Frack fight shifts to courts, infrastructure
We appear to be winning the war on fracking in New York, as Governor Cuomo has indicated he will make no decision anytime soon. But we know that our environmental victories are never as permanent as our defeats, and the natural gas industry is not giving up its campaign to industrialize the farmlands and forests of Upstate New York.
Recently, the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York held a closed-door meeting in Buffalo with Ed Cox, Republican state chairman, in an effort to reinvigorate the fracking agenda.
Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute has quietly opened a field office in Windsor, a village in eastern Broome County, where an Exxon Mobil subsidiary has spent more than $100 million on gas leases.
Yes, we’ve stopped frackers from getting permits to drill, but they are pressing ahead anyway — with the infrastructure necessary to develop upstate gas fields. Although much of the focus has been Upstate, the battle is heating up in New York City. (See pages 6-7.)
The gas companies are:
• proposing major new pipelines all across New York, from Albany to Manhattan. The Atlantic Chapter has intervened in multiple FERC proceedings for pipelines both Upstate and in New York City.
• dumping Pennsylvania’s frack waste in small-town New York landfills and sewage treatment plants, which are not equipped to deal with hazardous waste. The Atlantic Chapter has been challenging landfill permits and the regulations that allow this waste in New York.
• planning a facility in Painted Post to pump and ship to Pennsylvania frackers more than a million gallons of fresh water per day from a public aquifer. The Atlantic Chapter won in court and stopped these shipments moving forward. The suit has been appealed. (See page 10.)
• attempting, again, to build a major offshore LNG port, near busy New York City Harbor, where mammoth tanker ships could export LNG, opening European markets and raising the price of gas domestically. The Sierra Club has rallied citizens to speak out against this proposal. (See page 7.)
• pushing to repower retiring coal-burning power plants with natural gas. The Sierra Club has been fighting tirelessly to find real alternatives that are both economically and environmentally sound.
For now, these infrastructure measures support the industry’s presence in Pennsylvania but they are simultaneously paving the path to fracking in New York. With a nod from Governor Cuomo, or his successor, drilling permits can be issued and the industry can quickly and very aggressively exploit its infrastructure investment in our state. That’s why your Atlantic Chapter is going to court to derail the industry’s stealthy penetration of small, struggling communities seduced by empty promises of prosperity.
While we continue to lobby in Albany and organize grassroots protests with some success, the battle is increasingly becoming a ground war in the courts and regulatory agencies. This requires expensive litigation. We use free legal services whenever possible and collaborate with other organizations in the courtroom. But we need to raise hefty sums to pay for essential legal services, expert witnesses and related costs.
We can influence, but not control, what happens in the political arena. But the courtrooms are a more level playing field, and our progressive lawyers have been successfully going toe-to-toe with the industry. We can only win — and we must win! — with your financial help.
In addition, the Chapter will continue its longstanding campaigns to address climate change, protect wetlands, promote energy conservation and renewables, fight coal-burning power plants, nuclear power, toxic waste, promote GMO-food labeling, and much more!
Please consider a donation for our efforts here at home in New York. And as always, thank you for all you do for the environment.
P.S. To support our critical lobbying efforts, please make a non-tax-deductible donation with a check payable to “Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.” If you prefer to make a tax-deductible donation for our non-legislative work, make your check payable to “The Sierra Club Foundation” and write “Atlantic Chapter” on the memo line. Thank you for your gift!