Former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer may have had his sexual peccadilloes but he knew how to stand up to corporate interests that threatened the public good. It was a big boost for oil companies, planning to despoil New York State, when the powerhouse Spitzer was replaced by his easily rolled-over successor.
While belt-tightening throughout the state budget, Governor Patterson added $3 million to fast track harmful gas drilling practices--a quick fix economic solution with tragic long-range health, economic, and environmental consequences.
On Monday, a statewide coalition of New York state residents, businesses, and environmental groups rallied in the state capital of Albany to ask legislators to oppose Patterson's plans to contaminate state-wide water supplies (including New York City's) by permitting a damaging form of gas drilling, known as "fracking," or hydraulic fracturing.
Thanks to lobbying by Halliburton and other energy companies, under the Bush-Cheney administration, fracking got exempted from the Clean Water Act even though it releases large quantities of undisclosed carcinogens and toxic chemicals into the earth and water supply.
According to a recent study, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), just one drilling site deploys harmful chemicals sufficient "to contaminate more than 100 billion gallons of drinking water to unsafe levels ... more than 10 times as much water as the entire state of New York uses in a single day."
The chemicals used in fracking "pose a serious threat to the nation's water supplies, but those risks have been largely ignored," says the report. "Drinking water contamination and property damage have been linked to hydraulic fracturing in four states--Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. In one incident that polluted a Colorado creek, the drilling company is still trying to clean it up--four years later."
Nor does the drilling create local jobs or business. Instead, companies bus in workers from Texas, housing them in "man camps," sites where reportedly alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual predation abound. While no one wants a "man camp" next door, a gas well also ruins the neighborhood. If one owner sells property for drilling, all neighboring land can be conscripted for leasing, with no rights of refusal. Fracking also releases chemicals into the air; an army of trucks must carry over roads and New York State highways up to four million gallons of contaminated water (per well)-- which amps up air pollution and costly highway repairs. There is currently no way to effectively decontaminate the high quantities of waste water produced by fracking.
"We can't let the gleam of potential profits leave us with a legacy of polluted water and industrialized landscapes," said Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper.
Last month, New York City's Department of Environmental Protection issued a report urging a halt to gas drilling since, "Natural gas drilling and exploration are incompatible with the operation of New York City's unfiltered water supply system and pose unacceptable risks for more than nine million New Yorkers in the City and State." They noted that drilling entails "invasive industrialization and creates a substantial risk of chemical contamination, and infrastructure damage."
This week, Mayor Bloomberg chimed in, "The consequences are so severe that it is not a risk that I think we should run. I do not think that we should allow fractured drilling anywhere near our water supply."
Although land can be fenced in, water can't be. It flows underground, it rises into clouds, it's borne by the winds, and released by the rains, far from its source.
While the Mayor nobly aims to protect the immediate area surrounding the city's upstate water reservoir, so far no studies have investigated how far water-born contaminants from throughout the state could flow downstream to impact NYC, or it's water supply. Fracking originated in arid western regions, and its proponents don't know the extent of pollution possible in a region of interconnected rivers and frequent rains like New York and New England.
In New York State, gas drillers hope to use fracking in the regions of the New York City Watershed, the Delaware River, the Finger Lakes, and upstate watersheds, the source of waters that flow downstate to New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
With fresh water resources becoming scarcer worldwide due to population growth and climate change, it's unconscionable for a short-term Governor to short-sell a precious resource to balance his budget. Perhaps the soon to declare gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Cuomo, will like his popular father, Governor Mario Cuomo, become a successful champion.
To take action, sign up with the Environmental Advocates NY, Citizens for Safe Energy http://www.catskillcitizens.org/ The Environmental Working Group proposes a national ban or better regulation. Or join No Fracking Way on Facebook. Or cut to the chase, and ask soon to declare candidate, Andrew Cuomo to make New York State a model for future-oriented policies, rather than a disastrous object lesson in the costs of short-sighted gain.
For health insight, action, and news, get the free Health Outlook at www.healthjournalist.com
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http://vimeo.com/46806
We also bring in tourists who spend money locally and don't pollute!
I feel so very sad to learn that your seventh generation family winery is at risk-- because your region, the wine region of New York, has been designated as a disposal site for fracking waste.
There is currently no way to detoxify the combination of radioactivity and chemical poisons generated by the fracking process.
Right now, a well known researcher is conducting a thought experiment to turn water into wine.
But here in New York State, we are conducting another very harmful experiment: instead of producing locally grown wine, we have instead permitted industries to produce poisoned radio active water.
How tragic!
As a native New Yorker, I know that it's so easy to get caught up in the fast pace of urban life and forget about the innate connection to nature that all people have.
As a result, a threat to the upstate water sources seems like an upstate New York problem, and not something that would effect New Yorkers. But in this case, it certainly does.
So many of us are just waking up to the reality that what is done to our foods affects us. And now comes the reality that there is no way to draw the line and say polluting water with carcinogens is an upstate problem but not a downstate concern.
Beyond the obvious fact that water flows down from the upstate mountains to us here in New York City, upstate New York is the closest place that New Yorkers can go to experience nature. So if we seek to be green, we need to understand the upstate- downstate relationship.
Not to mention that sustainably grown foods sold in New York City come from farms upstate. So if we really want to shrink our environmental footprint, we have to support environmentally sound practices throughout New York state.
Alison
www.healthjournalist.com
Generally speaking this is what prevention is all about -if we are ever to move away from the break and fix model of health care we need to take a serious look at what is making people sick-and reducing risk especially when it comes to cancer.
Even in situations where the evidenced based science may not be abundant its important to remember that a lack of science does not translate to safe for human health.
Bill Couzens, Founder Less Cancer
I agree that it makes more sense to protect people from going through a life-threatening disease, by removing likely risk factors, rather than permitting large portions of the population to become ill, and then spend billions of dollars in painful and invasive treatments that attempt to address it.
The problem is that the money is invested in the both the companies that pollute and the costly treatments that aim to deal with the results of the pollution.
One reason that we don't have the scientific proof of these connection between known environmental pollutants and human illness, is because those who invest millions in health science research, don't invest in that kind of research-- because there is no money to be made from it.
I feel particularly sad for the next generation who, if we don't act, will spend more years of their lives in a more toxic world than my generation grew up in.
However, since younger people are not as close to mortality, I wonder whether they will face this problem prior to a health wake up call. Since it's your job and my job to use our accumulated wisdom and experience to inform them, I hope that we succeed.
Alison
http://news10now.com/cny-news-1013-content/494222/keuka-lake-residents-speak-out-against-chesapeake-energy-s-proposed-wastewater-site?ap=1&MP4
In no way could this be defined as clean energy! And if fracking proceeds in New York State, there were be millions of gallons of such waste, requiring disposal.
Here is a link to the reality of fracking in one community: http://www.straight.com/article-282210/vancouver/lucrative-dirty-secret
www.healthjournalist.com
That's a really great question. Upstate New York small farmers and artisanal food proudcers are the cornerstone of a growing sustainability movement that has made New York a model for other parts of the country. Just today Michael Pollan was on Oprah urging people to vote with their fork. How sad and ironic that just as people get more savvy about food, they take clean water for granted.
Alison
We all have to make choices, and if we make the wrong ones, then it's not going to be pretty.
So you are saying that there is a stronger voice for energy than there is for health..?
Given the flaccid approach to health care reform, I can't argue with you.
Alison