‘Bridge to Climate Chaos’: New Report Details Urgent Need for Total US Fracking Ban | Common Dreams News
February 8, 2020
“Unless we ban fracking, these terrifying climate trends will intensify.”
Gas Drilling Awareness for Cortland County
February 8, 2020
“Unless we ban fracking, these terrifying climate trends will intensify.”
May 2, 2016
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday that state law trumps two cities’ attempts to stem the domestic fracking boom, issuing “a severe slap in the face” to Coloradans and local democracy alike.
December 2, 2015
Details came out in trial of Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, in Manhattan federal court.
January 22, 2015
How We Banned Fracking in New York » EcoWatch.
[Editor’s note: A thousand anti-fracking activists rallied outside of Governor Cuomo’s State of the State address in Albany yesterday to celebrate the statewide ban on fracking, thank Governor Cuomo, and begin the work of fighting fracking infrastructure projects and promoting renewable energy. Here below are the prepared remarks from Sandra Steingraber’s speech at the post-rally victory party in the nearby Hilton Hotel.]
My friends, we are unfractured.
And thereby hangs a tale.
It’s a tale in which we all are—each one of us is—a starring character and a co-author. We are the maker of this story that has been shaped by our unceasing, unrelenting efforts—all of which mattered and made a difference.
Every rally. Every march. Every jug of Dimock water. Every public comment. Every local ban. Every letter to the editor. Every letter to the Governor. Every concert. Every expert testimony at every hearing.
It all mattered.
Every phone call. Every media story. Every press conference. Every petition signature. Every chant. Every sign and banner. Every birddogging mission.
And every alarm clock that rang at 3:30 a.m. to take every person to every bus to Albany every time we came here for the past five years.
It all mattered.
It all prevailed.
Because that’s what truth does. And it is so sweet now to come together in one room to tell the story of our victory over the shale gas army to each other. That’s why we are here today.
Because each one of us played a different role in this epic movement, we all have different points of view.
Here’s how the story goes from my vantage point.
It was science that stopped fracking in New York. In 2008 when our moratorium was first declared, the state of knowledge about the risks and harms of fracking was rudimentary. The science on fracking was a vast pool of ignorance and unknowing; on the far banks of that pool were what looked to be faint signals of harm.
As the years went by, those signals grew stronger. By 2012, when the revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (sGEIS) was released, there were about 60 studies in the peer-reviewed literature.
But exponential growth is an amazing phenomenon.
Two years later, when the NYS Department of Health released its final public health review of fracking, the number of studies in the peer-reviewed scientific literature had exceeded 400. All together, these studies show that fracking poisons the air (especially with benzene) and contaminates water. They show that old wells leak. They show that new wells leak. They show that cement is not an immortal substance and cannot always create, for all time, a perfect gasket that seals off the fracked zone from everything above it.
The studies show that methane leaks from drilling and fracking operations in prodigious amounts and so poses serious threats to our climate. And they show evidence for possible health impacts, including to pregnant women and infants.
Those initial faint glimmers of danger turned into the warning beacon of a lighthouse.
The conclusions reached by the New York State Department of Health—that fracking has not been demonstrated to be safe as currently practiced and that there is no guarantee that any regulatory framework can make it safe—are echoed in literature reviews conducted by three other scientific shops. These include a compendium of findings compiled by my own group, Concerned Health Professionals of New York, a statistical analysis by Physicians, Scientists and Engineers for Health Energy, and a major report from Canadian province of Quebec.
Four independent teams of public health scientists looked at the data and came to the same conclusion: Fracking carries known and unknown risks of harm for public health and the environment upon which public health depends.
But, let’s be clear. Science alone did not stop fracking. The data received a big assist from a well-informed citizen movement that took the scientific evidence to the media, to the Department of Environmental Conservation, and to elected officials, including the Governor himself.
It was the people who spoke scientific truth to power.
You all accomplished that in two ways.
First, you issued invitations to scientists to come into your communities—into your church basements, town halls, middle school gymnasiums, chambers of commerce, and Rotary Clubs. Thus, for a couple years running, some of us PhDs and MDs spent a lot of Friday nights and Sunday afternoons in one small town or another in upstate New York, giving Powerpoint presentations and laying out the data for audiences of common folks and town board members.
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December 17, 2014
Cuomo concludes fracking is too risky for New York | Capital New York.
ALBANY—A long-awaited study released by the Cuomo administration on Wednesday determined several “red flags” about hydraulic fracturing that could pose “significant public health risks,” officials said at a public meeting of Governor Andrew Cuomo and his cabinet.
The governor’s announcement, articulated by his acting Department of Health commissioner Howard Zucker and Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner Joe Martens, delays any potential gas drilling in New York State for at least several more years as more data becomes available.
“The evidence in the studies we reviewed raised public health concerns,” Zucker said. “There are many red flags because there are questions that remain unanswered from lack of scientific analysis, specifically longitudinal studies of [fracking].”
“The science isn’t here,” Zucker continued. “But the cumulative concerns based on the information I have read … gives me reason to pause.”
Winding toward the conclusion of his presentation, Zucker said, “Would I live in a community with [fracking] based on the facts that I have now? Would I let my child play in a school field nearby? After looking at the plethora of reports behind me … my answer is no.”
He yielded to Cuomo, who thanked him for his “powerful” remarks.
The health study, requested two years ago by state environmental officials, provided the basis for an open-ended stall by the governor, who was loath to anger environmentalist opponents or pro-business supporters of fracking before his re-election. For the past six years the state has vexed both constituencies, without provoking an outright revolt by either, by observing a moratorium on fracking without actually banning it.
Zucker said the health review involved 4,500 staff hours reviewing anecdotal reports and a stack of existing studies. He spent 15 minutes offering his analysis of several peer-reviewed reports and making an analogy to earlier scientific thinking on second-hand smoking.
Martens, when he spokes, said that restrictions already on hydrofracking in the New York City watershed as well as local towns that have banned its development mean that “the prospects for [hydrofracking] development in New York State are uncertain at best.”
At numerous points during his first term, and especially during his campaign this year, Cuomo cited the ongoing study as of the health impacts of fracking in lieu of articulating a position on it. In the meantime, a moratorium put in place by then-Governor David Paterson in 2008 remained in place.
(The health study placed the political onus on the Cuomo administration’s health department for its never-ending timeline; respected former health commissioner Nirav Shah, placed in the awkward position of giving a series of non-answers to questions about the department’s progress on its fracking study, left without saying much at all.)
In September 2012, after years of study, Martens and the Department of Environmental Conservation formally asked the state Department of Health to review the human health risks of fracking, leading to further delays.
The state sits on one of the nation’s richest shale deposits, the Marcellus, and is the last state in the nation with a major shale play to authorize fracking.
Proponents say drilling will create tens of thousands of jobs in the most economically depressed parts of the state, where industry and jobs departed generations ago.
Environmental groups have cautioned that drilling for natural gas in New York will pollute water sources, increase reliance on fossil fuels and harm human health.
In June, the state Court of Appeals upheld local bans on fracking, which Cuomo said would limit drilling to areas that support the industry. More than 120 communities have banned fracking, while about 60 have passed resolutions that will allow the industry to expand.
For years, anti-fracking activists have been Cuomo’s most outspoken opponents, protesting nearly all his public appearances and rallying thousands in Albany for the annual State of the State address.
Cuomo lost a number of upstate communities in his primary to Democratic challenger Zephyr Teachout in September, a showing she attributed in large part to the turnout among anti-fracking activists.
Following Martens and Zucker at the cabinet meeting, Cuomo said, “I get very few people who say to me, I love the idea of fracking.”
Referring to the economically depressed areas of upstate that were candidates for fracking activity, Cuomo said the question now is, “What can we do in these areas to generate jobs, generate wealth … as an alternative to fracking?”
Answering a reporter’s question after the presentation, Cuomo predicted “a ton of lawsuits” in response to the decision.