As I’m sure you’ve read, the New York Times has just published

Dear Governor Cuomo,

As I’m sure you’ve read, the New York Times has just published a series of three articles about the irresponsible – and perhaps even illegal – accounting by both industry and government agencies of the risks of natural gas investments. According to the New York Times, industry has systematically over-stated its expected production outputs, basing its estimates on high-producing wells only. Industry also was given special treatment by government watch-dog agencies to base their estimates on a larger area surrounding producing wells than other industries must use, thus increasing production estimates while simultaneously decreasing production costs on accounting sheets.

In other words, we already know about the lies industry has fed the public and our policymakers in terms of the environmental record of the entire process of fracking (i.e., including trucking, the drilling itself, pipeline construction, etc.) Now we also see industry has lied about its financial viability. And, as most people who live with fracking know, industry is also lying about local job growth, since most long-term jobs go to migrant workers from Texas, and fracking is a boom-and-bust industry, leaving an area desolate about ten years after its entrance.

Please fulfill your mandate to protect the citizens of New York State. Until thorough cumulative environmental impact studies are completed, until a thorough analysis of job creation is made, and until the financial investment strategies within industry have been cleared of any wrong-doing, NY State must not allow fracking, pipeline construction, water-related withdrawals, or any other fracking-related activity to take place in the state. Please ban fracking, or at minimum, please extend the current moratorium. In addition, please designate fracking waste as hazardous material (which surely it is since it tends to be radioactive, include heavy metals and extremely toxic chemicals like benzene and other BTEX compounds, as well as and formaldehyde and sulfur compounds.) Please place an immediate halt to NY State’s acceptance of out-of-state fracking waste, especially waste from Pennsylvania. Currently NY State has zero water filtration plants equipped to filter this waste adequately.

Sunday's NYTimes article (fracking is a ponzi scheme):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Monday's NYTimes article (government investment regulators_improper procedures):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/us/27gas.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=t...

Tuesday's NYTimes article (Lawmakers Seek Inquiry of Natural Gas Industry)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/us/politics/29naturalgas.html?hp

Thank you.

Alice Z