Your donations urgently needed to stop fracking
By Jeff Bohner and Susan Lawrence
We need your donations to help us continue our fight against fracking in New York.
While the decision on fracking appears to be delayed, the oil and gas industry is busy developing new gas pipelines, liquefied gas storage facilities and other infrastructure throughout our state.
This build-out not only lays the groundwork for drilling in New York but also perpetuates drilling in other states. Another reason to stop this build-out is that regulatory agencies may not authorize fracking unless new infrastructure is in place.
Also, the high demand for water to frack for gas in Pennsylvania threatens to deplete our water supplies here in New York, and toxic water and drilling wastes from Pennsylvania and other states are overpowering our landfills, as well as our water and waste treatment systems.
So many of you have worked tirelessly since 2008, when the Atlantic Chapter began our campaign at the local, state, and even national level to stop—and even ban—fracking.
Now, as our efforts have become even more costly, we urgently need your donations to our Chapter Fracking Fund (“Atlantic Chapter Fracking Project”).
The Sierra Club has a long history of litigating in the courts or before administrative judges at the local, state, and national level to protect our environment. Our Atlantic Chapter Executive Committee and the national Sierra Club have authorized our Chapter to turn to litigation when critical to our fracking campaigns. We focus our litigation in key areas where we can make a major impact.
Litigating is expensive. We seek out free legal services if available and link legal efforts with other organizations when we can. But we must raise hefty funds to pay for essential legal services, expert witnesses and other related costs.
When you donate to our Chapter’s Fracking Fund, your tax-deductible gift stays in New York—“the fracking battleground state”—to stop fracking.
Your donations are critical to:
• sustain our successful Painted Post court decision to halt New York water from being taken to frack wells in Pennsylvania. This is a bellweather legal case.
• mount a campaign against massive withdrawals from our water supplies to use for fracking and major industrial uses. Our state needs to carefully plan for and regulate our water supplies, not pollute and deplete them.
• take legal action against the construction of the high-pressure Spectra gas pipeline in New York City. We are demanding that the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission fully evaluate and mitigate potential radon health threats and risks of computer attacks on the pipeline’s control and safety systems.
• stop the construction of the Constitution Pipeline, a major new gas line that would bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania through the Southern Tier and from potential new New York gas fields to the Capital District. In our litigation, we will emphasize that the pipeline poses major threats to natural resources in its path and, because of existing infrastructure, is not even needed.
• stop disposal of natural gas wastes in New York landfills, including the Hyland Landfill in Seneca County; in sewage treatment plants; and on roads and our valuable farmlands.
• support, most importantly, our volunteer and staff efforts to educate and inform our members, the public and government officials about what must be done to protect our precious natural resources, our public health, and our economy from fracking.
We appreciate so much all our members’ work and donations in the past. Now, we are calling most urgently for you to donate again as generously as you can so together we can continue, and escalate, our critical efforts against the terrible threats of fracking.
To donate online please visit our Fracking Fund by clicking here.
Thank you so much for any gift you make.
Sincerely,
Jeff Bohner, Chair, Atlantic Chapter
Susan Lawrence, Conservation Chair