ALBANY — More than 1,000 protesters lined a pathway on Wednesday, chanting and wielding signs as lawmakers and lobbyists made their way to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s third State of the State address.
Cuomo’s 80-minute speech, however, had nary a mention of the topic they were protesting: hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.
A Binghamton-area Assemblywoman penned a letter to the state’s top environmental regulator Wednesday, urging him to call a meeting of the state’s High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel — a once-touted committee of interested parties that hasn’t met in nearly a year.
Steuben County is home to 619 unplugged and abandoned gas, oil and other wells that are a threat to public health and safety, according to the head of an Ithaca-based environmental database firm.
Another 41 of these wells are in Chemung County, 46 in Tompkins County, 11 in Broome County and seven in Tioga County, said Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting Inc.
BINGHAMTON — Years after an Allegany County family found crude oil pouring from its showerhead in 2008, they still don’t feel comfortable drinking their water.
A tank of brine continuously pours contaminants into a western New York lagoon. Across the state, nearly 5,000 abandoned oil and gas wells haven’t been properly capped.
Walter Hang, president of an Ithaca-based environmental database firm, Toxics Targeting, on Wednesday released a set of documents he says indicate shortcomings in the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulation of conventional oil and gas drilling, and lead to questions about whether the agency is equipped to regulate hydrofracking.
BINGHAMTON — Asking voters to consider November’s election “a referendum on reckless drilling,” Democratic congressional candidate Dan Lamb on Tuesday sought to push the debate over hydraulic fracturing to the forefront of his campaign against incumbent Rep. Richard Hanna.
My name is Dan Lamb, and I am running for Congress at the geographic epicenter of the debate over hydraulic fracturing. Our new 22nd Congressional District stretches from the Southern Tier to Utica and includes all or part of three of the five counties in which Gov. Andrew Cuomo may permit fracking without an independent assessment of the health, environmental and economic effects.
As pictured from left, biologist and author Sandra Steingraber, Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan, president of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting Walter Hang, ___ Ben Perkus, and former county legislator and Sierra Club member Chris Burger gather in downtown Binghamton on Tuesday afternoon to announce a letter to Gov. Cuomo requesting that he oppose any gas fracking demonstration projects in the Tier or anywhere else in New York State. / CASEY STAFF/ Staff Photo
The leadership of a group of landowners in Tioga County, New York has reached an agreement with gas drillers to begin developing the Marcellus Shale using liquid propane as a fracking agent.
Brokers of the deal, between eCorp, GasFrac Energy Services, and the Tioga County Landowners Association, believe that fracking with natural gas is not included under a New York state moratorium that prevents drillers from using high volume hydraulic fracturing. The moratorium was put in place in 2008 due to environmental concerns, pending the completion of a review by the state DEC.
JOHNSON CITY -- Area experts on natural gas drilling agree: New York's swath of the Marcellus Shale isn't likely to be tapped in 2012.
Panelists on both sides of the issue discussed the future of natural gas drilling in the Southern Tier at a roundtable discussion hosted by Press & Sun-Bulletin on Thursday at the Gannett Central N.Y. Production Facility.
