Stop the rush on NYS Gas Drilling
Fighting Fracking, Reclaiming the Commons!
Saturday, May 12, 3pm, Pier 54 (Between West and 13th)
Join Time's Up, Reverend Billy, the Church of Earthalujah, and OWS Environmental Solidarity as we participate in an international day of action in defense of Food, Environment, and Health.
Spectra Energy wants to frack with NY! What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!They are hoping to build a 16 mile fracked gas pipeline from New Jersey to NY, stored in the West Village, right under the Highline park.
Hell no! Dress up!
-Monochromatic colors representing any of the frack fluids!
-Dress as a green energy alternative- a windmill, solar panel, turbine, etc.- -Dress as fire from the explosion that could happen
-Be creative! Be visual!
From Pier 54 we will march and bike to City Hall to join a convergence of activists from around the city who will be standing up for our ecosystem on this day of action (5:30 PM). Together we can reclaim the Commons!
An Urgent Call to Action: New Yorkers Against Fracking
Tuesday, May 15th in Albany
Rally: 4:30-6pm West Capitol Lawn
Concert: 7pm The Egg, Empire State Plaza
Purchase tickets here
Artwork by Will Sweeney
Featuring:
Mark Ruffalo, Melissa Leo, Dan Zanes, Medeski Martin + Wood,
Natalie Merchant, Citizen Cope, Joan Osborn, and many more!
Letter from Gas Drilling Task Force Co-Chairs:
FRACKING: National Catching Up to the Grassroots?
IN NEW YORK
Beginning in 2008, the Atlantic Chapter began hearing from its grassroots activists about hydrofracking. We formed a Gas Drilling Task Force to address the matter and it quickly became our most active campaign. Thus began a frantic effort to get on top of what was to become a national environmental issue and the most important one confronting our state.
The gas industry had a huge head start in New York, quietly signing leases with unsuspecting landowners in the Southern Tier while lobbying key state legislators and DEC officials. During this period, a seemingly innocuous bill slipped through the legislature and was on Governor Paterson’s desk waiting to be signed. This legislation would have allowed fracking to go forward based on a 1992 Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS).
The Chapter determined that the 1992 GEIS did not address the high-volume hydraulic fracturing that would have taken place. Quick action was taken to impress upon the governor that a supplemental GEIS was needed. Governor Paterson, responding to our request, instituted a review that created the de facto moratorium that currently exists. The Chapter participated in the scoping process, commented on drafts and gave testimony at numerous hearings.
By October 2009 the Chapter was convinced that fracking represented a major threat to our environment and public health, and that no amount of regulation could make it safe. The Chapter further determined hydrofracking represented a big distraction from what should be our major goals: moving away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy. The Chapter ExCom passed a resolution calling for a ban on hydrofracking and became the first major environmental group in Albany to do so.
NATIONAL’S POSITION
At this time, National was in the midst of a highly successful “Beyond Coal” campaign. Part of its strategy was to promote natural gas as a “bridge” fuel until renewable energy could take its place. The Atlantic Chapter was told that its resolution was “not consistent with existing Club policy.” Thus began the Atlantic Chapter’s long, arduous task of educating National.
Members of the Atlantic Chapter and several Sierra Club activists in the Southern Tier met with then-Vice President for Conservation Robin Mann, along with several National staff. We were appalled at their lack of detailed knowledge on the issue. At the meeting we discussed our concerns but were told not to speak publicly of the Chapter’s ban resolution.
In November 2009, the Chapter sent a delegation to San Francisco to meet with members of the National Board of Directors. Our representatives discovered that most Board members knew very little about hydrofracking. The few officers who were acquainted with the process insisted that “best practices” and “tough regulations” could address the problem. This was usually followed by the mantra: “We need natural gas as a bridge fuel.” We felt strongly that this should not be the Sierra Club’s vision.
We suspected that something was amiss. Why would the Club hold back on an issue that was already devastating Pennsylvania, Texas and over 30 other states and now threatening New York?
THE LATEST FROM SAN FRANCISCO
This resistance was exposed on February 2, 2012, when Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune revealed that the Club had accepted $26 million in donations from gas industry representatives. Many of us who had suspected this was occurring were actually relieved that the Club had finally “come clean.”
We were aware of former Executive Director Carl Pope’s relationship with natural gas tycoon T. Boone Pickens, and his participation in the infamous Aspen Summit in Colorado. At this conference, leaders from several large environmental organizations mingled with public officials, attorneys and corporate energy executives to carefully craft a message that extolled the virtues of shale gas and hydrofracking with the express purpose of reframing the presently negative public message with a positive spin: “to fast track increased demand for natural gas,” to extol “the clear benefits (energy, economic, and security) of natural gas . . . expand its environmentally beneficial use,” and “Radically expand efficiency and renewable resources backed up by natural gas.” ( http://aspensciencecenter.org/asc/critical-path-energy-summit)
This orientation was accompanied by the explicit understanding that, above all, “Only with the help of credible NGOs will a shift be possible.” The intent to paint a rosy picture of gas and its extraction process is to make a highly polluting industry acceptable by using phrases such as “best practices” and advocating for “tough regulations.” The key was to promote natural gas as a “bridge” fuel.
To be fair, even before National revealed the gas industry donations, we had already begun to see the fruits of our labors. In March 2010, with less than two days on the job, Michael Brune called a special meeting with delegates from New York and Pennsylvania to hear from us personally. Michael was very much in a listening mode. Soon after, the Club no longer referred to gas as a “clean” fuel that was expected to replace coal, and all mention of “bridge” fuel was removed from the Energy Policy. A whole new national campaign was also established to address the problems of shale gas.
OUR GOAL
National still has a long way to go to restore trust. We believe the Sierra Club must reestablish itself as a strong voice of reason in the national debate on hydrofracking, and call for a complete halt to this inherently destructive process. We hope that National will set the example for other large national environmental groups to follow.
Many were taken aback when President Obama said in his State of the Union address that we should increase the production of natural gas. How could the president say that? Might the complicity of national environmental groups have something to do with it?
The Atlantic Chapter’s fight is far from over. Now that our own national organization has “come clean,” maybe we will see a turning point in our campaign against fracking. Chapter members can take pride in playing a key role on both the state and national levels in pressing this issue forward.
Recent Gas-Drilling News
Wednesday, January 11th marked the end of DEC's public comment period for the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
Atlantic Chapter members and supporters submitted over 4000 comments highlighting the many flaws with the dSGEIS!
See our official Atlantic Chapter Comments
&
National Sierra Club's Joint Comments (submitted with Catskill Mountainkeeper, NRDC, Earthjustice and others)
More technical and in-depth comments and attachments found here.
Read the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact statement on Horizontal Hydrofracking at:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/75370.html
Expert Confirms - Radon to be Carried with Gas via the Spectra Pipeline.
The Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter has received confirmation from testimony submitted by James W. Ring, Winslow Professor Emeritus of nuclear physics at Hamilton College, on the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation's revised draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, regarding the dangers of inhaled radon and the likelihood that shale gas extracted from the Marcellus will deliver radon into NYS residences at point of use. The Spectra pipeline will deliver Marcellus shale gas from nearby Pennsylvania to New York City homes, increasing the risk that residents will inhale radon when they turn on their stoves...(read full text here.)
Protect New York from Horizontal Hydrofracking
What is Marcellus Shale?
Marcellus Shale is a methane-rich rock formation that lies 6,000 to 9,000 feet below the Catskill Mountains, the Delaware River Valley, the Allegany Plateau, to beyond the shores of Lake Erie, spanning 28 New York Counties. Limited technology and market forces have severely limited its extraction until now.
Recent advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing combined with soaring energy prices have brought much industry focus to New York State with tens of thousands of acres of gas leases already purchased. Much of upstate New York could be transformed into an industrial grid work of gas fields and pipelines. Once the exploitation of Marcellus Shale is underway, the Utica Shale in northern NY won't be far behind.
Hydraulic Fracturing Presents Substantially Harmful Impacts to Upstate New York.
Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” involves injecting water, sand, and chemical additives into shale at extremely high pressure, separating rock fissures and allowing the gas to flow out the drill bore while the sand holds the cracks open. Because Marcellus shale formations are so deep, millions of gallons of water are required and subsequently millions of gallons of contaminated water are produced.
3-9 million gallons of water are required to fracture a well and a single well may be fractured up to 18 times. Each fracking episode entails 600-800 truck trips to deliver water to the well pad, as well as several hundred trips to haul away contaminated “produced water”. Much of this contamination comes from naturally occurring chlorides, heavy metals and radioactivity previously locked in the shale. But the “produced” water also includes fracking fluids - tens of thousands of gallons of industrial chemicals whose exact composition remains uncertain and held as a trade secret. Recent disclosures to NYS have revealed 260 separate chemicals in frack fluid including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, endocrine disrupters that are dangerous even in small quantities.
Accidents Happen
In spite of assurances of drilling’s safety from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), occurrences of groundwater contamination are mounting. Recent Marcellus shale drilling in Dimock, Pennsylvania resulted in 9 contaminated private drinking water wells. In 2007, the drilling of a single gas well in North Brookfeild, NY blew out at least 11 drinking water wells. From 1983 to 2008, the Chautauqua County Dept of Health documented more that 120 cases of ground water contamination from natural gas wells. The DEC would not officially substantiate these claims because there was no pre-testing of water to establish correlation. To date, The DEC has never provided conclusive proof that hydraulic fracturing is safe, nor can they produce any evidence of ground water monitoring for natural gas well in NYS. Thousands of spills, explosions, fires, and illegal releases have been documented in NY, though fines and enforcement actions are rare.
Official Atlantic Chapter Position Statement
The Atlantic Chapter opposes unconventional gas extraction practices in New York State as it is now practiced, and as it is proposed in the dSGEIS, because such practices and proposals:
- endanger water supplies and critical watersheds;
- imperil human health;
- seriously damage important wild land resources;
- significantly increase habitat fragmentation;
- use fracking fluids that pose unacceptable toxic risks;
- do not disclose the identity and volume of fracking fluids;
- do not properly treat, manage, and account for fracking fluids, drilling muds, and wastewater;
- do not adequately protect drinking water aquifers and surface waters from contamination; and
- will cause violations of air quality standards, individually and cumulatively
For more information or to reach our gas drilling task force please contact one of our Gas Drilling Task Force Co-Chairs:
Kate Bartholomew
Gusti Bogok
Chris Burger
Join the Chapter's Action Alert Email List
For more information about pressing environmental issues facing New York State and ways to take action, please join the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter's action alert email list.
Members receive an average of four emails a month. To subscribe, send an email to listserv@lists.sierraclub.org with the message of "SUBSCRIBE ATL-ACTION-ALERTS@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG your first and last name."