Farmland in rural Steuben County, New York (Wikipedia)

Environmental groups and a New York village will be in court Monday arguing over the sale of water to a Shell Oil Company subsidiary for shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania, the Associated Press‘s Mary Esch reports.

The Sierra Club and People for a Healthy Environment won a court injunction in March 2013 stopping the Finger Lakes village of Painted Post from further water shipments under a 2012 contract with SWEPI LP, a Shell subsidiary drilling gas wells in Pennsylvania.

The five-year contract called for up to a million gallons of water per day shipped by rail, and Painted Post officials anticipated earning up to $2.5 million a year on the deal.

But a trial judge ruled that Painted Post officials improperly conducted the project’s environmental impact review and halted the sales, a decision the New York State Conference of Mayors says could endanger thousands of water-sale contracts that help financially struggling towns in New York.

A state appeals court in Rochester will hear arguments Monday in the appeal by the village and SWEPI. 

Read the full story here

Related environmental news stories:
Visualization: Water for Fracking in Ten Texas Counties – Texas Tribune
Group hears about fracking water needs – Fort Morgan Times
Exxon CEO Joins Suit Citing Fracking Concerns – Wall Street Journal
How to Save Water on Fracking – Bloomberg
Trading water for fuel is fracking crazy – rabble.ca (blog)

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