Press & Sun-Bulletin

The state's depiction of a clean, tightly regulated natural gas industry just got a shot of muck in the eye.

As the debate over the merits of Marcellus Shale development reaches a crescendo, an Ithaca researcher has culled a list of 270 files documenting wastewater spills, well contamination, explosions, methane migration and ecological damage related to gas production in the state since 1979.

Twice a week, Dan Whalen drives a quarter-mile to fill 10-gallon jugs with drinking water from a tanker truck that's been supplying water to his neighborhood for more than two years.

Whalen, who lives in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, doesn't drink the water from his taps because the wells in his neighborhood were contaminated by one of the state's biggest spills of gasoline and MTBE, a highly toxic chemical additive. MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is also a suspected carcinogen.