New Paltz anti-frackers to lobby Albany

Environmentalists pleased, but looking for more

New Paltz resident Myra Long said she’d wanted both municipalities to pass the CRO to provide an added layer of protection. “What it is, is an inherent right not to be poisoned,” she explained.

The fear for activists is that the power, money and influence of Big Oil will be able to crush any local attempt at blocking fracking. Environmentalists like the community rights ordinance because it ties the ban into a Constitutional right to clean, drinkable water.

That’s why Long had this to say about New Paltz’s local laws. “I think it’s a great attempt, but they’re afraid of being sued.”

Even with the minor victory locally, the urgency of the need to block the practice hasn’t gone away. Long compared the situation to seeing a madman with a bottle of poison ready to contaminate a reservoir. If they had a chance, who in their right mind wouldn’t try to stop him?

“It has potential to exterminate all of us, little by little, incrementally. And that’s what’s happening. That’s what’s being discovered, and that’s what’s being covered up,” Long said.

Industry officials have denied that fracking is as dangerous or toxic as environmentalists claim. But the anti-fracking movement has gained some powerful allies. Hollywood stars like Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo have called for an end to the practice.

Yet for farmers and landowners sitting on a potential gold mine and hard pressed for cash, a lease with the gas company can seem like a financial blessing. Town hall debates over fracking have turned neighbor against neighbor in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York — environmentalists on one side, lease holders on the other.

Frackable New Paltz?

Both local governments passed their laws on the basis that New Paltz, Ulster County and surrounding areas are under a legitimate threat of natural gas drilling. Village officials relied on a hydrogeologist’s report to back up their actions.

That report, done by a firm in Grand Rapids, Ohio, says that the real threat to drinking water doesn’t necessarily come from the well the gas company will drill into the shale rock. Those drill sites have a built-in safety feature — the first pipe is protected by two other larger pipes fitted around it. The threat comes from older wells, with crumbling caps that could burst from the water pressure of nearby hydrofracking activities. The report also found that toxic fracking fluids have the potential to move with groundwater flows and seep into drinking water aquifers.

Right now, the industry’s crosshairs are targeted on the Marcellus Shale formation — which reaches into Ulster County but not as far east as New Paltz. However, New Paltz is above the Utica Shale, which potentially could be explored for natural gas.

Village Trustee Basco said their law was not intended to mollify constituents in the largely leftwing college town with an easy symbolic vote.

“I wouldn’t say that this was pandering at all. We did look into whether or not we can frack here — and the potential is definitely there,” she said.

By most accounts, fracking is more likely to happen to the west of Ulster County in other parts of the state like the Southern Tier. Anti-fracking activist Cherry admitted that there’s a “mixed review of how much shale gas” could be gained if drilling occurs here at home.

Even so, Basco admitted that there was also an alternative message being sent with the laws.

“There is also a political statement being made to Gov. Cuomo regarding this,” she said, adding that Mayor Jason West wanted a justification behind the law. “One of the things that Jason actually said was he didn’t want to pass things based on political statements or things that aren’t fact.”

Tom Shepstone works with the pro-industry group Energy In Depth as their campaign director for the Northeast Marcellus Initiative. He said no companies represented by the lobbying group had leased gas rights anywhere in Ulster County.

“There’s as much chance of a lease happening in New Paltz as a pineapple grove,” Shepstone said. “It’s a totally symbolic action. I understand that they justified it on the Utica, but the Utica in that area – nobody knows if it’s any good. It’s probably overcooked.”

“Overcooked” is an industry term referring to the thermal maturity of natural gas trapped in a shale formation. It essentially means that all the hydrocarbons and fuel is gone and it’s incompatible for production.

“We’re decades away from knowing if there’s anything there — and there probably isn’t,” he added.

Energy In Depth has been on the national stage recently for combatting assertions made in the upcoming Matt Damon film “Promised Land.” They have also developed talking points arguing against the popular anti-fracking documentary “Gasland.”