WILMINGTON DE – A decision by Delaware Governor Jack Markell to vote ‘no’ on allowing natural gas development in the Delaware River Watershed may mean Monday’s meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission could be cancelled.  That, according to a release from Delaware River Keeper Network.  The information cannot be independently confirmed.

A special meeting was set for Monday, November 21, in Trenton, to vote on opening the Delaware River Watershed for gas drilling and fracking. 

"The issue of shale gas drilling has finally moved out of the political arena and is now being treated as an issue of genuine public policy concern,” said Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum. “This is a big win for the River and the region.  Now we just need to put the nail in the coffin and make sure gas drilling in the Delaware River watershed stays down and out of our basin.”

Van Rossum says the dominoes began to fall when Governor Jack Markell announced that Delaware would vote against the plan to allow gas development to commence in the Delaware River Watershed.  New York had earlier stated that they were voting “NO” on the proposal. 

Apparently, the Commission did not feel they had the three votes needed to move the proposal forward, cancelling the use of the War Memorial Theater for Monday. 

The Delaware River Basin Commission is composed of the Governors of the four states that drain to the Delaware River, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware and a federal representative, the Army Corps of Engineers for the Obama Administration.  The issue has been a raging controversy over the past 3 ½ years; a drilling moratorium is currently in place in the Basin while the DRBC develops natural gas regulations.  If Monday’s vote has approved the regulations, gas drilling and fracking would have commenced in the Upper and Middle Delaware River Watershed, much of which sits on Marcellus and Utica Shales.