Watershed in the Catskills. The setting was an emergency public hearing on the drilling held by the New York City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee.

Among those expressing concerns were Riverkeeper, Natural Resource Defense Fund, Catskill Mountainkeeper, NYPIRG and the Sierra Club.

Riverkeeper staff attorney Jay Simpson said drilling into the Marcellus shale formation would potentially pollute the watershed and New York City’s water.

“This type of drilling would involve hundreds of tanker trucks delivering water to individual wells to be used in the hydraulic fracturing of process,” he said. “It would also require tanker trucks to remove wastewater for proper disposal. It would require installation of a whole web of pipelines throughout the watershed to deliver gas from the wells to main delivery pipelines.” It would also require the installation of large drilling pads that would contain several drilling wells, Simpson said.

The environmental groups support the state’s decision to conduct a supplemental review of gas drilling’s environmental impacts throughout the state.