Catskill Citizens Supports S04236A

On March 15th, Sen. Tony Avella introduced S04236A in the New York State Senate. Like the bill approved by the Assembly in early March, this bill would impose a moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing until May 2015 and require the state to complete a health impact assessment. The bill has already garnered the support of the consortium of environmental and public interest organizations known as the “Green Panel” which calls the bill one of the top legislative priorities of 2013.

Please take a moment to contact your Senator and ask him or her to support this commonsense measure to protect public health – and demand that the Senate leadership bring the bill to a vote.

Cuomo Blinks (But he doesn’t want you to know.)

For the time being, it seems that Governor Cuomo has quietly backed away from his plan to permit high volume fracking in New York. But of course Cuomo being Cuomo, he didn’t actually say he’d changed his mind, he left it to Albany watchers to read the signs.

Cuomo’s decision to temporarily hold up fracking isn’t based on health considerations, and it certainly isn’t based on science. It’s a calculated political response to our outspoken opposition, and to polling that shows most New Yorkers now oppose the process.

But no victory dances please! This decision is based on political expediency and can be reversed at any time. In fact it’s easy to imagine a scenario where Cuomo greenlights fracking in 2015. By then he’ll have the gubernatorial election behind him, and it’s likely he’ll be seeking oil and gas money to fund his 2016 presidential bid.

Call Cuomo and tell him to stop playing politics and
ban fracking! 518 474 8390.

If They Build It, They Will Come.

The industry’s long term plans to extract New York shale gas are evident in this map. Old pipelines are in black; new or newly expanded pipelines are shown in red, and planned pipelines not yet under construction are indicated by dotted red lines.

Each major new pipeline will need to be supported by compressor stations and hundreds of miles of smaller pipes and gathering lines that will destroy viewsheds and habitat, disrupt wetlands and water ways and make land unfit for future economic development.

You can be sure that the industry wouldn’t be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new construction if it intended to leave our shale gas in the ground. Preventing an infrastructure buildout that will make fracking all but inevitable must be a priority in the coming months.

FERC Doesn’t Work!

On Thursday April 18th at 10:00AM, there will be an action in Washington, D.C. to protest the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s all-but-automatic approval of industry projects such as pipelines, compressor stations and LNG export terminals.

After the gathering participants will march to the U.S. Senate. For more information email [email protected].