Bringing you mellow news and events from here in Mountaindale, Greater Sullivan County, and the Historic Hudson River Valley.
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In another prime example of Governor Cuomo and the NYDEC trying to minimize the public's involvement in the discussion over Hydraulic Fracturing while at the same time making it appear as if they are bending over backwards to address our concerns, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens has decided to make himself available to answer questions FOR A WHOLE HOUR on a double holiday weekend...HOW GENEROUS.
He will be answering questions on Citizens Connect from 9-10AM this Saturday, October 8th, 2011 while all of those of the Jewish persuasion in our area are fasting for Yom Kippur.Meanwhile, many more of us are trying to get in our last weekend of camping, celebrating the long Columbus Day Weekend.
On the good news side of the Equation...the web site is OPEN FOR BUSINESS and accepting questions now, so you are strongly advised to take a trip over and submit a question or ten now.
Leave no doubt about it...baring a miracle, the State of New York, its government, its elected officials HAVE SOLD US OUT to the deep financial pockets, the financial donations to campaign coiffures that the Natural Gas Industry, Chesapeake Energy, Exxon and other Hydro Fracturing earth despoilers have been doling out.
It does not matter that most citizens are not buying the propaganda campaign Exxon has been waging in our rural communities, does not matter that the majority of New Yorker's will take fresh, safe drinking water over Natural Gas being sucked out of the ground and exported to China every time, the EPA, our turncoat Governor Cuomo have decided to line their own collective and individual pockets with the same silver with which Judas lined his own at the expense of our health, our clean drinking water, and our pristine rural communities.
Today's Albany hearing is Political Kabuki Dancing at its finest, our politicians putting lipstick on the pig as they sit around looking important, listening to hand picked speakers, knowing that the rubber stamping in favor of the Natural Gas industry wishes has already begun, once again the health and safety of the states citizens being callously sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed. Safe clean drinking water, the health of our children and grandchildren nothing more than collateral damage, our lives, our health an acceptable trade off when compared to the fossil fuels that can be removed from under our lands in the name of a transitional energy source, that under a best case scenario, will only last us another 15-20 years.
Let us be clear...giving citizen stakeholders a scant 90 days to submit comments on a document that is some 1500 pages in length is woefully inadequate, the comment period being kept deliberately short in an attempt to silence our voices, deny us our opportunity to be plugged into and a part of a decision that will affect in a negative fashion every New Yorker's life.
Let us be CLEAR...scheduling just four public meetings in the entire state of New York is inadequate to give citizens a true opportunity to SPEAK THEIR MIND on this issue...those four public hearings are even more inadequate in scope when you look at how the process of those hearings works. Public Officials, Industry Spokespersons, and local community VIP's are always given the first opportunity to be heard...most of those folks ARE ALREADY BOUGHT AND OWNED by the Natural Gas Industry. The rest of us peons are shuffled to the end of the list, and most of us never get heard, the hearing board announcing, "We're sorry, but we are running out of time, we we will hear four more speakers, then the rest of you are welcome to submit your comments in writing.
If you visit the public comments submission page, you see our rights being further curtailed. We are told that our comments should be supported with scientific support...uhhh...could someone please explain to us AVERAGE CITIZENS how we are supposed to digest a 1500 page document, find scientific support for our comments, and have it all together and submitted to the DEC in just 90 days? We are average lower and middle class citizens for the most part. We have families, we have jobs, and as much as the DEC may disagree, we do have to sleep. The DEC, and every other department of government involved in the writing of this document, every member of the Natural Gas industry have the luxury of working on this document, submitting comments on it as a job, are getting paid...however, most ground zero citizens who will be forced to live with the health risks and quality of life issues from Hydraulic Fracturing do not have that luxury, cannot spend eight hours a day, five days a week study the document, understanding it, and doing the research necessary to make scientifically supported comments for or against Hydraulic Fracturing.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The state Assembly is holding a hearing to receive public comment on the Department of Environmental Conservation's permitting guidelines for natural gas drilling in the lucrative Marcellus Shale region of southern New York.
Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Robert Sweeney and committee members will take testimony in Albany starting at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Among those scheduled to testify are DEC Commissioner Joe Martens and New York City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Carter Strickland.
DEC has scheduled four public hearings on the proposed permit guidelines and regulations between Nov. 16 and Nov. 30. They'll be held in Dansville, Binghamton, Loch Sheldrake, and New York City.
I would encourage every citizen to speak their voice on this issue....start by formally requesting an extension of time to comment on the proposed permit guidelines and regulations, asking for additional public hearings in your communities. Contact the folks at Catskill Citizens, volunteer, put up signs in your yards, get bumper stickers, find out where protests are planned and attend them....we here in Sullivan County will be one of the hardest hit communities if companies like Exxon and Chesapeake Energy are allowed to use Hydraulic Fracturing to drill for natural gas they have already sold to China.
If you have a mailing list, or have friends with internet access, we desperately need MORE SIGNATURES between now and August 31, 2011. Please read the following ACTION ALERT, and take action now to preserve our drinking water supplies, and pristine rural beauty.
ACTION ALERT
This is a critical moment in the fight to ban fracking in New York. On August 31, the Department of Environmental Conservation is scheduled to release its draft impact statement, which proposes to open large portions of the state to fracking.Sign the petition to Governor Cuomo to ban fracking now!
The drumbeat against fracking is growing louder and stronger. You have already taken action by sending letters and submitting comments to put an end to this destructive form of natural gas drilling (thanks!), but you have not yet signed the petition. We need more signatures on our petition to Governor Cuomo urging him to ban fracking in New York. Will you sign today?
Our politicians here in New York, here in Sullivan County seem bent on allowing Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) to begin in our state, and more specifically in our beautiful, scenic Hudson River Valley, natural gas wells and the ills they bring soon to become a COMMON SITE in our communities. One of the big players should this happen is Exxon (owns rights to 317,000 acres in Marcellus Shale) who has been blanketing the airwaves with commercials such as the one above wherein Exxon's geologist Eric Oswald tries to convince us that Exxon knows how important that they GET THIS RIGHT. (That line was borrowed or stolen from President Obama.)
Lets explore how Exxon DOES NOT GET IT RIGHT.
Let us start with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In an excerpt from Wikipedia:
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil.[1][2] It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters.[3] The Valdez spill was the largest ever in U.S. waters until the 2010 Deepwater Horizonoil spill, in terms of volume released.[4] However, Prince William Sound's remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, and boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response.
The Exxon Valdez is perhaps the best known example of Exxon NOT GETTING IT RIGHT, but one does not have to look far to find example after example of them cutting corners, violating the laws, rules and regulations meant to protect the communities they do business and harm in. From Texas we find this excerpt:
Texas has fined Exxon Mobil $150,462 for violations of air pollution regulations at the company’s refinery in Beaumont, Texas.
A statement issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says the 15 violations include failure to limit emissions during refinery malfunctions, failure to repair and perform monitoring of equipment, recordkeeping failures and failure to install required equipment.
We can look at the state of Maryland, and find yet another example with this excerpt:
The State of Maryland has filed a suit seeking nearly $ 12 million in penalties from Exxon Mobil Corp and a local service station operator for a gasoline leak in Jacksonville area of Baltimore County. The suit accuses the giant corporation and the service station of violating state environmental regulations by allowing the leak and not detecting or reporting it promptly. State officials say that 62 residential wells are contaminated withmethyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, a gasoline additive. In addition to the penalties, the state asks that Exxon and its operator clean up the gasoline that leaked.
In California, we find again that Exxon SKIRTS THE RULES, then simply pays the fines as a cost of doing business.
Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed to pay $400,000 in penalties to California for environmental violations at its Torrance refinery. Exxon Mobil also agreed to spend a maximum of $2 million on supplemental environmental projects intended to cut excessive emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants at the refinery. The company paid $250,000 for a March 22, 2007 incident that caused the release of nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and other substances. In addition, Exxon Mobil paid $150,000 to settle 23 air permit and air quality violations at the Torrance facility that occurred between October 2005 and October 2006.
If Exxon is doing business in your community, there is a very real likelihood that they are violating the environmental rules meant to protect your health, your water, your air. Yet, they are running commercials every day here in the Hudson River Valley trying to convince you that they and other companies like Chesapeake Energy (who has a very similar environmental record) know the importance of getting it right when it comes to FRACKING our neighborhoods, and they are spending MILLIONS lobbying here in New York, and in Washington DC to get access to the Natural Gas in the Marcellus Shale. Question is, when you look at the truth of these companies environmental records, can we really afford to let them bring FRACKING to our community?
