Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Dear Governor Cuomo:

I have the honor of presenting for your review a coalition letter which requests that you immediately withdraw your Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) Marcellus Shale Revised Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (RD SGEIS) because it fails to fulfill the requirements of Executive Order No. 41 and cannot assure that horizontal hydrofracturing will be done "safely" in New York's tight shale formations.

The coalition letter documents DEC's long-standing failure to enforce natural gas drilling regulatory requirements. It also documents a total of 16 other major shortcomings that were originally voiced by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, governmental authorities, academic researchers and environmental groups.

See: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/cuomo/coalition_letter/2011

The coalition letter now has more than 10,400 signatories, including elected officials, business owners, professors, heads of environmental and civic organizations, religious leaders, farmers and representatives of more than 500 public interest, advocacy and grassroots groups.

I trust that you will find the coalition letter self-explanatory, but please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions about the letter that I might be able to answer.

More signatories are being added to the letter each day. I will keep you apprised.

Finally, it is my understanding that New York might consider allowing Marcellus Shale horizontal hydrofracturing in limited areas of the Southern Tier. The coalition letter requests that no horizontal hydrofracturing be permitted in limited areas of New York unless it is allowed in all areas of our state.

As you well know, the Southern Tier and New York's Marcellus Shale formation as a whole already have far more environmental hazards than your Department of Environmental Conservation can clean up, including a total of 88 Class 2 Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites, 92 Class A Brownfields, 6,415 leaking tanks and spills that do not meet standards and 505 hazardous waste regulatory violators.

Until all of those problems are brought into strict compliance with applicable regulatory standards, you must not permit horizontal hydrofracturing activities that could exacerbate existing contamination hazards.

Thank you for your consideration.

Very truly yours,

Walter Hang