by Rachel Treichler, Chapter Chair
We face a stark choice in New York. Do we allow huge, multinational energy corporations to pulverize the bedrock across half our state to extract natural gas?
Do we allow a process that will irreversibly contaminate the state’s water, industrialize residential areas, fragment forests and farmland, degrade air quality, and send convoys of tanker trucks through once peaceful towns while devastating wildlife, rural roads, real estate values, and tourism?
Or do we chart a course that will protect our water and soil from contamination, eliminate unnecessary consumption, change our methods of production to eliminate toxics, create healthy jobs, and conserve energy?
Thanks to the hard work of Sierra Club members throughout the state, working with our friends and colleagues, we succeeded in getting both the State senate and the NYS Assembly to pass moratorium legislation in 2010 holding off on new gas drilling in the state.
Although Governor Paterson vetoed the moratorium legislation, he subsequently ordered the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to revise the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) on high-intensity gas drilling; Governor Cuomo has reissued that order, so a moratorium effectively continues while we wait for the revised dSGEIS.
Home rule movement
But it isn’t the Legislature, the governor or the courts who will make the ultimate decision about whether shale gas drilling goes forward in New York.
It is the decision of the people of New York. To prevent toxic extraction and production, we need to focus on the fundamental issue of who has the right to make the decisions. We need to examine the ways in which large energy corporations use their wealth and power to influence lawmaking and elections, and control regulatory agencies. We need to ensure the rights of our local communities to decide.
This is why the growing movement to adopt local laws is so important. Recently the Buffalo City Council passed a resolution banning natural gas extraction within the city. In enacting this resolution, the City of Buffalo joins 16 other towns, counties, and cities in New York that have adopted resolutions on hydrofracking, and becomes the first city in New York to ban drilling within its borders. The previous issue of the Sierra Atlantic contained an open letter by the Community Environmental Defense Fund in Pennsylvania about a similar resolution adopted by the Pittsburgh City Council in November, 2010.
Important work is being done in a number of towns in New York to adopt local zoning laws to exclude high-impact industrial uses, such as shale gas drilling. The legal basis for adopting restrictive local zoning laws is explained in the excellent article by David and Helen Holden Slottje from the Community Environmental Defense Council in Ithaca.
Water withdrawals
The issue of who decides must be kept in mind as we evaluate new legislative proposals to expand the DEC’s authority to permit widespread private water withdrawals. Bills recently introduced in the Senate and Assembly, A5318-A (Sweeney) and S3798 (Grisanti), would authorize the DEC to create regulations to give water withdrawal permits to large private water users with no permitting fees and no usage fees.
We need to ask:
• Is allowing an unelected regulatory agency to take decision-making power away from local elected governments the best way of protecting our state’s water resources.?
• Will the proposed permits create priority water rights that large users may use to move to the head of the line in future times of water scarcity?
• Will the issuance of the permits restrict the rights of neighbors of the permit holders, local governments and the DEC in exercising their existing rights and powers to challenge harmful water withdrawals?
• Is it wise to vest this permitting power in an agency that is chronically understaffed and unable to administer the permits it now issues at a time when new gas drilling techniques that use millions of gallons of fresh water for each well are being proposed?
• Who should make these decisions?
We members of the Atlantic Chapter have a big role to play in helping to educate our friends, neighbors and legislators about the long-term consequences of shale gas drilling, the steps that can be taken to create non-toxic, sustainable methods of production now, and the effects of corporate power on democratic decision-making.
The Sierra Club is a tremendous, established grassroots network for coordinating our efforts. Among the 37,000 members of our chapter are hundreds of experienced volunteer activists, many of whom have dedicated their lives to protecting the environment of our state and our earth. The national Club offers us the structure to meet and work with similarly dedicated activists in other states.
The March Appeal
Each year in March, we ask you for a generous annual gift so the Chapter can afford to do our advocacy work. Because only a small—and decreasing—portion of your Club membership dues is returned to the Chapter, we depend heavily on your additional donations.
If you appreciate the broad range and depth of coverage the Sierra Atlantic gives to pressing environmental issues, now is the time to show that appreciation and make a donation. Because of a funding cutback by the national Club, the next issue of theSierra Atlantic—the summer issue—will not be mailed to you this year; it will be available only on the Chapter’s website. Although the Sierra Atlantic is a motivational and widely-respected source of hard-hitting facts about fracking and other issues, our ability to meet the costs of multiple mailings each year is uncertain.
Mobilizing more volunteers is another priority that needs additional funding. Chapter volunteers and staff did tremendous work in meeting with legislators and educating the public about the dangers of high-tech gas drilling and the benefits of renewable energy in 2010. Much of the success of New York’s moratorium legislation can be attributed to our efforts. In 2011 we want to provide opportunities for even more of our 37,000 members to get involved in the work of our Chapter committees and our 11 local Groups.
Meeting our staff costs to support these volunteer efforts requires significant funding from your donations. Please support the work of our volunteers and staff by completing and sending the coupon on the next page today. Your generosity is appreciated. We thank you for your support.