The advent of new hydraulic fracturing (aka hydrofracking or just fracking) technologies for natural gas development has required many communities across the United States to wrestle with challenging scientific, managerial, and political issues as they try to manage the local impacts the industry generates. Debate is occurring at the national, state and local levels over the safety and environmental consequences of fracking. For the most part, the debate has been hijacked by special interests and advocates on both sides of the issue, funding studies that inevitably “prove” that they are correct. Caught in the cross fire are local communities that have limited authority to determine their own futures. While many “storylines” dominate the public discourse about hydraulic fracturing in New York, these storylines are not likely to create a consensus about what is to be done at the local level. This panel considers three aspects of how these story lines have developed and how they have in turn influenced the development of local policy responses.