The million-acre watershed supplies 15 million people, including 9 million New Yorkers. The Department of Environmental Conservation, which issued the preliminary guidelines, said that it found no reasonable basis for a drilling ban near the watershed, but that measures were necessary to allay concerns raised last year in public hearings.

Under the new rules, for example, drillers would be required to disclose the chemical fluids used for each well. Buffer zones would be created around reservoirs and aqueducts in the watershed. Wells drilled within a 1,000-foot corridor of underground tunnels that carry drinking water to New York City would require special approval, and in some cases, state inspectors would have to be present during some phases of operations.

The proposals will be open for public comment until Nov. 30, said Yancey Roy, a spokesman for the agency. State regulators will release their final report sometime next year, which will open the door for drilling permits to be issued.

Some critics of drilling said that they recognized that the regulators had made an effort to address some of their concerns and that drillers would have to comply with more stringent rules in New York than in other parts of the country. Still, they expressed some dissatisfaction.

“We need to have a zero-risk policy here, and it is not appropriate to allow drilling in such a unique and extraordinarily valuable resource,” said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The record in other states is so abysmal, and it doesn’t take much to do better than other states.”