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Anti-Gas drilling Rally |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carole Marner, 607 829 8451
Anti-Gas drilling Rally and March to be held in Delhi Sept 8.
Rally to call on Delaware County Supervisors to hear opposing opinions.
A group of Delaware County residents will hold an anti-gas drilling rally and march in Delhi on Wednesday, September 8 from 5-6 pm. Following the example of a successful protest in Cooperstown in July, which was widely reported in local papers, the September 8 Rally & Protest Committee have planned a similar demonstration on September 8 in front of the County Office Building on Courthouse Square before and during the Delaware County Board of Supervisors' monthly meeting there. The September 8 Rally has two specific goals. ""The primary one is to give voice to public awareness of what is increasingly understood about the many dangers-economic, social and environmental- of horizontal hydraulic fracturing of shale bedrock," says Carole Marner of Franklin, one of the members of the organizing committee. "The other goal is to bring attention to what we consider the Delaware County Board of Supervisors' intransigence in refusing to hear anti-drilling arguments while using their political clout to petition the state to allow drilling." According to organizing committee member Caroline Martin of Colchester, "they have not done the necessary investigation regarding its safety nor, as a matter of fact, regarding its acceptance by the people of the county. We feel this is an extraordinary abuse of power on their part. The suppression of information by government on all levels, as well as business, about the ugly history of drilling and the myths about its financial benefits to leaseholders and local communities are part and parcel of the problem we are facing, " Although, in November 2008, the Supervisors invited gas industry representatives to make a lengthy presentation promoting horizontal hydraulic fracturing, the Board ignored a request by Delaware County citizens to give a presentation documenting their concerns about drilling.
"The September 8th meeting is the last one this year being held at 5:30 p.m." says organizer Steve Dungan of Tompkins. "The board goes back to the 1:00 p.m. schedule in October. So this will be an event that people can come to after work. Schools and colleges will be open again." Since Delaware County is so large, the committee decided to recruit "sponsors" from each town. "When we planned this rally we thought it was very important to have it represent all the corners of Delaware County and the best way to achieve that is to seek out people who as sponsors would represent each town," says organizer Heidi Gogins, Bovina. "In this way both personal contacts and the distribution of flyers will be undertaken by people having in-depth knowledge of their own communities." The other organizing committee members are Kate Ryan, Meredith; Dave Baker,Walton; Nick Albaugh, Hamden; and Gene Marner, Franklin. In addition there are currently 49 sponsors representing 16 towns promoting the rally.
Music and street theatre are welcome. People are encouraged to bring signs of their own. Two hundred NO DRILL NO SPILL signs with metal post have been donated by Otsego 2000 which marchers can carry and then take home to put in front of their homes. Rallying citizens will gather at Courthouse Square in Delhi starting at 4:30 p.m. A microphone and amplifier will be available for those who wish to address the rally. Statements will be limited to two minutes to ensure that many voices are heard.
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Single Issue Voters Question Hanna on Hydrofracking
By CAROLINE GABLE
Story Created: Aug 18, 2010 at 11:20 PM EDT
Story Updated: Aug 18, 2010 at 11:33 PM EDT
ONEONTA, N.Y. (WKTV) - The Republican candidate for congress in the 24th Congressional District, Richard Hanna, faced a tough crowd Wednesday night in Oneonta.
Voters grilled Hanna on everything from his stance on a type of natural gas drilling, hydrofracking, to a potential conflict of interest.
Adrian Kuzminski is part of a group called Sustainable Otsego. He worries the effects of horizontal drilling could be devastating to the environment.
"This has the potential to change Upstate New York it has the potential to transform this area so I think it is by far the over riding issue," said Kuzminski. "It's a single issue in a sense, it deserves to be a single issue in this case at this time."
Kuzminski didn't just come out to voice his opinion, he came to ask Hanna about his financial interest in drilling companies. Hanna's position on hydrofracking is contingent upon whether it can be done safely. But he's still listening to both sides of the debate.
"I think it would be appropriate for me to divest myself of them, especially any interest that had an interest in Upstate New York, which I have effectively done even though I'm not in congress, I'm not serving I have no conflict of interest, and they're minor holdings I agree with the general notion the appearance of a conflict is enough to call it a conflict."
Wednesday the Arcuri campaign released this statement:
"Regardless of what Richard Hanna says this week about hydrofracking, the fact remains that he is heavily invested in oil and gas companies that seek to benefit from drilling in the Marcellus Shale. At the end of the day, voters will decide who they believe best represents their values and shares their vision for the future of Upstate New York."
Overall many voters voiced that they feel this issue is bigger than the election, when there are so many unknowns on the effects of horizontal drilling. Barbara Monroe is a mother of three and a member of Action Otsego. She worries how the effects of drilling could affect her infant daughter
"The fear is that it will bring all the chemicals that they pump in, as well as naturally occurring ones, into the aquifers and it will contaminate our water as it has all over the country," said Monroe.
This emotional and now political issue is one that Hanna says he approaches with skepticism, saying strict rules are needed for the least conscious of drilling companies. |
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Otsego County Board of Representatives Meeting |
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Written by Adrian Kuzminski
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Wednesday, 07 July 2010 23:36 |
All,
Opponents of natural gas drilling packed the meeting of the Otsego County Board of Representatives this morning in Cooperstown. A large, overflow crowd of 150 or more, replete with signs and banners, dominated an extended session of privilege of the floor calling for the county to support a moratorium on gas drilling. An impromptu parade after the meeting of anti-drilling activists marched down Main Street in Cooperstown.
The outpouring was so great that County Board chair Sam Dubben announced that the County Board would have a second meeting this month, on Wednesday, 21 July, at 7:00 pm in the county court house, devoted wholly to a public discussion of this issue.
Please put that date down on your calendars, both all of you who showed up today and the rest of you as well. It was a terrific demonstration of public opinion and it needs to be sustained to bring it home. This is only the beginning. The county has yet to act as we hope it will.
It is particularly important to be at the next meeting, as there should be ample opportunity for all to speak, and proponents of drilling are likely to be present as well.
This Board will listen only to overwhelming public opinion; that is what is required to bring them and other politicians around.
Adrian |
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Roundup and Superweeds |
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Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds
By WILLIAM NEUMAN and ANDREW POLLACK
Published: May 3, 2010
The New York Times
DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.
But not this year.
On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.
“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”
Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.
“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.
The first resistant species to pose a serious threat to agriculture was spotted in a Delaware soybean field in 2000. Since then, the problem has spread, with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn.
The superweeds could temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn’t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.
Roundup — originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate — has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers. It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.
Sales took off in the late 1990s, after Monsanto created its brand of Roundup Ready crops that were genetically modified to tolerate the chemical, allowing farmers to spray their fields to kill the weeds while leaving the crop unharmed. Today, Roundup Ready crops account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States.
But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. “What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,” Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.
Now, Roundup-resistant weeds like horseweed and giant ragweed are forcing farmers to go back to more expensive techniques that they had long ago abandoned.
Mr. Anderson, the farmer, is wrestling with a particularly tenacious species of glyphosate-resistant pest called Palmer amaranth, or pigweed, whose resistant form began seriously infesting farms in western Tennessee only last year.
Pigweed can grow three inches a day and reach seven feet or more, choking out crops; it is so sturdy that it can damage harvesting equipment. In an attempt to kill the pest before it becomes that big, Mr. Anderson and his neighbors are plowing their fields and mixing herbicides into the soil.
That threatens to reverse one of the agricultural advances bolstered by the Roundup revolution: minimum-till farming. By combining Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, farmers did not have to plow under the weeds to control them. That reduced erosion, the runoff of chemicals into waterways and the use of fuel for tractors.
If frequent plowing becomes necessary again, “that is certainly a major concern for our environment,” Ken Smith, a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said. In addition, some critics of genetically engineered crops say that the use of extra herbicides, including some old ones that are less environmentally tolerable than Roundup, belies the claims made by the biotechnology industry that its crops would be better for the environment.
“The biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture when they’ve always promised, and we need to be going in, the opposite direction,” said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety in Washington.
So far, weed scientists estimate that the total amount of United States farmland afflicted by Roundup-resistant weeds is relatively small — seven million to 10 million acres, according to Ian Heap, director of the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds, which is financed by the agricultural chemical industry. There are roughly 170 million acres planted with corn, soybeans and cotton, the crops most affected.
Roundup-resistant weeds are also found in several other countries, including Australia, China and Brazil, according to the survey.
Monsanto, which once argued that resistance would not become a major problem, now cautions against exaggerating its impact. “It’s a serious issue, but it’s manageable,” said Rick Cole, who manages weed resistance issues in the United States for the company.
Of course, Monsanto stands to lose a lot of business if farmers use less Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds.
“You’re having to add another product with the Roundup to kill your weeds,” said Steve Doster, a corn and soybean farmer in Barnum, Iowa. “So then why are we buying the Roundup Ready product?”
Monsanto argues that Roundup still controls hundreds of weeds. But the company is concerned enough about the problem that it is taking the extraordinary step of subsidizing cotton farmers’ purchases of competing herbicides to supplement Roundup.
Monsanto and other agricultural biotech companies are also developing genetically engineered crops resistant to other herbicides.
Bayer is already selling cotton and soybeans resistant to glufosinate, another weedkiller. Monsanto’s newest corn is tolerant of both glyphosate and glufosinate, and the company is developing crops resistant to dicamba, an older pesticide. Syngenta is developing soybeans tolerant of its Callisto product. And Dow Chemical is developing corn and soybeans resistant to 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War.
Still, scientists and farmers say that glyphosate is a once-in-a-century discovery, and steps need to be taken to preserve its effectiveness.
Glyphosate “is as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease,” Stephen B. Powles, an Australian weed expert, wrote in a commentary in January in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Research Council, which advises the federal government on scientific matters, sounded its own warning last month, saying that the emergence of resistant weeds jeopardized the substantial benefits that genetically engineered crops were providing to farmers and the environment.
Weed scientists are urging farmers to alternate glyphosate with other herbicides. But the price of glyphosate has been falling as competition increases from generic versions, encouraging farmers to keep relying on it.
Something needs to be done, said Louie Perry Jr., a cotton grower whose great-great-grandfather started his farm in Moultrie, Ga., in 1830.
Georgia has been one of the states hit hardest by Roundup-resistant pigweed, and Mr. Perry said the pest could pose as big a threat to cotton farming in the South as the beetle that devastated the industry in the early 20th century.
“If we don’t whip this thing, it’s going to be like the boll weevil did to cotton,” said Mr. Perry, who is also chairman of the Georgia Cotton Commission. “It will take it away.”
William Neuman reported from Dyersburg, Tenn., and Andrew Pollack from Los Angeles. |
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HYDRO-FRACKING FOR NATURAL GAS |
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April 15, 2010
The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design
HYDRO-FRACKING FOR NATURAL GAS
How this “clean” fuel technology threatens our water, our health, our landscapes and our energy future
Kevin Bone is the director of the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design and a partner in Bone/Levine Architects. Joseph Levine his partner is the founder of NY H20 and co-founder of Damascus Citizens.
In his introduction Mr. Bone reminded the audience that Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING caused an uproar in the chemical industry. A law suit was brought against Houghton Mifflin to stop publication. Time magazine stated in 1999:
“Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto Company, Velsicol, American Cyanamid — indeed, the whole chemical industry — duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media.”
Matthiessen, Peter (March 29, 1999). "Environmentalist RACHEL CARSON". Time Magazine
This was an apt introduction to Dr. Theo Colborn, president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange and one of the leading experts on the impacts of toxic chemicals used in fracking fluid.
http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php
The title of her lecture was IT’S YOUR WATER, IT’S YOUR AIR. She spoke in detail about the stages of gas development. The topics were drilling, fracturing, gas treatment and waste handling. You can view some of her photos of gas production here:
http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/chemicals.photos.php
Dr. Theo Colborn was emphatic when she stated that air pollution must be taken as seriously as water pollution. Her conclusion was based on the fact that NOx combined with high VOCs create ozone. Ozone is produced in several natural gas processing phases. It is a known respiratory irritant. The World Health Organization (WHO) has detailed studies that link exposure to ozone to premature death, asthma, bronchitis, heart attack and other cardiopulmonary problems. According to scientists with the U.S. EPA susceptible people can be adversely affected by ozone levels as low as 40 ppb. The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to set National Air Quality Standards including ground-level ozone. She suggested that this might be a path to a better monitoring of natural gas production facilities.
Dr. Michel C. Boufadel, director of the Temple University Department of Environmental Engineering reviewed the costs and benefits of gas drilling and the extent to which the reality matches up. He began his presentation with:
The precautionary principle states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those who advocate taking the action.
He stated that this principle should apply to the natural gas industry. His slides left no doubt that the impact of gas drilling is so extensive on human health and environmental conditions that it should not be undertaken without cumulative studies that include risk maps similar to total maximum daily load (TMDL) analysis. These would be similar to flood plain maps. He stated that fracking chemicals will stay in our aquifers for over 100 years and that one of the consequences of gas drilling is that since the negative effects emerge over very long periods we will have no recourse to company liability.
He presented animated slides of ground water pollution. His slides of underground plumes that can travel great distances and carry a lot of toxic fracking chemicals. These slide illustrations were new to me. They offer a very effective way to illustrate the invisible underground spread of chemical plumes.
In conclusion: He believes that the total costs of gas drilling when considered from cradle to grave do not add up to the benefits that the gas companies constantly hype.
He is associated with The Center for Natural Resources Development Protection (NRDP) http://www.temple.edu/environment/index.shtml
Al Appleton, former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and a globally known expert on water resources protection and the economics of sustainability.
Mr. Appleton focused on the cradle to grave aspects that is the total life cycle of natural gas production, extraction and economics emphasizing that the costs do not add up to a sustainable industry. He stated that perhaps instead of a Marcellus well every square mile the DEC might develop a spacing of 5 or 10 miles per well in areas which do not have the sensitive receptors or the wet northeast environment that differs so greatly from the places where hydraulic fracturing was developed.
He stated that, “natural gas is a transition to what?” His conclusion was that if we do not begin to develop green energy that is now available we will be investing money in a 19th & 20th century fossil fuel which has played out it’s sustainable life cycle. He believes that the investment in natural gas would be better used to develop new green energy for the 21st century.
He continued by stating that a total accounting of the carbon emissions from the natural gas industry is essential if we are to understand the extent of natural gas pollution to our environment. A national study is has not been undertaken at this time.
James Herman
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Sullivan County moves to ban gas drilling on county propety |
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Sullivan County Moves to Ban Gas Drilling on County Property
By Dan Hust-- Sullivan County Democrat
MARCH 16, 2010
MONTICELLO — Legislators on the Public Works Committee [of Sullvan County, NY] unanimously agreed Thursday to ban gas drilling involving hydrofracking on all county-owned properties.
Citing environmental, water quality, traffic and property impact concerns, the resolution says no such drilling will be allowed “until such time as the potential long-term, cumulative and indirect environmental and public health impacts are adequately addressed and appropriate mitigation measures are identified.”
An accompanying resolution was also approved on Thursday, urging Congress to “amend pertinent federal laws to adequately safeguard the environment and the public from any environmental and health risks associated with hydrofracking.”
Both resolutions will go before the full Legislature this Thursday for official approval. The meeting is open to the public and will be held at 2 p.m. at the Government Center in Monticello. |
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Otsego County Withraws Gas Proposal |
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Published: March 04, 2010 12:00 am
The Daily Star
Gas-lease proposal withdrawn before vote
By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
COOPERSTOWN _ The Otsego County Board of Representatives did not vote Wednesday on a measure that would have made it easier to lease county-owned property to natural-gas drillers.
The resolution was essentially an expression of support for state legislation to allow non-chartered counties such as Otsego to enter into long-term leases. Currently, their leases are limited to five years.
Sponsored by state Sen. Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton; Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson; and Assemblyman Clifford Crouch, R-Guilford; the state bill would allow counties to lease public land indefinitely as long as the gas wells were producing in commercially-paying quantities.
The county's resolution of support was brought to the board by the Public Works Committee.
Before the resolution was discussed Wednesday, the committee's chairman, Keith McCarty, R-Springfield, withdrew it.
McCarty's action followed a number of comments by people opposed to the resolution, who spoke at the start of the meeting under privilege of the floor.
Eleanore MacDougall of Cooperstown said village leaders are upset at the prospect of widespread gas drilling, with ``heavy trucks carrying tons of water digging up the roads.'' By making it easier for drillers, the county would be risking water supplies ``and this is a very watery area,'' she said.
Adrian Kuzminski of Fly Creek and the group Sustainable Otsego said that rather than facilitate drilling, the county board should establish a task force to study and help the county prepare for the likely effects of gas drilling.
With much land in the area already leased, the county faces the prospect of thousands of wells, miles of pipeline and compressing stations being sited, yet there is no overall plan to make sure this is done in an orderly manner, he said.
``There is no rush to get the gas,'' he said, noting it has been trapped underground for ``60 million years.''
Nicole Dillingham, president of the board of Otsego 2000, said now is the wrong time for the county to act ``with so much uncertainty at the state level.''
Dillingham said that a month ago, she believed the state Department of Environmental Conservation's proposed new drilling rules were ``the product of a desperate governor,'' and that nothing she has seen since has altered this perception.
The resolution was supported by Richard Downey of Otego, a founding member of the Unatego Landowners Coalition.
Downey, who noted that his group controls about 31,000 acres of land, said that restricting county leases to five years is a disincentive for drillers, as it often takes a long time to recover their investment.
McCarty said he withdrew the resolution for further study. He added that it would have applied to county leases for many activities other than gas drilling.
At the end of the meeting, Reps. Stephen Fournier, R-Milford, and Kathy Clark, R-Otego, said they would have supported the resolution, as a change in leasing limits would offer the county options in the future.
``I'm disappointed we didn't have a chance to discuss it and vote,'' Fournier said.
According to the county's Real Property Tax Services Office, the county owns more than 3,300 acres of land. |
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Onondaga County calls for hydrofracking ban |
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Breaking news!
March 2, 2010
Onondaga County calls on Governor Paterson to ban hydrofracking!
Syracuse, NY-- Onondaga County's Legislature passed a resolution today calling on the Governor of NY to "ban hydrofracking operations pending such further independent scientific assessments" and calling for a withdrawal of the supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on Hydrofracking from the SEQRA review process, also pending further independent scientific assessment. The resolution passed 17-2, with only Legislators Meyer and Holmquist voting against it.
Lee MacBeth, the Watershed Control Coordinator for the City of Syracuse, began the public comments in support of the resolution. On behalf of Mayor Stephanie A. Miner, she outlined seven points of the City's concern, primarily having to do with the possible effects to the Skaneateles Lake watershed, the City's unfiltered drinking water source. "Since the DEC's comment period has ended, one more issue has come to our attention that causes us great concern," she stated, "the likely use of unproductive gas wells in formations such as the Trenton-Black River formation, for deep injection disposal of hydrofracking flowback fluid and brine."
Such an injection well was recently proposed in the Town of Pultney, NY, less than a mile from Keuka Lake. Over 1/3 of the Town's population came to the public hearing to oppose the injection well. Chesapeake Energy withdrew their permit application within the week, saying it wasn't necessary for the moment. Residents breathed a sigh of relief, but people and municipalities across the state are wary of where the next injection well will be proposed, as it is one of the few methods of "disposal" for the toxic flowback fluids proposed by the New York State Department of Conservation's dSGEIS, which was written primarily by the Divison of Mineral Resources with very little opportunity for input from the Divison of Water.
Water came up repeatedly as a far more precious resource to New York State than natural gas. Paul Harris, speaking for the Onondaga Creek Conservation Council, stated "we as an organization support a statewide ban on hydrofracking on both public and private land. Clean drinking water is one of the most valuable resources in the world."
“I applaud your effort and hope it inspires other counties to take the same sort of principled leadership that you are showing," stated Mike Bossetti, a local resident.
Dereth Glance, of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, closed the public comments by emphasizing the timeliness and importance of this resolution. She submitted a letter that Governor Patterson has been sending to consitutents concerned about hydrofracking. "Paterson has made it very clear that he wants the DEC to move full speed ahead and issue the sGEIS without further public review."
It is hoped that Onondaga County's resolution will be emulated by other counties across the state, sending a strong message to Albany. |
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Chesapeake Prez heckled at Harvard |
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http://www.dailyfreepress.com/natural-gas-is-the-energy-for-the-u-s-speaker-says-1.2169470
Americans should increase investments in natural gas energy to avoid overdependence on foreign oil, said an energy specialist in a heated discussion Wednesday afternoon at Harvard University.
Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon spoke about alternative energy sources as part of “The Future of Energy” lecture series, sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment.
McClendon spoke to an audience of about 250 students and Harvard faculty members who interrupted the lecture on several occasions to object to some of his views on natural gas as an efficient form of energy.
McClendon said the answer to climate change risk reduction and cheap electricity is natural gas. He added that the United States consumes one-fourth of all natural gas produced in the world, though it also produces the same amount it consumes.
“Natural gas has twice the energy capability as Saudi Arabia has in oil,” McClendon said. “If we were to stop drilling now, depletion would happen at 30 percent per year, which is why we need to reinvest.”
The natural gas Chesapeake uses is obtained through shale, coal, steams and tight sand. Natural gas also comes at a cheaper price, for $30 a barrel, while oil costs up to $80 a barrel, he said.
Another advantage natural gas has when compared to oil and coal is its cleanliness, McClendon said.
“Natural gas produces 50 percent less carbon dioxide than coal and 30 percent less carbon dioxide than gasoline,” McClendon said.
Although McClendon’s statistics portray natural gas as the ideal solution to more environmentally friendly and efficient energy, some audience members were not convinced.
“One thing I didn’t like was his inaccurate scientific claims,” said Harvard graduate student Jonathan Buonocore, who does climate and public health research. “Natural gas does cause pollution in the surrounding wells and methane becomes carbon dioxide when it decays.”
Buonocore said this topic is important for everyone to be aware of because everybody is being affected by energy sources and climate change.
Several people in the audience coughed and made noises during the lecture in objection to what McClendon said.
“The audience was embarrassing,” said Harvard Business School professor George Baker.
Research Assistant for the Center for Environment at Harvard University Ben Urquhart also said he was disappointed in the audience’s behavior.
“I was irritated by the response of the audience. It’s not the place to be yelling and screaming,” he said.
Despite some negative reactions, other audience members said they appreciated McClendon’s professional perspective.
“I’ve been studying this subject for a few months now,” Urquhart said. “This speaker is one of the most famous CEOs in the field.”
Harvard junior Joe Corning said he was also interested in seeing where and how Chesapeake is expanding its business.
“Natural gas and fossil fuels are the energy of the future,” he said.
On Feb 25, 2:10 pm, Lisa Wright wrote:
> ----
> From: deirdre lally
> To: SusquehannaCoGasForum ;
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
;
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
> Sent: Thu, February 25, 2010 3:07:04 PM
> Subject: [grassrootsVSgas] Boston activists disrupt natural gas lecture by Chesapeake CEO
>
> Hello friends,
> We successfully showed Aubrey McClendon last night that folks are very displeased with him. The lecture was disrupted and ended 40 minutes early! Feel free to forward this widely, video is on its way. Thank you to everyone who sent me feedback for this event, we gave McClendon a packet that had all of the comments and questions you all sent to me. Who knows if he will actually read it...
>
> For a personal account:
> McClendon was very rude. He mocked the people who were worried about health defects and got defensive and completely lost his composure when we were quick to respond to his sarcasm with solid responses. He is not a nice man, not at all. When we told him we were delivering messages from directly impacted communities, we were told to "keep our comments to just questions", so we asked him if he would be willing to listen to the voices of the people who are feeling the effects of his business, he said "I will only answer questions" so pretty much "No". People definitely got our message. We are considering this action a "win". Solidarity to yall from Boston
>
> <3
> Deirdre
>
> CONTACT: KATE BUCKETTE 570-854-2288
> FEBRUARY 25, 2010
> CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CEO AUBREY MCLENDON NOT WELCOME IN BOSTON;
> ACTIVISTS DISRUPT NATURAL GAS LECTURE
>
> Photos available online:http://www.flickr.com/photos/47868827@N04/
>
> VIDEO COMING SOON!
>
> Chesapeake Energy has been called the 2nd largest producer
> of natural gas in the United States. While CEO of Chesapeake Aubrey McClendon
> sells natural gas as the key to “fueling America’s clean energy future,” the
> residents of Marcellus Shale-rich areas tell a different story: poisoned
> groundwater, toxic waste, and rural communities that have seen their once
> pristine air now contaminated with higher levels of o-zone than Los
> Angeles.
>
> Activists representing the Marcellus Shale field residents
> spoke to the dirty truth of gas drilling at McClendon’s lecture at Harvard
> University titled “Natural Gas: Fueling America’s Clean Energy Future”. After
> comments shouted from audience
> members about what chemicals are used in fracking, concerns of health
> defects,
> and how gas and oil companies are exempt from regulations, McClendon
> abandoned
> the lecture forty minutes early, clearly shaken by the feedback. One
> activist showed him a jar of murky brown water to represent well water
> after fracking, and asked McClendon if he would drink it, as people are
> forced to drink contaminated water. He said no. After the lecture,
> activists delivered a packet with letters, questions and comments to
> McClendon directly from impacted community members. As he was escorted
> out of the building, about 15 people sang songs of ecocide to liven up
> his exit.
>
> Residents of the shale fields are actively resisting the
> greedy, destructive endeavors of Chesapeake Energy and its cohorts. According to residents of Pulteney, NY,
> “On Superbowl Sunday an overflow crowd of 500 people met in tiny Pulteney, NY
> to oppose Chesapeake’s injection well application. US Rep. Eric Massa even said he would give up his life by
> lying in front of a frack truck trying to prevent this happening.”
> According to the Charleston Gazette, Chesapeake Energy
> "underpaid royalty owners by $134 million and deserved to pay $271 million
> more in punitive damages."
> WHAT IS HYROFRACKING? Using a new drilling process known as
> "high-volume hydraulic fracturing" ('hydrofracking'), gas companies
> are seeking to tap a huge natural gas reserve, the Marcellus Shale, extending
> from southern West Virginia to upstate New York. Unlike in conventional gas
> reserves, the gas in the Marcellus is trapped and dispersed throughout the
> shale in tiny deposits. Corporations drill into the shale and release millions
> of gallons of water mixed with thick chemical slurry under pressure to release
> the gas in the fracking process. Each well may be fracked up to 10 times in its
> lifetime.
> Each fracking uses 2-9 million gallons of fresh water that
> can be drawn from lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands, and once contaminated,
> that water is too toxic to return to the watershed. Hydrofracking has been
> linked to contaminated drinking water supplies; some nearby residents can
> generate a fireball just by holding a lighter to their faucet. The water itself
> has been contaminated with fracking fluid, the chemical slurry the industry is
> able to use only because of Bush-era exemptions to the Clean Water Act.
> -- |
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Otsego county food club in the works |
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On the Bright Side: Sustainable Otsego works to start local food club
By Tom Grace
Daily Star
Cooperstown News Bureau
Published: January 28, 2010 12:00 am
Fresh food lovers in Otsego County may soon be rejoicing.
Homemade, locally produced, farm-fresh food may soon be delivered to their doors through an initiative from Sustainable Otsego.
In recent weeks, its members have been talking about starting a local food-buying club.
"People want to eat better and help local farmers,'' group co-founder Adrian Kuzminiski said.
Although Sustainable Otsego is known for its opposition to natural-gas drilling, that's not its only mission, Kuzminiski said.
"The whole idea is to encourage a more sustainable, healthy lifestyle for individuals and the area," he said. "And buying local food is at the heart of that.''
When a flurry of e-mails showed that many county residents wanted to buy local food, Erik Miller _ executive director of the Otsego County Conservation Association and Oneonta Third Ward alderman _ stepped in to help.
"There's no need to reinvent the wheel,'' Miller said Wednesday. ``We can deliver local food to people in this county; they're already doing it in Chenango County.''
In 2007, the Chenango County Agriculture Development Council set up Chenango Bounty, a program to deliver food from farmers to other residents once a week.
With milk from Evans Farm, a creamery in Norwich and other small- to medium-sized farms on board, the program grew. In 2008, Madison County joined in, and the farmers-market-on-wheels is known as CNY _ standing for Central New York _ Bounty.
"We're averaging about 100 orders a week now,'' CNY Bounty project coordinator Steven Holzbauer said. Customers are able to choose from as many as 1,000 products _ ``probably 600 to 700 this time of year,'' Holzbauer said _ by logging onto www.cnybounty.com.
CNY Bounty operates with a 23 percent profit margin, which covers the cost of delivery, he said.
To qualify for home delivery, customers' orders must total at least $35. Bounty also delivers smaller quantities of food to drop-off sites, including one in Onondaga County, he said.
Expanding to Otsego County and enrolling more Otsego County farmers and producers will take work and some money but is definitely possible, he said.
Holzbauer also works for the Center for Agriculture Development & Entrepreneurship Inc. of Oneonta. Together with CADE's Executive Director Chris Harmon, he said he plans to attend a meeting of interested Otsego County producers and consumers, probably next week.
Harmon noted the program is a boon to farmers, supplying much-needed cash, and said he is looking into funding possibilities.
Miller said OCCA has offered its offices on Pioneer Alley in Cooperstown for organizers to host a meeting.
More information about CNY Bounty is available at its website.
More information about the pending expansion into Otsego County will be posted at www.sustainableotsego.org, Kuzminski said.
http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_028040023.html |
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Huffington Post on Paterson and Gas Drilling |
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Posted: January 28, 2010 02:54 PM
Huffington Post
Alison Rose Levy
Don't Frack with New York! Governor Patterson Poisons the Well to Balance the Budget
Former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer may have had his sexual peccadilloes but he knew how to stand up to corporate interests that threatened the public good. It was a big boost for oil companies, planning to despoil New York State, when the powerhouse Spitzer was replaced by his easily rolled-over successor.
While belt-tightening throughout the state budget, Governor Patterson added $3 million to fast track harmful gas drilling practices--a quick fix economic solution with tragic long-range health, economic, and environmental consequences.
On Monday, a statewide coalition of New York state residents, businesses, and environmental groups rallied in the state capital of Albany to ask legislators to oppose Patterson's plans to contaminate state-wide water supplies (including New York City's) by permitting a damaging form of gas drilling, known as "fracking," or hydraulic fracturing.
Thanks to lobbying by Halliburton and other energy companies, under the Bush-Cheney administration, fracking got exempted from the Clean Water Act even though it releases large quantities of undisclosed carcinogens and toxic chemicals into the earth and water supply.
According to a recent study, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), just one drilling site deploys harmful chemicals sufficient "to contaminate more than 100 billion gallons of drinking water to unsafe levels ... more than 10 times as much water as the entire state of New York uses in a single day."
The chemicals used in fracking "pose a serious threat to the nation's water supplies, but those risks have been largely ignored," says the report. "Drinking water contamination and property damage have been linked to hydraulic fracturing in four states--Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. In one incident that polluted a Colorado creek, the drilling company is still trying to clean it up--four years later."
Nor does the drilling create local jobs or business. Instead, companies bus in workers from Texas, housing them in "man camps," sites where reportedly alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual predation abound. While no one wants a "man camp" next door, a gas well also ruins the neighborhood. If one owner sells property for drilling, all neighboring land can be conscripted for leasing, with no rights of refusal. Fracking also releases chemicals into the air; an army of trucks must carry over roads and New York State highways up to four million gallons of contaminated water (per well)-- which amps up air pollution and costly highway repairs. There is currently no way to effectively decontaminate the high quantities of waste water produced by fracking.
"We can't let the gleam of potential profits leave us with a legacy of polluted water and industrialized landscapes," said Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper.
Last month, New York City's Department of Environmental Protection issued a report urging a halt to gas drilling since, "Natural gas drilling and exploration are incompatible with the operation of New York City's unfiltered water supply system and pose unacceptable risks for more than nine million New Yorkers in the City and State." They noted that drilling entails "invasive industrialization and creates a substantial risk of chemical contamination, and infrastructure damage."
This week, Mayor Bloomberg chimed in, "The consequences are so severe that it is not a risk that I think we should run. I do not think that we should allow fractured drilling anywhere near our water supply."
Although land can be fenced in, water can't be. It flows underground, it rises into clouds, it's borne by the winds, and released by the rains, far from its source.
While the Mayor nobly aims to protect the immediate area surrounding the city's upstate water reservoir, so far no studies have investigated how far water-born contaminants from throughout the state could flow downstream to impact NYC, or it's water supply. Fracking originated in arid western regions, and its proponents don't know the extent of pollution possible in a region of interconnected rivers and frequent rains like New York and New England.
In New York State, gas drillers hope to use fracking in the regions of the New York City Watershed, the Delaware River, the Finger Lakes, and upstate watersheds, the source of waters that flow downstate to New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
With fresh water resources becoming scarcer worldwide due to population growth and climate change, it's unconscionable for a short-term Governor to short-sell a precious resource to balance his budget. Perhaps the soon to declare gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Cuomo, will like his popular father, Governor Mario Cuomo, become a successful champion.
To take action, sign up with the Environmental Advocates NY, Citizens for Safe Energy http://www.catskillcitizens.org/ The Environmental Working Group proposes a national ban or better regulation. Or join No Fracking Way on Facebook. Or cut to the chase, and ask soon to declare candidate, Andrew Cuomo to make New York State a model for future-oriented policies, rather than a disastrous object lesson in the costs of short-sighted gain.
For health insight, action, and news, get the free Health Outlook at www.healthjournalist.com
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Otsego County Gas Well Waste Rejected |
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Watertown Daily Times | City treating toxic water
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20100117/NEWS03/301179986/
'HYDRO-FRACKING' TECHNIQUE:
Groups warn of potential damage to Black River
By ROBERT BRAUCHLE
TIMES STAFF WRITER
SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2010
Environmental groups are warning Watertown officials that if the waste fluid the city is now treating from a hydraulic-fracturing mine isn't processed properly, it could harm the Black River and damage the city's sewage treatment facility.
"This might be the most well-studied water in the state right now," said Michael J. Sligar, Watertown sewage treatment plant operator.
Watertown is one of very few municipalities in New York treating the briny cocktail, as few governments are pursuing permits from the state because of the potentially harmful impacts of the treatment process, environmental groups and industry insiders said.
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Congressman Arcuri in Cooperstown--1/15 |
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Cooperstown, NY--Congressman Michael Arcuri will be at the Kingfisher room at the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown, NY, at 11 am this Friday, 15 January, 2010, to talk about shale gas drilling. The public is invited.
At a recent meeting with Sustainable Otsego and other groups, including Catskill Mountainkeper, Otsego 2000, and Shaleshock, the Congressman called for the withdrawl of DEC's draft supplementary Environmental Impact Statement on shale gas drilling, citing growing concerns about the negative impacts on water pollution, public health, agriculture, the environment, and property values.
Here is a chance to share your concerns about gas drilling with the Congressman, and to encourage him to continue efforts to protect his constituents from the harmful consequences of this extractive technology.
See you there.
Adrian Kuzminski
Moderator, Sustainable Otsego |
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Conflict of Interest? |
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Thursday, 07 January 2010 00:24 |
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East Resources Will Fund Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network in the Susquehanna River Basin
US Newswire
WARRENDALE, Pa., Dec. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- East Resources, Inc. announced today that it will donate $750,000 to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) to underwrite the deployment of a remote water quality monitoring network in the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River watershed. The network will routinely observe and record water quality conditions in smaller rivers and streams flowing through areas of the watershed where Marcellus Shale development and other water resource uses occur.
"Environmental organizations and local watershed groups have expressed concerns
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What We Don't Know About Natural Gas Drilling |
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Natural Gas Drilling: What We Don’t Know
Thursday 31 December 2009
by: Abrahm Lustgarten | ProPublica
It takes brute force to wrest natural gas from the earth. Millions of gallons of chemical-laden water mixed with sand -- under enough pressure to peel paint from a car -- are pumped into the ground, pulverizing a layer of rock that holds billions of small bubbles of gas.
The chemicals transform the fluid into a frictionless mass that works its way deep into the earth, prying open tiny cracks that can extend thousands of feet. The particles of sand or silicon wedge inside those cracks, holding the earth open just enough to allow the gas to slip by.
Gas drilling is often portrayed as the ultimate win-win in an era of hard choices: a new, 100-year supply of cleaner-burning fuel, a risk-free solution to the nation’s dependence on foreign energy. In the next 10 years, the United States will use the fracturing technology to drill hundreds of thousands of new wells astride cities, rivers and watersheds.
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Otsego County Gas Drilling Problems |
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Drill Wastewater Disposal Options in N.Y. Report Have Problems of Their Own
by Joaquin Sapien and Sabrina Shankman , ProPublica - December 29, 2009 12:01 am EST
http://www.propublica.org/feature/drill-wastewater-disposal-options-in-ny-report-have-problems-1229
A version of this story is being published by the [1]Albany Times-Union [1].

The site of one of Canada-based Gastem USA's wells in Otsego County, N.Y. The well produced far less wastewater than most Marcellus Shale wells will, but it still took the drillers more than a year to get permission to drill it, because they couldn't find a place to dispose of the water. (Joaquin Sapien/ProPublica)
Environmentalists, state regulators and even energy companies agree that the problem most likely to slow natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale in New York is safely disposing of the billions of gallons of contaminated wastewater the industry will produce.
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CONTAMINATION AT PA WELL SITE IN WATERSHED |
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CONTAMINATION AT WELL SITE IN WATERSHED An investigation of the Robson Well has confirmed contaminated soils at the site. This is the only active well within the watershed region. It was drilled with no oversight by watershed basin regulators - under great opposition by Damascus Citizens. Thus we took two sets of aerial photographs, circled the site with a coordinated set of water tests, and our legal team filed an official complaint on October 5. We have had no response.
http://www.damascuscitizens.org/Robson.html
http://www.DamascusCitizens.org |
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Department of Environmental Protection Calls for Prohibition on Drilling in the New York City Waters |
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Report finds gas drilling poses unacceptable risks to the unfiltered drinking water supply for nine million New Yorkers
Natural gas drilling and exploration are incompatible with the operation of New York City’s unfiltered water supply system and pose unacceptable risks for more than nine million New Yorkers in the City and State. Drilling in the watershed requires invasive industrialization and creates a substantial risk of chemical contamination, and infrastructure damage, according to the Final Impact Assessment Report prepared for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). After reviewing the report, DEP has called for a prohibition on any drilling in the New York City watershed, located upstate.
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Heartbreaking Stories Warn New Yorkers of What May Be in Store if the State OKs Controversial Gas Drilling |
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By Maura Stephens, AlterNet. Posted December 10, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144498/
I live and work in Marcellus shale ground zero -- central New York State, just south of the Finger Lakes, one of the biggest and best watersheds in the hemisphere. My home is in economically challenged, mostly rural Tioga County, and I work in Tompkins County. Almost all our neighbors for several miles around have signed gas leases. I participate regularly and actively as a client, colleague, patient, or volunteer with businesses, organizations, and institutions in 19 other New York counties.
I have been economically poor and landless, economically comfortable and landless, comfortable and landed, and poor and landed. I've been rural, suburban, and urban. And I've spent most of my adult life paying state and local taxes in New York State (and a whole lot of national taxes, most of which have gone toward things I do not condone). I am a farmer, writer, editor, actor, and educator. My spouse, who was laid off a couple years ago and has been underemployed and looking for work ever since, and I struggle to make ends meet. Yet we love this part of the world and have been glad to call it home. This is all by way of showing we are stakeholders in this region, dubbed "Marcellus shale" for the natural gas reserves hidden underground. Because we care a whole lot and wanted to learn firsthand, my spouse and I recently traveled around West Virginia and Pennsylvania, talking to people whose lives have been affected by the same sort of hydrofracturing (or "fracking"), a technique used in drilling for natural gas that is likely to soon take place in New York State.
Most of these Pennsylvanians told us they rue the day they signed the gas leases. Some of them "inherited" gas leases -- or bought property on which there was a mineral rights lease they were unaware of -- and now are paying the consequences.
Their stories were heartbreaking. This is some of what they told us, including several things not mentioned in other articles I've read about fracking:
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Why Horizontal Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing of Gas Wells Should Be Banned in New York State |
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The White Paper prepared by Sustainable Otsego for Congressman Michael Arcuri begins:
"Our conclusion, on the basis of the points below, is that shale gas drilling is unsafe given its current or any likely technology, and unjust given the current legal and regulatory framework, and should therefore at this time be banned in NYS."
Read the complete paper here. |
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Pennsylvania Tells Drilling Company to Clean Up Its Act |
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After a year of chemical spills [1], water well contamination and an explosion caused by leaking underground methane, Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. has been fined $120,000 and ordered to abide by a set of stricter-than-usual probationary regulations if it wants to continue its vast natural gas drilling [2] operation in Pennsylvania.
The charges and conditions against Cabot were outlined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in a 23-page document [5] that lists each of Cabot’s offenses -- from failure to properly cement wells, to failure to maintain and submit proper records – and asks the company to acknowledge and address the findings. The fine is the largest issued by the Pennsylvania agency to a gas company.
Cabot signed the order Wednesday agreeing to the state’s conditions, but seemed to stop short of taking full responsibility. “The department made several findings, and we agreed with the basic facts as they were laid out,” said a Cabot spokesman, Ken Komoroski. “But Cabot did not agree to the legal conclusions of violations of laws and regulations.”
The DEP began investigating Cabot early this year, after residents in Dimock started reporting methane bubbling out of their faucets [3] – a sign that natural gas had contaminated their water supplies. Investigators found that some of Cabot’s well casings, which seal well pipes from water supplies, were faulty and had allowed natural gas to migrate into the groundwater.
The groundwater incidents were the first of several spills and accidents [6] that followed. In at least two cases the company spilled diesel or drilling fluids which reached water supplies. And in September, the DEP ordered Cabot to stop its hydraulic fracturing operations in Susquehanna County after it allowed three hydraulic fracturing fluid spills in nine days. The ban was lifted on Oct. 16, after the company revised its pollution prevention and control plan.
Now the company has until March 31 to comply with parts of the DEP’s order and submit a plan outlining how it will permanently replace the water supplies for more than a dozen affected homes near the town of Dimock.
The most important requirements have to do with well construction. Cabot will have to submit well casing and cementing plans to the DEP, which will have to approve the well before Cabot can proceed with drilling or any hydraulic fracturing. The company will also have to submit a plan that specifically lays out how it will prove the integrity of the casing and cementing on existing wells and fix any that are defective. If the defective casing isn’t fixed by the March deadline, Cabot will be ordered to plug its defective wells.
“They’ve got to go back and fix all of those wells,” said DEP spokeswoman Teresa Candori.
“It does add some additional requirements beyond the regulations but these are measures and procedures that Cabot agrees are appropriate for the area,” Cabot spokesman Komoroski said.
Cabot has been drilling in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania since 2006. It drilled one well in 2006, and one in 2007, before ramping up in 2008 and drilling 20. The company will drill between 40 and 60 wells in 2009, and has plans to drill between 50 and 70 more in 2010.
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A drilling chant: Slow, baby, slow |
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Times Union lead editorial today - A Drilling Chant: Slow, baby, slow--Friday, November 6, 2009
The rush to drill for natural gas in New York seems to be slowing a bit. We're encouraged -- guardedly so -- by the Department of Environmental Conservation's decision to give the public an extra month to weigh in on the state's proposed new gas drilling rules.
That's a good start. We urge DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis to keep that schedule flexible.
The extension of the public comment period to Dec. 31 was probably a lot harder for the DEC than it might seem. State agencies are big battleships when it comes to making mid-course corrections, even on the easiest of issues. In this case, the issue is the more than 800-page set of rules written by the DEC itself. The agency could easily have taken a defensive posture and said it was sticking to its timetable. It could have said this has been studied and talked to death -- which it has not.
This one-month extension, then, is no small deal. It acknowledges deep and widespread concerns about the plan to extract natural gas from the vast Marcellus Shale formation that covers six states. In New York, it lies under the Southern Tier and the Catskills, including the watershed that supplies New York City with water that is so pristine it doesn't have to be filtered. That, as they might say in Brooklyn, is somethin' you don't mess with.
The industry maintains that its method of extracting the gas, hydraulic fracturing, is safe, but environmental and other groups have voiced concerns about the potential for damage, especially to drinking water. The process involves forcing millions of gallons of water mixed with various chemicals into the deep rock to crack it and break open pockets of natural gas. Critics say accidents could contaminate both underground and surface water, risks the industry says are negligible. It asks New York to shrug off incidents in other states as rare.
Whether the protections the DEC proposes are as good as the agency says remain to be seen. Pennsylvania thought it had done an exhaustive job when it pulled together a list of 31 chemicals used in the drilling process. Now, we find in New York's documents, a much higher number: 260. It's understandable that the public might be developing some trust issues when it comes to the assurances of the industry and its regulators.
We credit the DEC for learning far more already that any other state, or the federal government for that matter, about this undertaking. There may be many more questions, however, as the public looks even closer. New York City is awaiting a consultant's report on the potential threats drilling poses to its water supply, a document that isn't expected to be done by the DEC's deadline. Mr. Grannis should give the city the time it needs.
As we've said before, the gas isn't going anywhere. There is no reason New York can't take the time to get this right. And quite a few million reasons not to get it wrong.
The issue: The state slows down the review of new gas drilling rules.
The stakes: New York can't deliberate enough when it comes to water quality.
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