Open letter to Governor Cuomo from scientists and physicians

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August 7, 2012

Open Letter to Governor Cuomo

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We—the undersigned scientists, medical professionals, elected officials, business persons, and economists – protest the exclusion of qualified, independent experts from the decision-making process to permit or prohibit unconventional development of natural gas from shale formations in New York State.

Letters we have sent to your office and to the Department of Environmental Conservation have received no replies. Requests for meetings with you have received no response. The failure to engage us in substantive discussions contradicts your repeated statement that science, facts, and information will form the basis of your decision.

While our voices have been ignored, the Department of Environmental Conservation has rolled out the red carpet to representatives of the gas industry and engaged them in reciprocal conversation. Gas industry representatives have enjoyed meetings with high-level officials, sneak peaks at the draft environmental impact statement, and same-day responses to emailed requests, as revealed by the recent Environmental Working Group report based on FOIL documents.

As the Albany Times Union reports this week that you are now moving actively to release the revised draft regulations and open parts of New York State to unconventional shale gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing, we write to express our complete loss of faith in the Department of Environmental Conservation. This agency has not only colluded with the gas industry in crafting regulations, its preparations to date are wholly inadequate to oversee the roll-out of an industry and practice as inherently dangerous, secretive, and accident-prone as spatially intensive, high-volume fracking.

Furthermore, we call for the resignation of Bradley Field, the chief of the DEC’s Division of Mineral Resources. Mr. Field is directly responsible for the scientific integrity of the document on which your decision will rest. As a signatory to a petition that denies the demonstrable harm of climate change, Mr. Field has shown himself wholly unqualified for his position.

Governor Cuomo, the “science, facts, and information” that will inform your decision to allow or disallow unconventional shale gas development in New York State is being supplied by a climate change contrarian who works within an agency whose senior officials openly collude with the gas industry and ignore the concerns of independent experts.

You are being badly served.

We believe that “safe” development of shale gas is not possible at this time using existing technologies. Were the DEC objective and inclusive of evidence and facts, it would come to the same conclusion. The best science shows that the moratorium on 2 unconventional development of natural gas from shale formations in New York State should be indefinitely extended. The process as we know it is simply too unpredictable and dangerous to be allowed to go forward in our state.

By extending the moratorium, you have an opportunity to develop a sustainable energy policy in New York State, become an environmental champion, put yourself in harmony with public opinion, and demonstrate that you are making a sciencebased decision. You cannot claim to be listening to science while ignoring what independent scientists have to say. It’s time to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Lou Allstadt Former executive vice president, Mobil Oil Corporation

Don Barber Town Supervisor of Caroline

Larry Bennett Public relations and creative services manager, Brewery Ommegang

Jannette Barth, PhD Pepacton Institute LLC

Dominic Frongillo Deputy Town Supervisor of Caroline; founder, Elected Officials to Protect New York

Robert Howarth, PhD David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology Cornell University

Anthony Ingraffea, PhD, PE Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering Cornell University

Adam Law, MD Endocrinologist, Ithaca, New York; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London

Deborah Rogers Energy Policy Forum

Matthew Ryan Mayor of Binghamton

Sandra Steingraber, PhD Distinguished Scholar in Residence Ithaca College