ABOUT WHATTHEFRACK.ORG
Whatthefrack.org is a program of Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, an all-volunteer,
grassroots organization that has been working to prohibit dangerous hydraulic fracturing
(fracking) since 2008. Catskill Citizens provides one of the best websites in the country
on fracking including an extensive Newsroom and a comprehensive Learn More section.
Our Action Alerts make it easy for you to contact your elected officials in just a matter
of seconds.
Because we have an all-volunteer staff, all the money we raise goes directly into the fight
against fracking. Please donate generously.
We support the American Clean Energy Agenda. Find out how your organization can also lend its support info@whatthefrack.org.
UPCOMING EVENTS
scroll
Stop the Frack Attack's People's Forum in DC!
Tuesday - Thursday, May 21st - 23rd
Washington, DC
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is holding a series of forums on natural
gas in May, none of which can fully represent the many voices impacted by fracking. Come to
DC and tell your oil and gas impact story, lobby your representatives to close federal
loopholes in our major environmental laws, and make sure that politicians know that fossil
fuel extraction is part of the problem, not the solution.
For more information contact: info@stopthefrackattack.org or
http://www.stopthefrackattack.org/
2013 HYDRO-FRACKING DAY OF ACTION
Wednesday, May 22, 9:00AM - 3:30PM
Albany, NY
Join us for a fracking lobby day to tell our legislators that New Yorkers need a health impact assessment and a two-year
moratorium!
Free.
For more information contact: Katherine Nadeau, EANY - knadeau@eany.org or
CITIZENS CAMPAIGN for the ENVIRONMENT
Marcellus Shale - Looking Between the Layers
Saturday, May 25, 2:00 - 5:30PM
La MaMa Theatre
74 East 4th Street, New York City
Symposium on the social, economic and impacts of fracking with Dave Ramsaran, Ph.D., Professor
of Sociology at Susquehanna University; Dr. Seth Ronkoff, Executive Director of Physicians
Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE); Jake Hays, Program Director of the Public Health
nexus for PSE; Wes Gillingham, Program Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper and performances by
Mx. Justin Vivian Bond and Loudon Wainwright III.
Free
For more information contact: Sam Rudy 212-221-8466 - samrudy4@cs.com or
http://www.talkingband.org/marcellusshale/symposium.html
Gasland II
Saturday, June 8, 10:30 AM
Callicoon Theater
30 Upper Main Street, Callicoon, NY
Free (donations welcome at the door)
Documentary film screening followed by
Q & A with director Josh Fox.
Sponsoring organizations: Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, Catskill Mountainkeeper and Damascus Citizens for Sustainability
For more information click here.
Same River
Sunday, September 8:00AM - 4:00PM
NACL Theatre
110 Highland Lake Road
Highland Lake, NY 12743
$22.50 regular/ $12 student
NYC-based collective Strike Anywhere returns to NACL with SAME RIVER, an ever-growing, multi-media
improvisation on "fracking" and its impact on a community.
FEATURED VIDEO
AND DON'T FORGET TO CALL TOO!
What you can do to prevent fracking.
Economic Impact of
Shale Gas Drilling
Read
Selected Documents Authored by Jannette M. Barth,
Ph.D.
Can
New York Learn from Texas?. Economist Jannette Barth’s latest analysis
of the economic impact of shale gas plays.
Read more about LNG exports by entering the word “exports in the “Search” feature of our website.
LATEST NEWS
scroll
Search All News Items
May 20, 2013
Insight: The fight for North Dakota's fracking-water market
Reuters
Ernest Scheyder
Reuters) - In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting."
It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taki... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
New Draft Fracking Rules Give Industry a Free Pass
The Energy Collective
Frances Beinecke
Now the Bureau of Land Management has issued woefully inadequate rules for fracking on public lands. The current draft rules are even weaker than a previous draft leaked several months ago, and they read like an industry wish list.
They could exempt huge tracts of state and tribal lands from the ... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
Scientists find new tools for tracing fracking impacts
Scranton Times-Tribune
Laura Legere
Researchers in the Rice University chemistry professor's laboratory have developed nanoparticles that will flow with the fluid used to hydraulically fracture oil and gas wells, slip through rocks and travel wherever the water ends up - in a holding pond at the surface, a tanker on the highway or, in... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
Does the US need federal fracking regulations?
Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. Energy Department last week said it gave conditional authority for a facility in Texas to eventually export liquefied natural gas. New drilling technologies mean the United States could become a natural gas export leader, though opponents of LNG say that's likely to lead to more hydraulic f... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
Fracking boom triggers water battle in North Dakota
NBC News
Ernest Scheyder Reuters
It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the right to tap into the multimillion-dollar market to supply water to the energy sector. [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
Proposed federal fracking rules weaker than in previous draft
Market Watch
Claudia Assis
Draft rules on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are weaker than in a previous draft and signal the Obama administration’s “accommodative” approach to unconventional oil and gas exploration and production, analysts at the Eurasia Group said in a note Monday. [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
VENTURA COUNTY LOOKS AT LAND USE PERMITS TO REGULATE FRACKING
Ventura County Star
Kathleen Wilson
Ventura County supervisors Tuesday are poised to consider steps to regulate hydraulic fracturing.
Last month, the Board of Supervisors discussed land use permits as a way to regulate the oil industry practice known as fracking. But the proposals from Supervisors Steve Bennett and Linda Parks on T... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
President enrages greens with new fracking rules
Akron Beacon Journal
JIM MACKINNON
The Obama administration may be softening its stance on fracking, writes Walter Russell Mead at his blog, Via Meadia.
Mead: "The Interior Department has just released long-awaited revisions to proposed rules governing fracking on federal land. The new rules are meant to replace a thirty-year-old ... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
Bill would ban importing frack waste
Legislative Gazette
Jessica String
Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk is proposing a bill that would ban hydraulic fracturing waste from being shipped into the state for processing and disposal. [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
The Big Story That Happened In His Backyard
Huffington Post
ANGELA MONTEFINISE
When veteran news reporter Tom Wilber first started covering the development of hydraulic fracturing in upstate New York, he thought it was just an average story on his beat for a Binghamton newspaper. [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013
Fracking and women’s health
Shalereporter
Miranda Spencer
One of the most talked about headlines last week was Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a preventative double mastectomy. Although she is otherwise healthy, she carries a “faulty gene,” called BRCA 1, that puts her at unusually high risk for breast cancer.
Gorgeous movie star, globe-trotting hu... [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
Paper: Drilling damage in 161 Pa. water supplies
AP via Shalereporter
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Oil and gas development damaged the water supplies of at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to state records obtained by a newspaper. [Full Story]
May 20, 2013
Wyo. groundwater test proposal gets good reviews
AP via Shale Reporter
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Gov. Matt Mead's proposal to require groundwater testing at oil and gas drilling sites has gotten good reviews from environmental advocates, landowners and industry representatives.
Mead released a state energy policy on Monday that includes baseline groundwater testing b... [Full Story]
More News Items
|
scroll
TELL NEW YORK’S SCANDAL PLAGUED SENATE TO ACT!
 |
This action can only
be completed using
a NYS zip code. |
New York State Senators have had no trouble speedily enacting bills written by gas industry lobbyists, but they’ve never taken even the smallest step to protect the public from fracking. Now we learn from Bloomberg News that Senator Tom Libous - the man who vowed to block Senate action on a moratorium bill – is in business with someone who stands to profit from fracking. Libous has produced documents that he says proves that he and his wife got rid of their stake in the company that owns the leased land back in 2008, but this is contradicted by a financial disclosure form he filed in in May 2012. The senator is still partners with the firm’s owner in several other business ventures, and is reportedly being investigated by the FBI for corruption.
S04236A/A05424A would impose a two-year moratorium on high volume fracking and require the state to conduct an independent health impact assessment. In early March it was voted out of the Assembly and delivered to the Senate, but because of Libous’ obstruction, and the failure of the Senate leadership, the bill is stalled.
HOME RULE PREVAILS!
In a decision that could have major implications for the fate of high-volume fracking in New York, the Appellate Division, Third Department, of the State Supreme Court upheld the right of towns to prohibit fracking. The unanimous opinion by the three-judge panel affirmed two lower courts’ decisions.
Fifty-five towns have enacted fracking prohibitions in the last two years, and that number is likely to grow rapidly now that the threat of being sued is practically non-existent. You can track the astounding success of New York’s home rule movement here.
NEW YORK STATE, A TOXIC WASTE DUMP FOR FRACKERS
Even though fracking itself remains on hold in the state, New Yorkers are still being exposed to danger. Gas corporations continue to use the state as a dumping ground for radioactive waste produced in Pennsylvania. According to a PA Department of Environmental Protection website, five landfills in New York accepted over one hundred million pounds of drill cuttings in the second half of 2012 alone, the last period for which data is available.
Just how radioactive are these drill cuttings? One Pennsylvania landfill recently rejected a truckload of cuttings from a Marcellus site after it set off a radiation alarm. It turned out the material was emitting Radium 226 at rate 84 times higher than the EPA’s air pollution standard, and ten times higher than what the landfill is permitted to accept. Drilling waste triggered radiation alarms more than a thousand times at Pennsylvania landfills between 2009 and 2012.
HEADS UP LONG ISLAND!
While upstate has to contend with radioactive waste, Long Island is now threatened by a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) port. For six months, Liberty LNG has been quietly advancing a plan to build a giant offshore facility not far from Jones Beach State Park, in the middle of important shipping lanes, commercial fisheries and the site of a proposed offshore wind project. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a similar proposal in 2011 because it presented a major safety and security risks; relocating the port a few miles away in New York State waters has done nothing to make the project any safer.
Port Ambrose is described as a facility to import LNG from countries like Trinidad, but it’s hard to see how imported gas can compete with the abundant supplies of cheap domestic shale gas. The U.S. is now set to become a major gas exporter within just a few years, and there’s a real possibility that if Port Ambrose is approved, its sponsors will apply to have it relicensed as an export terminal that will ship fracked gas to foreign countries. In that event, the port would endanger New Yorkers living on the shale as well as the residents of Long Island and the metropolitan area.
|