The Town of Oneonta, New York, Otsego County held a public hearing on a proposed natural gas moratorium last week. There were several people in support of the moratorium and about a dozen people opposed. Quite a few of the proponents were familiar faces last seen attending the Sidney public hearing, clearly the anti-natural gas folks are continuing their crusade across the state in an effort to stop development through local laws. Why are these bans and moratoriums such a bad idea? Let’s count the ways.
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In the northeast corner of Pennsylvania in the DRBC region, sits Wayne County; a beautiful landscape with rolling hills, bountiful farmland, and quaint towns. Underneath this pristine countryside is the mighty Marcellus Shale formation. Unfortunately, this article is not about the safe and responsible development of natural gas or the vast economic prosperity that comes with its development. Instead, this article is about the unneeded, and possibly unconstitutional, de facto moratorium currently handcuffing the region.
Neil Vitale
Steuben County, NY Organic Dairy Farmer
Steuben County Land Owners Coalition
A short time ago, in 2008, there was a goose ready to come into New York that would provide significant prosperity to upstate resident’s in New York. It was similar to another which already landed in Pennsylvania bringing prosperity to that state. Governor Patterson, unfortunately, listened to environmental activists and chased our goose, which was ready to lay golden eggs all over the Southern Tier, into Pennsylvania. Now, because the Governor chose to side with false narratives from environmental activists, we all must continue to wait for the benefits this goose will bring.
Farmers in the Southern Tier never bought what these environmentalists were selling. Through experience they realized a goose would make noise, occasionally leave a feather in the yard and some organic fertilizer, but all of this is manageable. Farmers were willing to tolerate this, but the misinformed environmentalists did not want to see this goose in our State so they made up stories and yelled as loud as they could.
Bryant LaTourette
Chenango County Businessman and Landowner
A little over a week ago something magical happened in the Town of Sidney (Delaware County, NY). Unfortunately, it was black magic accompanied by theatrics, poetry, and horror stories like none we’ve heard before. Yarns were spun and scenes right out of Bill Murray’s Ground Hog Day were created through the performances of the committed anti-growth, anti-gas, anti-everything actors from NYRAD (New York Residents Against Drilling).
The performance was repeated in the Town of Plymouth (Chenango County, NY). Once again, the stage was a town hall rather than a theater. The pattern was, and is always, the same. The unsuspecting town board opens its meeting. An agenda is passed out. There is a pledge to the flag, review of minutes, correspondence and new business. The Town Supervisor caught wind of possible disruptions to this meeting from other supervisors and what happened in Sidney. Meeting rules are announced in an attempt to get ahead of the emotion.
Univ. of Texas Study: No Link Between Hydraulic Fracturing and Groundwater Contamination
Jim Willis
Editor, Marcellus Drilling News
Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination, based on evidence reviewed in a study released Thursday by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin.
The 414-page study, titled “Fact-Based Regulation for Environmental Protection in Shale Gas Development,” was released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Men, you may want to click on one of the other entries on this blog for the next couple minutes. Go ahead, it’s OK; staying on this blog could become uncomfortable rather quickly. Sistas, I had to send the men away because we’re going to talk about Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) here. Yes, that’s right. We’ve had ‘em, we hate ‘em and we have a general understanding of how they happen. This familiarity is one reason I was so surprised while watching a recent production from WCNY entitled “Groundswell: Hydrofracking in New York”.
By our count, The New York Times has produced nine separate stories since last February under its continuing “Drilling Down” series — all intended to cast a jaundiced eye on natural gas, especially in the Northeast where so much of the Times’ readership resides. As part of that series, the Times has quoted dozens of sources of varying levels of expertise and credibility to manufacture a broader thesis that’s antithetical to development — along the way, conjuring up specters of air and water ruined, mortgages denied, and “Ponzi schemes” coming at us from every angle, all while doing its level-best to outright ignore the obvious and increasingly significant benefits that resource development is making possible for communities that would otherwise in this economy be on the ropes.
Well, it’d be easy to write it all off as the Times just being the Times – but is there more to it? Well, yes, there is. Our research indicates that The New York Times, and reporter Ian Urbina in particular, is borrowing many of its sources and much of its research from a $315-million organization whose explicit goal is to stop natural gas development anywhere it’s being considered. It’s called the Park Foundation, an Ithaca-based foundation that has effectively created “an army” of anti-shale activists, according to its executive director. Interestingly, Park hasn’t yet been mentioned in any of the Times’ stories on natural gas. After the jump, we go ahead and try to connect some of those dots ourselves. read more…
FracFocus.org has generated quite a bit of interest so far in 2012 because it is such an important demonstration of the natural gas industry providing transparency to the public. With data on over 11,000 wells and over 163,000 website visits feedback has been great with people pleased to see hydraulic fracturing solutions listed, and searchable, on a well by well basis. Yet, as is the case with most things in life, some people are just never satisfied.
The Town of Sidney, New York held a public hearing on a proposed moratorium on natural gas development last week. The turnout at the event was unbelievable with nearly 150 people showing up for the hearing, many of whom were in support of natural gas development. In fact, many came to support local business and economic development and oppose a moratorium proposed by David Slottje of the Community Environmental Defense Council (CEDC).



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