In landmark rulings issued within a few days of each other in late February, Supreme Court justices in Tompkins1 and Otsego Counties2 have decided that local zoning laws that ban all activities related to the exploration for, and production or storage of, natural gas and petroleum, in one case, and that prohibit “all oil, gas or solution mining and drilling,” in the other, are not preempted by the state’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML)3 and that they therefore are enforceable.
The two new decisions, involving municipal efforts to stop “hydrofracking,”4 apply longstanding Court of Appeals’ reasoning in analogous contexts.5 The Supreme Court opinions are likely to lead more towns and villages throughout the state to consider—and to adopt—similar zoning regulations to limit the ability of oil and gas companies to access natural gas in the Marcellus black shale formation in the state.
The ‘Dryden’ Law
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