The WE ARE SENECA LAKE rally and protest

Who: The great people of the Finger Lakes

What: Rally and protest at the gates of the Crestwood compressor station site on Seneca Lake

When: Friday morning, 9:00 AM, October 24, 2014, rain or shine

Where: Meet at the east end of the Walmart parking lot (back left corner of the lot) in Watkins Glen at 9 am. Shuttle service to the site will be provided.

What to wear: The color blue.

Why: The Texas-based energy corporation, Crestwood Midstream, has approval to move forward with plans to store highly pressurized, explosive gas in abandoned salt caverns on the west side of Seneca Lake. While the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has temporarily halted plans to stockpile propane and butane (LPG) in the caverns—out of ongoing concerns for safety, health, and the environment—Crestwood is actively constructing infrastructure for the storage of two billion cubic feet of methane (natural gas), with the blessing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
This methane expansion project is advancing in the face of unparalleled public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of the lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

And yet, outrageously, Governor Cuomo’s DEC excised references to the risks of underground gas storage from a 2011 federal report on methane contamination of drinking water and has allowed key data to remain hidden.

On-site construction of the massive underground gas storage depot on the banks of Seneca Lake is scheduled to begin on Friday. Please come and show your opposition. Our message:

Seneca Lake is not a gas station for fracking operations. Seneca Lake is our home. Seneca Lake is our water. Seneca Lake brings tourists to our shores and grows wine grapes on our hills. Crestwood, go home! We are Seneca Lake.

To learn more about non-violent civil disobedience, please attend a gathering on Wednesday night, Oct. 22, 6 – 8 pm at the Perry City Friends (Quaker) Meeting House, 6324 Route 227 in Perry City, Town of Hector (directions: Google Maps)

The Pledge to Protect Seneca Lake is here. It is now active and still accepting signers.

Gas Free Seneca Fundraiser: Save the Date to Save Seneca Lake!

Thursday, October 9
5:30-9PM
Hazlitt’s 1852 Vineyards’ Oasis

Gas Free Seneca is facing both good news and bad news regarding the fight to keep Texas-based corporation Crestwood from storing LPG and methane on the shores of our beautiful Seneca Lake. While we are making great strides with having support to oppose the project, the need for funds is more urgent than ever. We are in need of auction items, food donations, wine, music…but especially money. Can you help us add to our items to auction? Any and all donations are greatly appreciated.

Online donations can be made at: www.gasfreeseneca.com or by mail to:
Gas Free Seneca
PO Box 333
Watkins Glen NY 14891

Checks can be made payable to: Sustainable Markets Foundation, with “Gas Free Seneca” in the memo line.?

more information about local bus transportation, see below.

copied from http://peoplesclimate.org/march/

This is an invitation to change everything.

In September, world leaders are coming to New York City for a UN summit on the climate crisis. UN Secretary­ General Ban Ki-­moon is urging governments to support an ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global warming pollution.

With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.

To change everything, we need everyone on board.
Sunday, September 21 in New York City. Join us

————-

from Citizen Action;

Possibilities and Pitfalls of New York’s Major Energy Utility Reform:
a webinar series to learn more about democratizing our energy choices for a more sustainable future.

September 11, 2014
7:00pm – 9:00pm

Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5423782369046290177

Co-sponsored by Alliance for A Green Economy and Catskill Mountainkeeper. 

First Installment: 
Reclaiming the Energy Vision Through Energy Democracy
with the Center for Social Inclusion, Global Labor Institute, Citizens for Local Power, and Local Power, Inc 

New York’s policy makers are in the midst of planning sweeping changes to the way our energy utilities are structured and regulated in New York, through a Public Service Commission proceeding called “Reforming the Energy Vision (REV).” Alliance for a Green Economy and Catskill Mountainkeeper invite you to learn about the REV Proceeding, which aims to fundamentally rethink the utility model to focus on distributed energy resources, such as energy efficiency, rooftop solar, demand response, storage and microgrids. The changes envisioned will have a profound impact on the state’s electric utilities, power producers, consumers, clean energy initiatives and climate for decades to come. It is critical that New York’s public interest community — environmentalists, consumer and public health advocates, civic organizations, etc — get involved in this proceeding. 

In this first installment of our series on important issues regarding the REV Proceeding, an expert panel will talk about movements toward Energy Democracy and how New York’s public interest community can push for policies to increase opportunities for Energy Democracy through the REV Proceeding.

Presentations by:

Sean Sweeny is Co-Director, Global Labor Institute, a program of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) based in New York City. Sean works with the international labor community around economic alternatives, environmental sustainability, and climate protection. In 2007, Sean and the Global Labor Institute team worked with the Steelworkers and other unions to organize the North American Labor Assembly on Climate Crisis, the first major conference on unions and climate change. Sean coordinates Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, a global project that is building support for social ownership of energy, including renewable power.

Anthony Giancatarino and Eric Walker are with the Center for Social Inclusion, which works to identify and support policy strategies to transform structural inequity and exclusion into structural fairness and inclusion. They develop policy ideas, foster effective leadership, and develop communications tools for an opportunity-rich world in which we all will thrive no matter our race or ethnicity.Anthony works in partnership with local grassroots communities to support racially equitable policy development and strategies at the local level that can also help shape and influence national policy change. Eric has nearly a decade of experience working at the intersection of community organizing, neighborhood revitalization, sustainability, and economic justice. He is a co-founder of People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) in Buffalo, NY, and is currently the inaugural Racial Equity Fellow for the Center for Social Inclusion’s Energy Democracy project. At the center, he uses his advocacy and policy experience to identify
ways to open energy policymaking tables to the voices of communities of color and low-income communities across New York State.

Jessica Barry and Paul Fenn are working to bring Community Choice Aggregation and local control over the energy supply to New York. Jessica is a co-founder of Citizens for Local Power, which empowers communities in New York’s mid-Hudson region to transition to a resilient, clean energy economy. Citizens for Local Power helped introduce a state-wide Community Choice Aggregation bill in the New York State Legislature last year. CLP is working to create a Municipal Energy Consortium of 12-20 municipalities to facilitate local clean energy projects, create inter-municipal buyers’ groups for clean energy products and services; and give voice to local communities in PSC proceedings. Paul is founder and president of Local Power Inc, which works on a national level to help communities implement Community Choice Aggregation to democratize and green their energy supply. Paul drafted the nation’s first Community Choice Aggregation bill for Massachusetts in 1993, and went on to draft or help draft similar laws in Ohio, California and other states over the following decade. Fenn also drafted the nation’s first municipal revenue bond authority to finance installations of renewables and efficiency measures in 2001, and used it to grow CCA into a new business model focused on demand reduction and localization.

Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5423782369046290177