|
|
By arimoore, on October 7th, 2009%
We are on a course for certain disaster if we don’t slow down and make sure our “bridge fuel” is built with solid federal regulations! A recent study of Barnett Shale ambient air was evaluated by Wilma Subra, MacArthur (Genius) Award winning chemist. The study found amazing and very high levels of toxic chemicals including known and suspected human carcinogens and neurotoxins.
Read the rest
By arimoore, on September 9th, 2009%
The time to make your voice heard is tonight! Wednesday September 9, 7:00pm, at Horseheads High School (map).
The village of Horseheads wants to allow a huge corporation, Schlumberger, to build a giant facility serving a 300-mile gas drilling radius with explosives, radioactive material, and concentrated toxic chemicals across the street from a school, without requiring a full environmental impact statement (EIS). Hundreds of trucks will be carrying these materials to and from the facility every single day. The effects will range from air pollution and health hazards from Diesel exhaust to water contamination.
Horseheads wants to do this so that they can secure a few hundred jobs (most of them dangerous and unpleasant) for the duration of the project. Many landowners who have signed leases and whose sites will be serviced have been coerced into signing, and the drilling profits will primarily benefit the companies doing the drilling – not the landowners themselves, or the communities that will be affected by the project. This three hundred mile radius includes most, if not all of us, but we have absolutely no voice – except for tonight!
If natural gas extraction by unconventional means must occur as part of a well-thought out and soberly constructed NYS energy plan, then LET US DO IT METHODICALLY AND CAREFULLY. Go tonight and make your voice heard. Call some friends and arrange a car pool. This is the only chance to speak publicly on this topic before the joint board workshop on Sept. 15. Even if you don’t want to speak, go and listen to what others have to say, and show Horseheads and Schlumberger that you care about this assault on our region.
By arimoore, on August 26th, 2009%
Environmental concern in Horseheads:
I listened on Tuesday to the Horseheads Village Planning Board, along with their environmental consultant Ronald Sherman, discuss the process for deciding whether to allow Schlumberger to proceed with development of an industrial site without first conducting an Environmental Impact Study. I found the board and Sherman to be open and fair to those attending.
But why is Schlumberger asking the village for a waiver of an EIS? The magnitude and risk associated with this project is immense. It would be a 66-acre development for storage of explosives, radioactive materials and chemicals used to fracture shale to reach gas deposits. The chemicals, which will be stored in an undiluted form, are particularly worrisome. The state recently released a list of 34 highly toxic chemicals it approved for fracturing in Yates, Schuyler, Steuben, Broome and Cortland counties, in response to a FOIL request (www.shaleshock.org). The warnings for these chemicals are hard to forget.
I asked the representative from Bergman Associates, who is representing Schlumberger, whether Schlumberger would concede that an EIS is required in this case. The chair of the Planning Board also seemed curious to hear the company’s response. Schlumberger’s reply at the Aug. 25 Planning Board meeting will speak volumes about how it intends to conduct business in the village.
Ezra Sherman
Van Etten
By arimoore, on August 17th, 2009%
Read Gas-drilling companies keep chemical formulas a secret by Tom Wilber:
They have catchy names like Flomax 50, SandWedge WF and Bio Clear, but you won’t find them at the drug store, in the pro shop or among your household cleaners.
They are, in fact, trade names for caustic and flammable industrial agents used by crews drilling for natural gas. Mixed with millions of gallons of water and blasted into the ground under high pressure, they fracture bedrock and stimulate the flow of natural gas.
The process, called hydro-fracturing, is at the center of a debate over environmental risks associated with tapping the Marcellus Shale, a massive gas field running beneath the Southern Tier and throughout the Appalachian Basin.
Read the rest
By arimoore, on August 12th, 2009%
Regional Cancer and Environment Forum, September 22, 2009, 10:00am-3:00pm, sponsored by Breast Cancer & Environmental Risk Factors Program (BCERF) at Cornell University. Presentation and panel discussion on water resources and natural gas production from the Marcellus Shale will be a focus of the afternoon session. Pre-registration is required. Click here for information (PDF).
By arimoore, on August 12th, 2009%
Read Hours passed before cow deaths reported by Alisa Stingley:
When no state agency would take responsibility for determining the cause of death of the cows, Prator concluded that chemicals in the spill killed the cows.
The regional DEQ office found elevated chlorides, a salt, as well as oil and grease and some organic compounds in soil and water tests. Potassium chloride can be added to the fluids used during stages of the hydraulic fracturing process used to reach natural gas trapped in underground shale.
Continue reading "Hours passed before cow deaths reported"
By shirari, on June 19th, 2009%
Action recommendations from Don Barber, Chair Tompkins County Council of Governments, Supervisor Town of Caroline:
June 15, 2009 7 PM
Broome Community College
Natural Gas Drilling and Local Government Responsibility to Protect the Health, Safety, and Well Being of its Citizens
In general local governments need to find ways to insert themselves into a process that the State has written us out of.
Potential action steps:
- Develop overweight vehicle permits and driveway permits to protect your roads and create direct contact/negotiations with the drilling firm.
- Identify and legislate critical environmental areas (CEA) within your municipality. DEC must then perform site specific SEQR review for permit applications which affect these CEA’s
- Contact every State Legislator, Governor Paterson and his Deputy Secretary for the Environment, and the DEC Commissioner that we need:
- Notification of permit applications and permits issued;
- Emergency Services need contact info, hazardous material info, gas fire training;
- Fuel production tax or Severance tax to create proper revenues to local governments – tax revenue to support DEC oversight program
- Contact State Legislators requesting that ECL Section 23-0303 be amended so that local governments become involved agencies for SEQR review. And to support S8748 Natural Gas Drilling Prohibition Near Watershed
- Contact your Congressperson and US Senator to support HR 2766 Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009.
Signed,
Don Barber
Chair Tompkins County Council of Governments, Supervisor Town of Caroline, 607-539-3395, supervisor@townofcaroline.org
Please Contact:
Pete Grannis, DEC Commissioner
625 Broadway, 14th floor
Albany, NY 12233
petegrannis@gw.dec.state.ny.us
(518)402-8540
Judith Enck, Deputy Sec. for the Environment
State Capital Executive Chambers
Room 245
Albany, NY 12224
judith.enck@chamber.state.ny.us
(518) 473-5442
Governor David A. Paterson
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
http://161.11.121.121/govemail
518-474-8390
There was a special TCCOG meeting held at the Ithaca Town Hall on March 30th by Municipal and Environmental Attorney Kimberlea Rea. The white paper for her talk is available by following the gas drilling link on the TCCOG website:
http://www.tompkins-co.org/legislature/TCCOG/
A video of the meeting can be found at http://tompco.net/tccog/gas.html
|
About Us Shaleshock is an information hub connecting people to regional groups and projects working to stop exploitative drilling in the Marcellus Shale.(more)
2009 Signs of Sustainability
|
Leave a comment 
Uncategorized 
action, action alerts, activism, chemicals, DEC, environment, frac fluids, gas fires, government, hazardous materials, legislation, natural gas drilling, oversight, permits, protecting roads, public concerns, recommendations, taxes, water contamination, water pollution, watershed 
Recent Comments