BAINBRIDGE – The rain stayed mostly at bay on Sunday as hundreds of landowners and elected officials came together at General Clinton Park for a pro-drilling rally.
Safe, responsible drilling was the mantra repeated from the podium over and over again as invited speakers urged New York State to complete well permitting regulations and allow drilling into the Marcellus Shale to begin. The theme of the event was, “Our Land - Our Rights - Our Future.”
More than one million people in New York State, not just landowners hoping to lease to drilling companies, are being affected by the hold up at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, they said. The industry portends to brings jobs and spur economic development for all of New York.
“We are a coalition of 23,000 people, but more than one million are being affected by the government’s decision to slow down our economic progress and try to take our land rights away. This is our land to sell if we want. Why let Albany dictate what we do with it? Collectively we need to protect our rights,” said Carol Robinson, a former pipeline company employee.
Tim Whitesell of the Tompkins/Binghamton Coalition, and supervisor for the Town of Binghamton, said the economic development from marketing the state’s natural gas holdings “should be number one in Albany, but Albany is where this is being held up.”
The NYSDEC’s updated permitting regulations requested by Governor David Paterson about a year ago were originally slated to be completed in the spring. They have been pushed back to the end of September. Regulators are currently determining the number of days extended for the public comment period.
The crowd heard from coalition leaders representing New York and Pennsylvania, members of the New York State Farm Bureau and Independent Oil and Gas Association (IOGA), and state officials Senator Thomas Libous, Assemblyman Clifford Crouch and a spokesperson for Gary Finch’s office.
Libous told those in attendance that he was a member of “your team, not the Paterson team.” He admonished the governor for holding up the DEC: “Granting safe drilling in upstate New York should be the number one priority, not something to sit on and procrastinate on.”
“I know everyone wants safe drilling. Those who say we don’t care about the environment are wrong. Those who oppose us don’t think we care. We want safe drilling don’t we?” he asked, receiving applause.
“The frustration now is one that I felt when I started what some people are calling the coup in Albany, by walking out. This is the same thing. We are going to get their attention so we can have safe drilling now.”
Assemblyman Crouch said he had been listening, learning and involved with landowners on the issue of drilling for natural gas and leasing land for well over a year. “All of them have been environmentally conscious from the start,” he said.
Though he hasn’t leased his 160 acre dairy farm yet, Crouch said he planned to. “We are going to keep pushing and pushing in Albany. We need the economic boost this gas drilling will bring. We all want it done safely,” he said.
Quoting a popular upstate automobile dealer, Bradd Gill of IOGA said he never dreamed the state and the country would be “sitting on a huge deal like this (the Marcellus). This is huge,” he repeated. He said IOAG has been bombarded with having to respond to the “scare tactics” of certain groups’ agendas and New York state’s record of environmental regulations have lead to thousands of safely drilled wells in Western New York.
“We will not become a moonscape as some groups will have you believe. There hasn’t been a single instance of a water well being contaminated from drilling,” he said.
The comment period after issuing DEC permits should be limited to 60 or 90 days, Crouch said, not 120. Resulting lawsuits brought on by downstate politicians representing New York City’s surface water rights could further thwart drilling.
“If they try to put in a moratorium one mile around the perimeter of the reservoir, it could result in a lawsuit. There could be a legal issue of whether NYC has the right to take mineral rights of people who own land around the reservoir. New York City owns the surface water, not the mineral rights.”
Linda Olin, a Nineveh dairy farmer and member of the Windsor Coalition, said the DEC’s delay is “beyond what is reasonable” and environmental groups are “throwing up roadblocks and hoping that drilling will never happen.”
“This just is not right,” she said. “The picture painted is that we are greedy money mongers at the expense of the environment. We are not for just drilling and letting the chips fall where they may. We want safe drilling. We are worried about where the chips will fall. We have always been good stewards of the land.”
Only one individual protested the gathering. James Little of the Shaleshock Citizen’s Coalition, a network of Finger Lakes residents, said he was there to “make sure the DEC includes protections.”
His placard questioned the number of local jobs created; hidden costs from drilling for road repair and emergency services; possible toxic chemicals released from hydrofracking; and the resulting threats to the land, water and wildlife.