Diane Hope started tracking news stories about the Marcellus Shale two years ago. At first, she says, the stories were focused on energy and profit.

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, for example, played up natural gas's potential as a cleaner fuel and as an economic benefit to struggling Appalachian communities. But after a few months, Hope, a communications professor at RIT, says she noticed a shift.

The news stories began to reflect the public's growing environmental and public health concerns. They also started to get into detail about the proposed drilling method, which uses a slurry forced at high pressure down a deep horizontal well to break open the rock and free up the gas.

"They started really explaining what the technology was," says Hope, who was part of a panel during a forum on the Marcellus Shale in Brighton last week. The shift happened in local papers, she says, as well as giants like the New York Times.

Environmental and public health concerns deal largely with water issues - the potential for both heavy consumption and contamination. Those same issues have cropped up in relation to the DEC's proposed regulations for drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shales.

Some of the groups who've helped reshape media coverage are now pushing for the DEC to extend the review period for the regulations. And they're being joined by politicians, including US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

"New York has an abundant supply of fresh, clean water and we must learn from the accidents that other states have already experienced to avoid damage to our own precious natural resources," Gillibrand said in a recent statement.

Wes Gillingham, the founder and director of the Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental group, says that drilling could have a profound impact on water quality, even across state lines.

The energy companies have their sights centered on the Town of Hancock in Delaware County, Gillingham said during last week's forum. The shale there has high potential as a natural gas resource, but it's also located in the Delaware River watershed, which provides water to New York City and parts of other states.