The Catskill Chronicle

Guest Editorial by David Sager

Recently, the New York State Senate passed the Thompson Bill which, if passed by the Assembly and signed by the Governor, will impose a moratorium until May 15, 2011 on the controversial natural gas drilling technique called high-volume hydraulic fracturing (“Fracking”).

I commend the Senate for taking an important first step toward our collective, responsible energy future. We must all face fracking head-on, making tough, decisions that will affect generations to come. Unfortunately, the bill is a modest and largely symbolic gesture.

There are many scientific, environmental and social aspects of drilling, which demonstrate that our elected officials soon will be making monumentally important decisions.

As a society that acknowledges it must transition to sustainable and safe energy, we should begin this work now and agree not to make trade-offs. We cannot afford or accept the potentially catastrophic problems associated with fracking and risk our health, safety and the upheaval of our social fabric to kick-start a terrible economy.

The massive industrialization of the region’s landscape, air, watersheds and water table will significantly affect the way we live and drastically affect other economy-sustaining industries. (The Gulf BP disaster is a salient reminder of the environmental and economic devastation that can be wreaked by industrial accidents.)

We must ask essential questions and demand honest, fact-based answers from the agencies and elected officials who hold our futures in their hands.  The State’s Department of Environmental Conservation Division of Mineral Resources has consistently proven that it lacks the initiative to conduct credible scientific inquiry on this issue, and it is shocking that the most recent Generic Environmental Impact Statement does not address the substantial cumulative impacts posed by a dangerous, under-regulated activity.

Fracking is industrial mining, and examples from Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania of decimated landscapes, infrastructure, air and water are staggering.

The moratorium bill, if signed into law, provides no assurances to our residents. It does not demand any comprehensive studies or scientific research, or require the disclosure of fracking chemicals, afford clarity on municipal authority, or mandate other possible protections.

As a citizen, County Legislator, and candidate for State Senate, I, along with all people clamoring for honest, independent research and transparency from industry and the DEC, demand that this ban on high volume hydraulic fracturing continue until the following actions are taken:

1. The Frac Act is passed by Congress, which makes industry expressly disclose the identity and quantities of all chemicals used.
2. The current EPA Study is completed and analyzed.
3. An objective, scientific cumulative impact study is performed and analyzed that specifically addresses all environmental, public health, social, municipal planning and economic concerns.
4. Appropriate treatment plants are in place for the environmentally safe disposal of all toxic fluids associated with the process. We must be concerned about where the vast amounts of water are drawn from to engage in this industry, but we must be just as vigilant with disposal of the end-product toxic cocktail.
5. Adequate manpower and funding exist for strict regulation and oversight of an industry seeking to bring more than 80,000 well heads to our region.
6. Appropriate windfall taxes on big industry and those profiting are in place to adequately fund infrastructure demands due to industrial drilling. This should not become yet another unfunded state mandate that will again increase property taxes.
7. Local towns have a say in their own destinies. Home Rule must apply and towns must be allowed to plan and zone appropriately. Towns should be allowed to require site-plan reviews and avail themselves of the numerous tools that state law affords their planning boards during review of subdivision and commercial projects.
8. Compulsory integration is completely analyzed and re-evaluated. It is preposterous that a person who does not want drilling on or under his land can have no say in the matter if he happens to live adjacent to landowners who favor drilling. Plain and simple – no landowner should be told the minerals under his property will be harvested against his will.
9. Farming is supported and valued enough to ensure that our farmers have a sustainable, safe, honorable and profitable way to earn a living that benefits them and all of us. No one should have to sell his land for fracking as the only way out of hardship.

People in the region are as concerned about their friends’ and neighbors’ private wells as they are about NYC watershed reservoirs and the Delaware River basin, which supply water to millions in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. People are alarmed about the potential effects of known neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors and carcinogens on their short- and long-term health. People are concerned about the destruction of agriculture, tourism and home values. People desire vigorous economic development in New York but are not willing to sacrifice all they value in the name of as-yet unproven economic gains.

What we decide to do next is forever. If those Senators who passed the Thompson bill are truly concerned about their constituents and fracking, they will publicly demand the agenda I propose and insist that the Governor and their Assembly brethren sign on as well.

David Sager is a candidate for New York State Senate in the 42nd district on the Democratic and Working Family Party Lines. He is also a Sullivan County Legislator representing district 1.