These stark warnings, issued by Paul Hetzler in a letter to an upstate newspaper, came as a current employee and union representative at the Department for Environmental Conservation (DEC) sounded alarm bells over the under-staffed agency's ability to monitor the industry and to deal with any emergencies if the plan goes ahead.
Fracking is the process of injecting a high-pressure mixture of sand, water and chemicals thousands of feet into hard shale rocks to shatter them and release the natural gas inside.
Plans to remove a statewide ban on fracking advanced by New York governor Andrew Cuomo and the DEC have sparked a wave of opposition from environmental, health and activist groups.
The New York state DEC released its recommendations in July, saying that proposals to remove the ban "struck the right balance between protecting our environment, watersheds and drinking water and promoting economic development."