Food, Water and Energy: Know the Nexus
January 14, 2013
www.gracelinks.org/media/pdf/knowthenexus_final.pdf.
Chefs for the Marcellus
December 16, 2011
Acclaimed Chef Restaurateur Mario Batali Signs on to Our Campaign
December 12th, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink
Critically acclaimed chef, restaurateur, award-winning author, and television personality Mario Batali has written to Governor Cuomo urging him to ban hydrofracking for natural gas in the farmlands and watersheds of New York State. Mario, with his business partner Joe Bastianich, has created a restaurant and culinary empire in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Singapore. He generously supports many charities, and has spoken out on numerous environmental causes. At the time of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Mario made his thoughts clear on the future of fossil fuels in an interview on Planet Green: “It is simply and obviously inevitable that we will have to move away from non-sustainable energy resources. … The writing is on the wall and we are simply mindless idiots not to read it.” Please join Mario today by writing to Governor Cuomo asking him to ban fracking in New York State.
Cooperstown Brewer Fights N.Y. Fracking Sought by EOG Resources uom
August 22, 2011
Cooperstown Brewer Fights N.Y. Fracking Sought by EOG Resources
2011-08-22 04:00:02.1 GMT
By Jim Efstathiou Jr.
Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — Brewery Ommegang says Belgian ale
and natural gas don¹t mix.
That statement of the obvious matters, the maker of
Aphrodite Ale and Hennepin Farmhouse Saison says, because the
water it draws from aquifers beneath Cooperstown, New York, is
at risk of pollution from hydraulic fracturing.
³Even our strongest beer is 90 percent water, and all of
our water comes off the property,² Larry Bennett, a spokesman
for the brewery about 170 miles (274 kilometers) northwest of
Times Square, said in an interview. ³If you contaminate an
aquifer, it¹s done. There¹s nothing you can do about it.²
Ommegang, an Otsego County tourist attraction along with
the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, has joined a
growing grass-roots campaign in New York state to ban the
technology that has transformed U.S. gas production, Bloomberg
Government reported. The brewery, a unit of Belgium-based Duvel
Moortgat NV, says it would face a ³material threat² from a
leak of fluid used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to free
natural gas from shale.
The state is poised to issue final drilling rules and
permits to tap into the Marcellus Shale formation sometime next
year, after a three-year review. In anticipation, drilling bans
have been put in place in 13 towns and are being debated in 19
more, according to Karen Edelstein, a geographic information-
systems consultant in Ithaca. Ommegang has chipped in $40,000 to
support the towns in Otsego County.
Cuomo¹s Role
³Governor Andrew Cuomo is pressuring regulators to finish
their review and to start issuing permits,² Helen Slottje, an
attorney with the Community Environmental Defense Council, Inc.
in Ithaca who has helped towns opposed to drilling, said in an
interview. Towns are ³increasingly aware of the great burden
gas drilling imposes on communities and are unwilling to bear
those costs,² she said.
Cuomo, a Democrat, said during his campaign last year that
fracking would create jobs, ³but only if it is safe.² Since
taking office in January, he has pushed regulators to complete
their environmental review.
Companies such as EOG Resources Inc., a Houston-based gas
and oil explorer, have leased property in towns that banned
drilling or are working to block it, according to documents on
file with the Otsego County clerk. EOG doesn¹t provide a
breakdown of its lease holdings by state or by county, company
spokeswoman K Leonard said in an e-mail.
Millions of gallons of chemically treated water are forced
underground in fracking to break up rock and let gas flow.
Technological advances led the Energy Department to more than
double its estimate of U.S. shale-gas reserves to 827 trillion
cubic feet and to project that the nation now has enough natural
gas to heat homes and run power stations for 110 years.
Schneiderman Subpoenas
Last week, Range Resources Corp., Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. and
Goodrich Petroleum Corp. were subpoenaed by New York Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman over whether they accurately
represented the profitability of their natural-gas wells,
according to a person familiar with the matter. The subpoenas,
sent Aug. 8, requested documents on formulas used to project how
long the wells can produce gas without new fracking.
In Pennsylvania¹s portion of the Marcellus Shale, which
stretches from Tennessee to New York, drilling has created
overnight millionaires from lease payments and gas royalties
paid by companies such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Talisman
Energy Inc.
³I have landowners already under lease,² Scott Kurkoski,
a Binghamton, New York-based lawyer who represents property
owners across the state who favor drilling, said in an
interview. ³They have a contract with a company prepared to
market their minerals, and now towns are taking it away.²
ŒPlenty of Places¹
No local initiatives to ban fracking have been offered in
Tioga, Broome and Chemung counties, which border Pennsylvania
and are potentially gas-rich areas, according to Kurkoski.
³My instinct is that there¹s still plenty of places that
are receptive to drilling and that they¹ll go to those places
first,² Joe Martens, commissioner of New York¹s state
Department of Environmental Conservation, which is drafting
drilling rules, said in an interview. ³That¹s kind of the
responsible approach.²
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying the
effects of fracking on drinking water. A committee advising U.S.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Aug. 11 that gas companies risk
causing serious environmental damage unless they commit to best
practices in engineering.
Produced Safely
Industry groups such as the Hamburg-based Independent Oil &
Gas Association of New York, say shale gas can be produced
safely while generating jobs and tax revenue.
Environmental groups are succeeding in some towns by
raising fears over the technology, according to Richard Downey
of Otego, 76, a retired official with New York City¹s schools.
Downey leads an Otsego County landowner¹s group that supports
fracking in the towns of Unadilla, Butternuts and Otego.
³They have the environmental religion,² Downey said in an
interview. ³They are protecting Gaea — Mother Earth — and
we¹re just protecting property rights, and some money to a
certain extent, and you don¹t get the same passion for that.²
The Marcellus Shale may contain 490 trillion cubic feet of
gas, making it the world¹s second-largest gas field after the
South Pars formation in Iran and Qatar, according to Terry
Engelder, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State
University in State College. New York banned fracking until it
completes its environmental rules sometime next year, according
to Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman with the Department of
Environmental Conservation.
Court Challenge
Landowners that have leased property for drilling will
challenge local drilling bans in court on grounds that only the
state can regulate oil and gas production, Kurkoski said.
Slottje said the bans will hold up because zoning rules
aren¹t considered regulation under New York law.
Both sides expect the issue to be decided in the New York
Court of Appeals, the state¹s highest court. Legal maneuvers may
delay drilling in parts of the state for at least a year, said
Eduardo Penalver, who teaches land-use law at Cornell Law School
in Ithaca.
³If a town draws up a generally worded zoning law that
restricts or prohibits categories of activities, and that
encompasses hydrofracking, there¹s a strong argument that that
is not prohibited under state law,² Penalver said in an
interview. ³The power of municipalities to control what you can
do on your land is now pretty deeply entrenched.²
In December, Montreal-based Gastem Inc. used low-volume
fracking, which is permitted in New York, to test a well in
Otsego County where the company has 22,000 acres under lease.
The results ³quite satisfied² the company, spokesman David
Vincent said.
³There¹s always opposition,² Vincent, who predicted the
local drilling bans won¹t succeed, said in an interview. ³If we
do it right, people will accept that.²
ŒThree Philosophers¹
That hasn¹t won over Ommegang, which says it uses about 1
million gallons of water a year to make ales such as ³Three
Philosophers Quadrupel,² described on its website as a blend of
cherries, roasted malts, and dark chocolate that will ³only
achieve more wisdom and coherence as it broods in the dark
recesses of your cellar.²
Ommegang employs 82 people and receives about 40,000
visitors a year for beer tastings and tours, Bennett said. He
said it is named for a festival held in Brussels in 1549 to
commemorate a visit by Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman
Emperor, and his son Philip II.
The brewery adds prestige to the fight against fracking,
Slottje said.
³Ommegang is one of the largest employers in the area,²
Slottje said. ³They¹re a tourist draw. They sort of exemplify
everything that the Cooperstown area is trying to do.²
For Related News and Information:
Map of U.S. shale basins: BMAP 82555
News on U.S. utilities: TNI UTI US
Natural-gas trading hub prices: NGHB
News about fracturing: STNI FRACKING
–Editors: Larry Liebert, Joe Winski
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at +1-212-617-1647 or
jefstathiou@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry Liebert at +1-202-624-1936 or
lliebert@bloomberg.net
—— End of Forwarded Message
Fracking in the Foodshed Martha Goodsell, Christine Applegate
May 31, 2011
https://acrobat.com/#d=RF- gWpS33h7fE1A5ic0iwg.
Fracking in the Foodshed Martha Goodsell, Christine Applegate NYRAD presentation May, 2011
How gas drilling contaminates your food – Sustainable food – Salon.com
May 19, 2011
How gas drilling contaminates your food – Sustainable food – Salon.com.
How gas drilling contaminates your food
We know the controversial fracking process hurts our water supply — but it’s also affecting the things we eat
iStockphoto/mrturkel
This article originally appeared on Gilt Taste.
There’s a stunning moment in the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland,” where a man touches a match to his running faucet — to have it explode in a ball of fire. This is what hydraulic fracturing, a process of drilling for natural gas known as “fracking,” is doing to many drinking water supplies across the country. But the other side of fracking — what it might do to the food eaten by people living hundreds of miles from the nearest gas well — has received little attention.
Unlike many in agriculture, cattle farmer Ken Jaffe has had a good decade. But lately he’s been nervous, worried fracking will destroy his business. Jaffe’s been good to his soil, and the land has been good to him. By rotating his herd of cattle to different pastures on his Catskills farm every day, he has restored the once-eroded land and built a successful business with his grass-fed and -finished beef. His Slope Farms sells meat to food coops, specialty meat markets, and high-end restaurants in New York City, about 160 miles to the southeast. “If you feed your micro-herd — the bacteria and fungi in the soil — then your big herd will do well, too,” he said when I visited him recently on a cool, sunny afternoon.
But a seam of black rock lies nearly a mile beneath the topsoil he has so scrupulously nurtured, and the deposit contains enormous quantities of natural gas. Profit-hungry energy companies — and the politicians that their campaign donations support — are determined to exploit that resource, even though it could destroy the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers like Jaffe who have sprung up in New York City’s vibrant, alternative food shed.
Energy companies liberate the gas, which is trapped in tiny bubble-like pockets in the rock, by forcefully injecting chemicals diluted with millions of gallons of water into the rock. This fracking ruptures the earth, creating fissures through which the gas passes — along with a witch’s brew of carcinogens, acutely poisonous heavy metals, and radioactive elements.
“For sustainable agriculture, fracking is a disaster,” says Jaffe. The gas rush started in the South and West, but has spread to the East and now affects 34 states. Under much of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York lies a 400-million-year-old geographic formation called the Marcellus Shale. Although estimates vary, the shale may hold 50 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, enough to meet New York State’s needs for 50 years. To see what fracking can do to food production, Jaffe has only to look at what has happened to some of his colleagues in nearby Pennsylvania, where the first fracked well came into production in 2005, and where there are now more than 1,500.
Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined 28 cattle belonging to Don and Carol Johnson, who farm about 175 miles southwest of Jaffe. The animals had come into wastewater that leaked from a nearby well that showed concentrations of chlorine, barium, magnesium, potassium, and radioactive strontium. In Louisiana, 16 cows that drank fluid from a fracked well began bellowing, foaming and bleeding at the mouth, then dropped dead. Homeowners near fracked sites complain about a host of frightening consequences, from poisoned wells to sickened pets to debilitating illnesses.
The Marcellus Shale itself contains ethane, propane, and butane, arsenic, cobalt, lead, chromium — toxins all. Uranium, radium, and radon make the shale so radioactive that companies sometimes drop Geiger counters into wells to determine whether they have reached the gas-rich deposits. But those compounds are almost benign compared to the fracking fluids that drillers inject into the wells. At least 596 chemicals are used in fracking, but the companies are not required by law to divulge the ingredients, which are considered trade secrets. According to a report prepared for the Ground Water Protection Council, a national association of state agencies charged with protecting the water supply, a typical recipe might include hydrochloric acid (which can damage respiratory organs, eyes, skin, and intestines), glutaraldehyde (normally used to sterilize medical equipment and linked to asthma, breathing difficulties, respiratory irritation, and skin rashes), N,N-dimethylformamide (a solvent that can cause birth defects and cancer), ethylene glycol (a lethal toxin), and benzene (a potent carcinogen). Some of these chemicals stay in the ground. Others are vented into the air. Many enter the water table or leach into ponds, streams, and rivers.
For the most part, state and federal governments have turned a blind eye to the problems brought about by fracking. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims that it has no jurisdiction to investigate matters related to food production, a contention disputed by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., who wrote a report urging the EPA to study all issues associated with fracking. A concerned farmer who prefers not to be identified forwarded me an email written to him by Jim Riviere, the director of the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank, a group of animal science professors that tracks incidents of chemical contamination in livestock. Riviere wrote that his group receives up to 10 requests per day from veterinarians dealing with exposures to contaminants, including the byproducts of fracking. Nonetheless, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has slashed funding to his group. “We are told by the newly reorganized USDA that chemical contamination is not their priority,” Riviere wrote.
“The dangers of fracking to the food supply are not something that’s been investigated very much,” said Emily Wurgh of Food and Water Watch, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C. “We have been trying to get members of Congress to request studies into effects of fracking on agriculture, but we haven’t gotten much traction.”
Fracking is not a new technology. It was first put into commercial use in 1949 by Halliburton, and that company has made billions from employing the extraction method. But it really wasn’t until 2004 that fracking really took off, the year that the EPA declared that fracking “posed little or no threat” to drinking water. Weston Wilson, a scientist and 30-year veteran of the agency, who sought whistle-blower protection, emphatically disagreed, saying that the agency’s official conclusions were “unsupportable” and that five of seven members of the review panel that made the decision had conflicts of interest. (Wilson has continued to work at the EPA, and continues to be publicly critical of fracking.)
A year later, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act with a “Halliburton loophole,” a clause inserted at the request of Dick Cheney, who had been Halliburton’s CEO before becoming vice president. The loophole specifically exempts fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the CLEAR Act, and from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, and it unleashed the largest and most extensive drilling program in history, according to Josh Fox, the creator of the film “Gasland.”
In 2010 New York State imposed a moratorium on gas drilling, but if that were to be lifted, fracking would deal a triple whammy to Ken Jaffe’s farm, and thousands more like it. (Compare a map of the Marcellus Shale with one of small organic farms.)
Back on his pasture, Jaffe gestured to a pond in a bowl-like valley surrounded by sloping pastures and hillsides of maples, white pines, and blossoming wild cherries and apple trees, that, along with wells on the property, provides water for his animals. Given the geography of the land, any chemical contamination seeping from the rock would go directly into Jaffe’s water supply, poisoning his cattle.
And it’s not just his herd that’s vulnerable; all the plant life on his property would also be in danger. According to Jaffe, ozone is more lethal to crops than all other airborne pollutants combined, and of all crops, few are more susceptible to it than clover, a nutrient-rich feed that is critical to his method of sustainable cattle raising. While ozone is normally associated with automobile exhaust, fracking generates so much of it that Sublette Country, Wyo., has ozone levels as high as those in Los Angeles. This, despite the fact that it has fewer than 9,000 residents spread out over an area the size of Connecticut. What it does have is gas wells.
Even if his cows and his land would somehow remain unaffected by nearby wells, Jaffe’s business would still likely suffer. Joe Holtz is manager of Brooklyn’s Park Slope Food Coop, which buys a cow a week from Jaffe (and upward of $3 million products from other New York area farms). He says that his environmentally conscious organization would be forced to seek alternatives to New York meat and produce if fracking becomes commonplace. “If the air is fouled and the animals are drinking water that contains poisonous fracking chemicals, then products from those animals are going to have poisons,” he told me. Given the progress that small, local farms have made in the region, he says, the decision to stop dealing with long-term suppliers would be hard. But he adds, “We would have to stop buying from them. There is no doubt in my mind.”
Brewery Opposes Hydrofracking
November 20, 2010 1 Comment
BREWERY OMMEGANG NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 18, 2011
Brewery Ommegang Statement on Hydrofracking for Shale Gas.
Serious threat of water pollution and other environmental risks for Otsego County.
Revised: Jan 18, 2011
Contact: Larry Bennett, 607-544-1800, or larry@ommegang.com Executive Order
NOTE: This is an update of the Brewery Ommegang statement originally released on Nov 19, 2010.This update
follows then-Governor Paterson’s December 13, 2010 veto of the moratorium proposed by the NY State Assembly
and Senate, and his issuing of Executive Order No. 41. On Jan 1, 2011 incoming New York State Governor Cuomo
continued Executive Order No. 41without change. The Executive Order is attached.
Brewery Ommegang has completed a close examination of the development of hydrofracking for natural gas in Otsego
County. We reviewed extensive information provided by gas industry professionals, publications and supporters of
hydrofracking who propose that drilling is safe, necessary, and will be an economic boost to Otsego County. We also
reviewed information from gas industry professionals who are opponents of hydrofracking, as well as environmental and
historic groups who contend that the permitting procedure is flawed; drilling is not safe; our water is endangered; and
economic benefits will not be realized. We have endeavored to be objective in our analysis and we will make available the
information we have gathered to anyone who is interested in understanding both sides of the argument.
We have concluded that:
1. The gas industry has secured broad exemptions from federal regulation under the Clean Water Act and the Safe
Drinking Water Act in 2005 (also known as the “Halliburton exemption”). However, the EPA has recently begun a
study which is scheduled for completion sometime in 2012.
2. Under New York State law, horizontal drilling remains halted (under Exec .Order 41) while the pending Supplemental
Generic Impact Statement (sGEIS) is reviewed. The review is to be completed by June 1, 2011, and then put up for
public comment for at least 30 days. In the interim, drilling of vertical wells with hydro fracking is proceeding in our
county under the 18-year-old 1992 Generic Environmental Impact Statement. Thus, gas companies are now drilling
and fracking in our county without local review, while both state and federal regulatory investigations into the risks and
regulation of the process are delayed.
Land-lease development and proposed drilling in the region has already reached a high level with very limited public
awareness of the issues any without meaningful regulatory control. Over 60,000 acres in Otsego County are known to
have been leased by drilling companies or their land agents, and drilling projects have already started .
The relative contribution of natural gas from hydrofracking to either the economy or the energy needs of the region may be
minimal, and development does not materially contribute to a larger national or regional energy policy.
The number of documented spills, blowouts, leaking wells and other environmental accidents is significant and the
environmental and human consequences have been serious in a number of states, including TX, PA, WY, and WV.
From our perspective, the critical threat is contamination of the aquifers occurring directly above the Marcellus
shale.5.
6. The withdrawal of huge quantities of fresh water estimated at 2-5 million gallons of water per frack cycle and the
heavy impact of thousands of truck trips per well hauling water and chemicals to and from the drill pads cannot be
sustained in Otsego County. Effective treatments of the millions of gallons of polluted processing waste do not exist
and there are no locations for waste disposal in New York capable of supporting the proposed scale of drilling.
Drilling presents a strategic risk to the entire Otsego County water supply and the Susquehanna watershed. Meanwhile,
the NY City watershed (in adjacent counties) is under special coverage by the DEC, effectively creating a protected
zone. This reflects awareness by DEC and NYC officials of potential risks. The protection requires site-specific review
and permitting and has effectively stopped gas exploration inside the NYC watershed. Our region of upstate NY is not
covered by the agreement and it’s now much cheaper to work in counties like ours, where there is no local regulation.
The plans for drilling also pose a direct and material threat to the Ommegang Brewery. We draw water for our beer from
aquifers beneath our 140-acre farmstead located close to Cooperstown, NY, at the head of the Susquehanna
watershed. Contamination of our water supply would end our brewery business and even the threat of potential
contamination could be sufficient for the future of our company to be at risk.
We also join others in concluding that industrial-scale hydrofracking in the beautiful rural upstate region will irreparably
damage the essential qualities that make Otsego County an excellent place to live, raise families, farm and brew beer.
We consider highly visible, potentially dangerous, industrial development as directly opposed to what our rural
location offers the people who have chosen to make their lives here and the millions who choose to visit the region
every year.
We therefore:
Call for an immediate moratorium and for an eventual ban on both vertical and horizontal hydrofracking in Otsego County
and NY State. It is not enough to protect only New York City residents’ land, water and health. All upstate residents
and their water, land, health and heritage deserve equal protection under law.
Call for complete reconsideration, rewriting and review of the NY State Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact
Statement (sGEIS) by the Cuomo administration. The current sGEIS is based on outdated and inadequate data.
Support the transfer of control over local hydrofracking from NY State to Otsego County. And for the same all across New
York allowing local communities to determine if they wish to accept the impact on their lives.
Brewery Ommegang will:
Seek to defend the interests of our business, our employees and our community by actively campaigning for the
prevention of hydrofracking in Otsego county and NY state by every available means, including legal action.
Provide practical support for Otsego2000 as the principal focus for a coalition of many environmental and other citizen
groups working to prevent development of hydrofracking in the region. Otsego 2000 is coordinating the coalition of
groups opposing hydrofracking.
Bring together a coalition of other concerned upstate businesses in support of the Otsego2000 campaign.
Petition Otsego County and Otsego County town officials to support a local moratorium and a ban on hydrofracking, and
petition our state government leaders, regulators and other agencies for the same at a statewide level.
Simon Thorpe, President/CEO of Brewery Ommegang said: “Ommegang believes that opposing development of
hydrofracking is critical to the interests of our community, our people and our business. We are proud of our
accomplishment in building a thriving, sustainable and environmentally conscious business in upstate New York. We are
deeply concerned at the threat posed by development of drilling in the region and the risk to the purity of the water on
which we depend, and which is a key reason we are located here. We are a company that enjoys a national reputation for
super-premium quality beers produced in upstate New York and we hope that the state and local regulators attach value
to what we do for the region in terms of employment and our representation of upstate New York in restaurants and
grocery stores across the nation. We do not want the futures of our business, our employees, and our communities
damaged or destroyed by water pollution, or compromised by the industrialization associated with hydrofracking for shale
gas.”
For further information please contact:
Larry Bennett
Communications Director
Duvel Moortgat USA / Brewery Ommegang
363, County Highway 33
Cooperstown, NY 13326
Tel: 607-544-1800
Email: larry@ommegang.com
Brewery Ommegang is part of the Duvel Moortgat Group of breweries, which were founded in Belgium. It is the group’s
principal brewery in the United States and produces a super-premium range of beers that are distributed across the
country together with the other Duvel Moortgat beers including Duvel, Maredsous, Liefmans, Achouffe and De Koninck.
Issued Dec. 13, 2010 by NY State Governor Paterson:
Executive Order No 41
WHEREAS, the 2009 New York State Energy Plan supports the development of in-State energy resources, including
natural gas, to achieve the Plan’s multiple public policy objectives; and
WHEREAS, low-volume hydraulic fracturing, or conventional fracking, has been used successfully and safely in New York
State for many years to extract natural gas consistent with the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for Oil,
Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program promulgated by the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (Department) in 1992; and
WHEREAS, new technologies have emerged, and are being deployed in other states, to extract natural gas more
efficiently through a process known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling; and
WHEREAS, there is a need for further study of this new technology prior to deployment in New York State; and
WHEREAS, in 2008, I directed the Commissioner of Environmental Conservation to initiate a formal public process to
update the 1992 GEIS to ensure that any new technologies deployed in New York State are first thoroughly analyzed and
regulated to ensure that all environmental and public health impacts are mitigated or avoided; and
WHEREAS, the Department issued a draft scope for an updated GEIS on October 6, 2008, held public meetings in the
Marcellus shale region, received more than 3,000 written comments, and issued a final scope for the Supplemental
Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) on February 6, 2009. The Department released the Draft SGEIS for
public review and comment on September 30, 2009, held four public hearings in the region and New York City, and
received more than 13,000 written comments during a public comment period that closed December 31, 2009; and
WHEREAS, tens of thousands of citizens, landowners, local governments, large and small businesses, non-governmental
organizations, and other stakeholders have expressed their heartfelt support for or opposition to the new technology, but
most agree that an objective, science-based analysis is the best approach to setting new policy.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, David A. Paterson, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the authority vested in me by
the Constitution and laws of the State of New York, do hereby order as follows:
1. The Department shall complete its review of the public comments, make such revisions to the Draft SGEIS that
are necessary to analyze comprehensively the environmental impacts associated with high-volume hydraulic
fracturing combined with horizontal drilling, ensure that such impacts are appropriately avoided or mitigated
consistent with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), other provisions of the Environmental
Conservation Law and other laws, and ensures that adequate regulatory measures are identified to protect public
health and the environment; and
2. On or about June 1, 2011, the Department shall publish a Revised Draft SGEIS, accept public comment on the
revisions for a period of not less than thirty days, and may schedule public hearings on such revisions to be
conducted in the Marcellus shale region and New York City; and
3. Recognizing that, pursuant to SEQRA, no permits may be issued prior to the completion of a Final SGEIS, the
Department, subsequent to the conclusion of the public comment period, shall report to the Governor on the
status of the Final SGEIS and the regulatory conditions that are necessary to include in oil and gas well permits
to protect public health and the environment.
G I V E N under my hand and the Privy Seal of the State in the City of Albany this thirteenth day of December in the year
two thousand ten.
BY THE GOVERNOR
Secretary to the Governor
comments:
Hello all,
This is a powerful statement on the part of Brewery Omegang.
My prediction is that there will be more of such statements from food and
beverage companies.
From my discussions with wholesale buyers of beef, hydrofracking is a big
concern, which is already impacting on purchasing decisions. I’d like to
offer my recent experience.
During a recent meeting with a nutritionist with a large regional
supermarket chain, she mentioned out of the blue that she was avoiding
purchases of meat from northern PA where there is hydrofracking. (I had not
brought up gas drilling, as that was not the original topic of the meeting.)
And from my conversations with my wholesale buyers in NYC and locally (who
are buying whole steers on a regular basis) they are very aware of
hydrofracking. They have expressed deep concern about chemical contamination
of the food they are purchasing and the regional foodshed. They are also
quite clear that they will try to lower the risk of purchasing contaminated
food by avoiding purchases from farms near active gas drilling.
Given what I am hearing from wholesale buyers, it’s hard for me to visualize
my business surviving with gas drilling nearby. As is true of many
sustainable agriculture enterprises, 100% of my overhead, and 100% of my
sales are local, with both upstream and downstream economic multipliers
benefiting other regional business. With the elimination of businesses like
mine, these other enterprises will be harmed as well.
Ken
Ken Jaffe
Slope Farms
Meredith, NY
607-746-2294
917-543-0169 cell
www.slopefarms.com
GDACC 
