Several hundred supporters of hydraulic fracturing marched outside of the state Capitol on Monday in an attempt to dial up pressure on Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
A host of landowner groups and representatives from the natural-gas and construction industries joined Southern Tier elected officials at the rally. Most expressed their displeasure with a recently announced delay to a decision on whether to allow high-volume hydrofracking to proceed in New York.
“This has been going on for four years and everybody who knows me knows that I believe in safe and responsible gas drilling,” said Broome County Executive Debbie Preston, a Republican. “I think it’s time to move forward.”
Preston was one of more than a dozen speakers, which also included Sens. Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton, and Thomas O’Mara, R-Big Flats, Chemung County; Assemblyman Clifford Crouch, R-Guilford, Chenango County; and various speakers representing businesses, landowners and the gas industry.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation first put high-volume hydrofracking on hold in 2008 as it launched an environmental review. Last month, the agency announced that a decision on the technique would be furthered delayed as the state Department of Health reviews the DEC’s report.
Tracy Slavitsky, director of regional sales for the Holiday Inn Arena in Binghamton, said occupancy at her hotel has been up by more than 20 percent since hydrofracking picked up substantially in nearby Pennsylvania in 2008.
“We have more people in our hotel than has been in that hotel since it opened 25 years ago because of shale-gas development in Pennsylvania,” Slavitsky told the crowd. “Governor Cuomo, put New York back to work! Let’s go!”
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, said the state’s decision on hydrofracking “will be determined by the science and the facts.”
The rally was similar to one held in August by opponents of hydrofracking, who say the risks to the environment are too great to ignore. Much like the anti-fracking rally, the hydrofracking supporters marched Monday through the streets of Albany with a police escort, honking horns and chanting as onlookers snapped photos with their cell phones.
David Van Luven, director of Environment New York, was critical of the rally’s message.
“The practice is too dangerous and too costly for all New Yorkers, and it’s time to just say ‘no’ and keep it permanently out of our beautiful state,” he said.
3 Comments
With the high cost of living and taxes, it’s tough to hold on to land that has been in the family for decades or even hundreds of years. There’s a lot of love for the land, especially if you and your ancestors have walked it, worked it, planted it,cultivated it, lived on it and plan to die on it. That’s a human life invested that can be taken away just because the taxes go unpaid. Blood, sweat and tears are on that land. I know. My family have lived here since before this was the USA and we are struggling. So I can understand why many would want to get money to help them pay their taxes. But no amount of money is worth ruining our most precious resource,water, forever. You can’t drink money. The Catskill Mountains of NY State- such a beautiful rural and wilderness area in upstate New York, with reservoirs that supply NY City with water. We have some of the purest freshwater in the world and want to keep it that way. This is what we are doing: http://www.sovereignpeople.net/index.html Check out the entire website and documents. Originally starting in the heart of the Catskills, this is now the fastest growing anti- fracking movement across NY state.
“But no amount of money is worth ruining our most precious resource,water, forever.”
Fracking has never contaminated a single well. Where do you get off making these outrageous accusations and why are people like you wanting us to stay in the Middle East for fuel?
Stop Drilling in the Middle East – Bring our boys home to drill for fuel here.
“My family have lived here since before this was the USA and we are struggling.”
Really? Were your people the “Native Americans” who enslaved each other, or just scalped your enemies?
So if you oppose fracking, do you support expansion of nuclear power? Or do you just want us to pay TRIPLE the current energy costs, like Obama promised when he said “My Plan Makes Electricity Rates Skyrocket”?
Or are you one of those people who think more and more taxes and fees and restrictions should be imposed until all “people” can be driven out of the State until there is no one left but you and your cohorts who will be good “stewards” of the land living in caves and yurts?