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By arimoore, on August 25th, 2009%
Read Ithaca council raises natural gas-drilling concerns by Krisy Gashler:
Raising concerns about drinking water, roads and safety for emergency responders, Ithaca’s Common Council is getting involved in the discussion about gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
The majority of the city’s watershed for its Six Mile Creek drinking water source is outside the city in the Towns of Ithaca and Caroline. Roughly 38 percent of the total land area in Tompkins County has already been leased for oil and gas drilling, including 12 percent in the Town of Ithaca and 49 percent in Caroline, according to gas lease deed information compiled by the citizen’s action group Shaleshock.
Common Council Planning Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Dotson, I-1st, said city officials have concerns in four major areas: water use and wastewater disposal; impact on roads and infrastructure; safety, especially for firefighters who may have to respond to fires or accidents at drilling sites; and the tax structure for oil and gas revenue.
The planning committee this week discussed strategies they could use to protect the city, including identifying critical natural areas, adopting road preservation laws, and demanding disclosure of all chemicals in hydro-fracturing (fracking) fluid before considering whether to accept it at the wastewater treatment plant, which discharges into Cayuga Lake. (Read more)
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 shirari, on June 22nd, 2009%
Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling near Hickory, Pa: “The more you learn about hydraulic fracturing in the states ahead of us in these fast moving gas ventures, the more concern you have for our local environment.” (Read more and see photos)
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
By shirari, on June 11th, 2009%
Waste from Marcellus shale drilling in Cross Creek Park kills fish:
A leaking waste water pipe from a Range Resources Marcellus shale gas well drilled in Washington County’s Cross Creek Park has polluted an unnamed tributary of Cross Creek Lake, killing fish, salamanders, crayfish and aquatic insect life in approximately three-quarters of a mile of the stream.
Read more…
By shirari, on March 28th, 2009%
Lisa Ann Wright of Ithaca wrote to the Ithaca Journal,
While I am very pleased The Ithaca Journal headlined with reporter Krisy Gashler’s story last week “Cayuga Heights plant accepts drilling wastewater” on March 12, I have sadly come to expect the sort of collective shrug of Ithacans as to the full meaning of what is happening all around us. Gashler reported that “Erik Whitney, assistant superintendent of public works for water and sewer in the City of Ithaca, said the Ithaca wastewater treatment plant does not accept any gas drilling water, from vertical, horizontal or hydraulic fracture drilling.” So why is Cayuga Heights accepting it? What’s happening to the brine? Is that being spread on our roads as it is in other states? What did Cayuga Heights test the fluids for? Which specific tests did they run? Which certified test methods were used? What were the concentrations in the waste fluids? Would Cayuga Heights be willing to allow an independent lab to test this stuff for the kinds of things that are known to be present in most gas well waste fluids? In Van Etten, Fortuna Energy wants to dispose of produced water from drilling into old gas wells – and now this.
What is it going to take for the people of this community to see how these things are connected, like our water is?
Comment on her letter or write your own opinion »
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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
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