Link to Sandra Steingraber’s Speech

Fund raiser to defend the Town of Ulysses from Anschutz Exploration Corporation attack on Home Rule. Lawsuit against town zoning was filed by Anschutz in September, 2011 and is now pending. They are challenging the drilling ban that is currently being enforced by zoning and comprehensive land use planning.

Don’t miss the benefit to “Support Local Frack Bans” at the Rongovian Embassy (One West Main Street, Trumansburg) on January 29 from 4-8 pm. Music by The Yardvarks and the Funky Frack-Free Radicals (Harry Aceto and Friends). You can contact CCU at: ccu.ulysses@gmail.com CCU web site: Concerned Citizens of Ulysses

Statement by Stefan Senders of Wide Awake Bakery, Trumansburg, NY
Bake Bread, Not Shale
www.wideawakebakery.com
Tompkins County Task Force on Gas Drilling
Tompkins County Community Impact Assesment of Hydrofracking

Deborah Rogers – Shale Promises or Shale Spin? The Economics of Hydrofracking Presentation available here.

Summary of Deborah’s main points from her presentations in Upstate NY January, 2012:

Shale gas reserves have been “booked” to show more than is actually there. SEC ruling opened up the reserves for manipulation by the companies. True costs of drilling and how much is actually there are not included. Overstated reserves.

Only 10-20% of wells are profitable. 80% are not and are only ruining the land and water. They drill everywhere as a business plan and to hold leases. They resell leases, wells, everything on an open market to investors (many foreign). A money making machine more than real gas production.

Gas will be for export. They can only sell it here domestically for very low prices. Asia is willing to pay 5-8 times the domestic price. Many permits now being granted for LNG export terminals.

Classic consumer squeeze by the gas industry – Get lots of people and new customers for cheap natural gas, then start exporting it causing the prices to rise, then make tons of money, No lose situation for the gas industry & another great play for the hedge fund managers.

Editor’s comment: read article on Aubrey McLendon & Chesapeake Energy in Forbes. The industry is more speculation & gambling than production. Costs of returning land to health after drilling are not factored in anywhere. Long term energy policy not factored in rush to drill.

In Defense of Clean Energy – New York Times Jan. 28, 2012

Mary Menapace, Chair of the Skaneateles Hydrofracking Committee, will be speaking at the First Presbyterian Church Breakfast on January 22, 2012 at 10:30am.

She will be reviewing her findings so far and her recommendations to the Town of Skaneateles on Hydrofracking in our watershed and state. Mary has been researching this issue for over two years and has attended many conferences, presentations, talked to scientists, geologists, economists, etc. and has visited Dimock, PA to see the process first hand.

Also see GDACC web site (Gas Drilling Awareness for Cortland County)

The Seward Bill:
S5830-2011: Allows local governments to enact or enforce certain laws and ordinances relating to oil, gas and solution mining

PURPOSE:
To authorize local governments to address natural gas drilling in their zoning or planning ordinances.

The Petition:

Whereas all New Yorkers have a right to Home Rule and regulations protecting clean air and water and a peaceful and healthy environment and

Whereas the DEC and State of New York has offered to protect only the Skaneateles Lake and New York City watersheds

We petition the New York State Senate to pass Sen. Seward’s bill S5830 immediately upon returning to session or as soon as possible thereafter for the protection of the entire State and the rights of New York State citizens living outside of those watersheds to preserve their own environment in their own manner through local zoning laws and comprehensive land use plans.

Skaneateles Committee on Hydrofracking

“The setbacks, from a school, daycare center, home, private well, private pond, trout stream are less than any other state in the country. The regulations are worse than Texas where Home Rule is enforced and they need a permit from local government before drilling – and zoning is enforced.” Chip Northrup, on Capitol Pressroom, November 17, 2011.

Coalition Letter to Gov. Cuomo to Withdraw the DSGEIS – Click Here

2011 NY SGEIS Flaws – An Overview – Click Here

How to respond to the DEC proposed “Fracking Regulations” – Click Here

Direct link to DEC on line response page – Click Here
Or mail your comment to the DEC:

Attn: dSGEIS Comments, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 625 Broadway,Albany, NY 12233-6510. Please include the name, address, and affiliation (if any) of the commenter.

2011 Revised Draft SGEIS Chapters

And you can also: Contact Governor Cuomo – Click Here

A million fracking letters

Petition our NYS Senate to support Bill A07400 to suspend hydrofracking in New York State.

Statement to Caroline Town Board by Councilmember Dominic Frongillo on Hydrofracking the Town of Caroline

Rush to Drill Creates Conflicts with Mortgages
By Ian Urbina New York Times October 19, 2011

“Among those who regret signing a lease is Ellen Harrison, a retired
environmental scientist in Caroline, an adjacent town, who said she should have known better than to cede control of her 33 acres. She has formed a group called Fleased to fight the gas companies and help property owners get out of their leases.“There’s a feeling of shame,” said Ms. Harrison, a former director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute in Ithaca. “How could I have been so stupid?”

“Anxiety among some landowners has been growing as many five-year leases reach their expiration dates and some gas companies automatically extend them without the owners’ assent. The companies invoked force majeure, a legal term referring to an unforeseen event that prevents the two sides from fulfilling an agreement.”

“So far, at least 400 leaseholders have filed lawsuits against the gas companies. Other drilling opponents are holding “lease termination” meetings, banding together to seek help from state officials and campaigning for the passage of drilling bans like one approved by Dryden’s town board in August. (Dryden is in turn being sued by Anschutz Exploration Corporation, a Colorado driller with 22,200 acres under lease in the town.)”

“At a meeting last week in Lafayette, near Syracuse, about 50 grim-faced leaseholders showed up with copies of their leases to seek advice from Joseph Heath, an antidrilling lawyer from Onondaga County, and to hear from a landowner who had successfully ended his lease.Many said they feared large-scale industrial activity, spills, water contamination and noise.About 100 miles away in Schoharie County, recent catastrophic flooding has stirred new worries that toxic chemicals used in hydrofracking and the wastewater could travel far.”

Note from Lindsay Speer of NOON:Last Monday, Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation co-sponsored a Gas Lease Termination Workshop led by Joe Heath and Mike Bossetti in LaFayette, NY. While not the first and certainly not the last, this was the workshop that the New York Times attended, and more importantly, wrote about! The next workshop is tentatively planned for Fabius, NY, date and time TBA. Contact me for more details.

By Lou Kilzer, Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Sat September 3, 2011
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Sept. 03–Citing abundant access to supplies of natural gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale and elsewhere, Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. said on Friday that it filed a request with the Department of Energy to begin exporting liquefied gas from its Cove Point terminal in Maryland.

The company seeks to export up to 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day beginning in late 2016, said spokesman Dan Donovan.

Dominion’s application, filed late Thursday, envisions two steps, Donovan said. First, the company is applying to export to countries that have free trade agreements with the United States. That application will be quickly followed by one to allow exports to non-FTA countries.

That is a long list and includes many energy-thirsty countries in Asia, such as China. The Tribune-Review previously reported that Dominion would likely join a growing group of American companies lining up to start shipping natural gas to countries overseas.

One company, Texas-based Cheniere Energy Inc., has won DOE approval to export 2.2 billion cubic feet a day from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. Two other major energy companies have applied to export a total of 3.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day.

Another company, Oregon’s Jordan Cover Energy Partners LLC, expects to make a decision soon on applying to export about 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, project manager Robert Braddock said last month. If all of these requests were approved, the exports combined would amount to more than 12 percent of American natural gas production, based on 2010 levels.

The rush to export natural gas has been controversial. Some manufacturers and public gas companies have argued the move will only increase natural gas prices in the United States, depriving the nation of a key advantage of one of its major natural resources.

On international markets, natural gas prices are linked to petroleum prices. In recent years, natural gas prices have been much higher overseas than those in the American market, according to Barclays Capital (BXUB). Natural gas companies say that exports will increase exploration and create jobs here. Although exports could increase prices somewhat, they dispute the increase will be significant.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Reporting from Spafford:

Tonight, after a lengthy hearing and numerous comments from many residents urging the Town to Ban Hydrofracking the Town Board passed a 180 day Moratorium on Fracking – the first step towards a ban.

All public comments were anti fracking and all were pushing the board to do more – to use the time to study the industry and clarify the Town Zoning to prohibit heavy industry in this pristine rural community that encompasses two major drinking water watersheds for Syracuse and Onondaga County. About 75 people were at the hearing (a lot).

Many residents had gone to Pennsylvania and seen the process for themselves and offered to raise the money to send the board down there to see it for themselves.

Right now, with the current DEC recommendations, half of this town is protected by the DEC because it is in the Skaneateles watershed, and their neighbors in the eastern half of the town in the Otisco Lake watershed are not protected. How crazy is that??

Reporting from Niles:

Last night the Niles Town Board unanimously passed a one year moratorium on hydrofracking. Next step (which won’t be easy) is a ban. The Town Supervisor said they are “too busy” to take up that further issue this Fall (as if anything else they are doing could be remotely as important!) Still, a great start (though it will be vital to keep up the pressure). The next task should be to put together a big public forum on the whole fracking issue, ideally in conjunction with other nearby towns like Moravia and Sempronius.

We ask Gov. Cuomo & DEC for 180-day comment period & public hearings for SGEIS

60 DAYS IS NOT ENOUGH!

We and advocates concerned about the environmental impacts of slick water gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” called on Governor Cuomo and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens today to hold no less than a 180-day comment period and statewide public hearings on the state’s proposed fracking guidelines, formally known as the revised Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Statement (SGEIS). Elected officials, organizations and New Yorkers across the state echoed these concerns.

New Yorkers in Skaneateles and the Finger Lakes deserve more than a mere 180 days to review a thousand-page document that could determine the future health and safety of our land and water.

We agree with 77 other organizations that today released a letter to the Governor and Commissioner Martens calling for the 180-day comment period along with public hearings in at least the same four areas where the DEC held hearings on the 2009 draft fracking document, Binghamton, Sullivan County, New York City and Delaware County. We also called on state leaders to hold hearings in as many of the communities likely to be affected by fracking, including Western New York and the Hudson Valley. Many New Yorkers in these areas did not have the opportunity to attend a public hearing in 2009.

If Governor Cuomo plans to allow fracking to proceed in New York, New Yorkers whose daily lives will be impacted by increased industrial activity, increased truck traffic, and spills or accidents need the time to fully understand and weigh in on the state’s proposed plan.

The DEC’s preliminary revised draft fracking assessment with proposed guidelines was released in July. The complete revised draft is expected to be released for public comment and review in late summer or early fall.

To frack a gas well, millions of gallons of water, sand, and toxic chemicals are pumped deep underground at high pressure. This fractures the rock that has trapped the gas for millennia and allows it to escape. From start to finish, gas development that relies on fracking is an industrial process that threatens our water. State after state, from Wyoming to Pennsylvania, has documented its dangers. New York can’t afford to put short-term gas profits ahead of the long-term health of our water and our communities.