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Many towns have banned fracking so you could look into what Oneonta and Cooperstown have done.
That seems as secure as Town Board members. I would guess in the fu-fu areas such as along Otsego Lake itself the local money could keep the fracking out but in most areas when the money starts seeming real some of the town bans might evaporate - a decision for generations, on a two year off year election cycle.
Everywhere needs jobs. People need clean, safe, untainted drinking water more. You must have that to survive. Without it all humans, animals, and plants would die.
NYC isn't the only one against fracking. I'm in the Finger Lakes and the majority here don't want fracking either. We are an agricultural area and fracking would destroy our agriculture and tourism which provide most of our jobs.
How would fracking "destroy our agriculture and tourism"?
There's been no proof to date of adverse environment effects from horizontal fracking in the nearly twenty years it's been used. There has been some instances of water contamination in Pennsylvania from storing fracking waste in ponds, but PA has seriously lax environmental regs when it comes to the mining and timber industries. Certainly concerns about the storage and disposal of fracking waste water are valid and need to be addressed. The other examples of environmental problems supposedly caused by fracking, however, have proven to be either nothing more than rumors or totally unrelated to the process.
There is concern about possible contamination of NYC water supplies, so NYS has already decided that it will take a "better safe than sorry" approach and banned fracking from the watersheds that feed those reservoirs. The issue is whether fracking will be allowed in other areas of the state. That's what the moratorium is about.
While the underground footprints of gas wells are large, the actual well head sites are fairly small, perhaps an acre or two while the well is being drilled, and about half that once the well is producing. Farmers can plant crops all around the wells and they can graze cattle around them, too. Once completed, the gas wells are much less obtrusive in the countryside than silos, ordinary windmills, and commercial wind turbines. Gravel mining, OTOH, scars large areas of land that is not easily restored to productive use again. The quarrying of bluestone, limestone or granite permanently scars the mining area and subjects neighbors to the annoyance of frequent dynamite blasting.
A lot of the hysteria about fracking is reminiscent of the hysteria about wind turbines when they were first proposed. Hundreds of turbines have been in operation in New York State for several years, and none of the purported "evils" like massive bird kills have taken place.
FYI, contrary to what some opponents of fracking claim, if the gas pool is beneath your land, you will get paid for the gas extracted even if the well head is on your neighbor's land. Furthermore, unless you don't own the mineral rights to your land or you (or a previous owner) leased the gas rights, the gas drillers have to get your permission to take gas from your property. They won't drill on your neighbor's property unless they have leases on all the properties above the gas pool. I get royalties from 1 gas well that's totally on my property and from 3 others that are partly on my property.
Would you mind sharing your personal experiences of how fracking impacted you negatively in Penn? This is a great topic that I discuss with my students and it would be nice to hear from someone who was directly impacted by it.
Also, in general for everyone:
I would suggest watching the documentary "FrackNation".
Gasland has been proved to be unprofessional, and much has been discredited.
Would you mind sharing your personal experiences of how fracking impacted you negatively in Penn? This is a great topic that I discuss with my students and it would be nice to hear from someone who was directly impacted by it.
Also, in general for everyone:
I would suggest watching the documentary "FrackNation".
Gasland has been proved to be unprofessional, and much has been discredited.
Is your post aimed at me? If so, I didn't have any bad experiences with fracking. I've read numerous articles on fracking, and the only proven environmental damage came from improperly stored waste water in PA. I think some of it may have leaked out of a pond. All the other reports have proven to be hearsay or suppositions.
I own property in Cattaraugus County, NY, which has gas wells on it. They were all fracked vertically, a process that goes back at least 50 years. Horizontal fracking uses more water and supposedly different chemicals.
I'm not opposed to horizontal fracking. I think that banning it in the watersheds that provide drinking water for NYC, much of the Hudson Valley, and the Albany metro area is a good precaution. I think allowing it in other parts of the state with stringent controls on waste water disposal isn't going to be any more harmful to the environment than traditional vertical fracking. As I said, it's less disruptive than gravel mining or sandstone/bluestone/granite quarrying.
I would suggest watching the documentary "FrackNation".
Gasland has been proved to be unprofessional, and much has been discredited.
First, I'll take your suggestion. I'll look for it.
Second, I just viewed "Gasland." Discredited, how? Was there a whole bunch of footage of people who live amid gas wells and had no problems that would up on the cutting room floor? Did the filmmaker fake something?
Some of the things depicted in that film are purely appalling. And, the people he interviewed did not look like nuts, or crackpots to me.
I know a little something about chemistry and chemicals, and they want to install this gas extraction crap next door to my house, and have my kids breathing all that s**t, I'd get me an attorney.
First, I'll take your suggestion. I'll look for it.
Second, I just viewed "Gasland." Discredited, how? Was there a whole bunch of footage of people who live amid gas wells and had no problems that would up on the cutting room floor? Did the filmmaker fake something?
Some of the things depicted in that film are purely appalling. And, the people he interviewed did not look like nuts, or crackpots to me.
I know a little something about chemistry and chemicals, and they want to install this gas extraction crap next door to my house, and have my kids breathing all that s**t, I'd get me an attorney.
NYS already has stringent environmental regulation on gas drilling, including minimum distances from buildings, especially homes. Fracking waste water is not allowed to be stored in ponds on site, and established natural gas wells don't release anything into the air unless there's a leak in the transmission line. Natural gas comes out of the well "ready to use", which means it's just like the natural gas in the utility pipe under your street and that runs into your house. How can you let your kids breathe that?
Furthermore, if you own the mineral rights on the property you own -- and in NYS, almost everybody does -- you decide whether you lease your gas rights to a gas company. Your neighbors might not be too friendly with you if you prevent them from receiving royalties, but it's still your choice.
If somebody in the past leased the gas rights, those rights generally come with the property, so the holder of the lease would have the right to drill on your land -- and you would receive the gas royalties from the well. If you bought your property without the mineral rights and somebody else owns the mineral rights (which seems to be somewhat more common in Pennsylvania), then you are SOOL, and your RE lawyer was incompetent. You could get yourself a new lawyer, but there's not much that he can do. You bought the land the way you bought it, and contracts are binding.
NYS already has stringent environmental regulation on gas drilling, including minimum distances from buildings, especially homes. Fracking waste water is not allowed to be stored in ponds on site, and established natural gas wells don't release anything into the air unless there's a leak in the transmission line. Natural gas comes out of the well "ready to use", which means it's just like the natural gas in the utility pipe under your street and that runs into your house. How can you let your kids breathe that?
Yes, but it may be that, down the road, the fracking fluids that do not come back up (about 50%, is my understanding) will spead in all directions, including upwards, contaminating aquifers that drinking water comes from.
Of particular concern are glycol ethers. Neither RO, activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange, or steam stripping are effective at removing them from water. These compounds are associated with many health problems, particularly miscarriages in pregnant women.
(By the way, if you are pregnant, don't use Windex or anything that smells like Windex. What you're smelling is ethyl cellosolve.)
Another concern is the off gas from the recovered fracking fluids.
The mining industry has left a hideous legacy of environmental destruction throughout the US, esp. in the West. I toured one of these sites - acid mine drainage pools, literally LAKES of toxic CRAP. I do not know enough about the subject of fracking to have a definitive opinion. I think I do know enough to say that we seem to be rushing on ahead with it too rapidly for it to be prudent, lured by the carrot of billions of dollars.
Last edited by WildCardSteve; 10-25-2013 at 03:55 PM..
I've lived around fracking for 18 years with no negative effects. "Gasland" has been completely debunked; 30 years ago you could light your water on fire in Dimock-they have a fountain there that's constantly lit.
I just want the people in NY to realize that most of the stories about drilling in your area are hyped-up and exaggerated. If you use gas, you should drill for gas. Think about it; if this industry caused "devastation" and "contamination" it would have been shut down long ago. Yet it continues successfully.
The phrase 'pump chemicals into the ground' is a scary one, and of course the knee-jerk reaction would be 'Are they crazy?' But researching the field is essential, and it's mostly sand and water that goes into the ground.
Watch 'Fracknation' if you can. Don't follow Yoko Ono et al. It would be great to be independent of the middle east, don't you think?
I've lived around fracking for 18 years with no negative effects. "Gasland" has been completely debunked; 30 years ago you could light your water on fire in Dimock-they have a fountain there that's constantly lit.
I just want the people in NY to realize that most of the stories about drilling in your area are hyped-up and exaggerated. If you use gas, you should drill for gas. Think about it; if this industry caused "devastation" and "contamination" it would have been shut down long ago. Yet it continues successfully.
The phrase 'pump chemicals into the ground' is a scary one, and of course the knee-jerk reaction would be 'Are they crazy?' But researching the field is essential, and it's mostly sand and water that goes into the ground.
Watch 'Fracknation' if you can. Don't follow Yoko Ono et al. It would be great to be independent of the middle east, don't you think?
Then put it in your backyard! Stay out of my agriculture.
Sorry, but nothing has been debunked. There are places here in NY that have gas fires permanently going because of the natural gas being released from the rocks. That's completely different than some foreign company coming in and only caring about money an NOT OUR environment.
Do you realize how much there is in NYS and how important that water is? That water doesn't just stay in NY. We share it with other states. No water = no humans!
If fracking is allowed, I KNOW where I live will become a ghost town and wasteland. I'm surrounded by agriculture. No one will buy our wines if there is fracking. My region will be completely destroyed in mere minutes. What took mother nature thousands of years to create will be forever ruined and unusable.
No thank you! You keep your gas wells!
And no I do NOT think we should be the new Middle East. They have their own problems from it. We need to work on new technologies using things that are here naturally like solar and wind.
Then put it in your backyard! Stay out of my agriculture.
...
No thank you! You keep your gas wells!
I have gas wells "in my backyard" since my property has 1 gas well totally on it plus 2 gas reservoirs partially on it, and no, there's no contamination of the water supply.
Quote:
If fracking is allowed, I KNOW where I live will become a ghost town and wasteland. I'm surrounded by agriculture. No one will buy our wines if there is fracking. My region will be completely destroyed in mere minutes. What took mother nature thousands of years to create will be forever ruined and unusable.
This is an absolutely hysterical and stupid statement. You KNOW absolutely NOTHING ... and prove it.
You should be worried a whole lot more about aquifier contamination from what the US Army stored (probably in easily corroded barrels) at the Seneca Army Depot than you should worry about fracking.
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