Tell the Governor DECʼs Unfair Plan is Fatally Flawed

By Roger Downs

At Governor Cuomo's request, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has officially released the second draft of the SGEIS on high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," the controversial technique used to drill for natural gas. The DEC intends to complete this environmental review of drilling and issue new permits by the end of 2011. 

But there are still too many gaps in protection and we need your help to address them. 

What is most remarkable about the DEC's revised recommendations is their profound assertion that hydraulic fracturing is too dangerous for the areas that provide drinking water for urban populations. The new draft bans all drilling from these watersheds -- but the same techniques will be allowed in the rest of the state where private water wells are equally vulnerable. 

Does this plan seem fair to you?  Tell Cuomo that if drilling isn't safe for his city's drinking water, it isn't safe for anyone else's! 
While the second draft of the SGEIS does offer some significant improvements, it still fails to address the critical issues that rendered 
the original draft fatally flawed. The DEC still refuses to analyze the cumulative impacts of the thousands of projected wells, conduct 
health risk assessments for human exposure to fracking chemicals or realistically address NY's shocking lack of capacity to deal with 
drilling wastes. 

Over the next few months, the Sierra Club will be compiling comments on the SGEIS and we need your help. Individual and 
substantive comments from thousands of people like you is what has kept the drill rigs quiet in New York while the DEC has to answer 
each and every submission. We need to do it again for the second draft. 

Please take the few minutes to send a letter to Governor Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Martens. In the coming months, this effort will solidify what we believe Governor Cuomo already inherently knows -- that fracking is not a safe or economic option. 

The second draft of the SGEIS can be found here. 

Roger Downs is the Chapterʼs Conservation Program Manager in Albany.