Posted October 7, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
Last month, NRDC engaged a nationally recognized opinion research firm to conduct polling in New York State to evaluate public attitudes about fracking and clean energy. Importantly, this is the first statewide poll in at least two years – and...continued→
Posted July 31, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
In New York’s Southern Tier, the very heart of the Marcellus Shale region where natural gas lies locked in dense rock, new poll results show a strong majority of people are worried about the health and environmental impacts of the...continued→
Posted July 8, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
When the New York State Court of Appeals ruled last week that municipalities have the right to use their zoning codes to ban fracking, my reaction was one of intense relief and celebration. But I immediately became concerned that the...continued→
Posted June 17, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
The mad end-of-session rush in Albany is upon us, the time of year for frenetic horse-trading and multiple must-do lists. Our list is short: The Senate, where too often good environmental legislation goes to die, must pass a three-year moratorium...continued→
Posted June 2, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
For some New Yorkers, fracking is a future nightmare. For others, it’s a delightful daydream of prosperity. It’s pretty safe to file State Senator George Maziarz in that daydream category, judging by his comment hinting that Governor Cuomo is likely...continued→
Posted May 20, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
Last month, I blogged about the problem of oil and gas companies requiring landowners who complain of water contamination, air pollution and/or health effects from nearby drilling operations to sign so-called "non-disclosure agreements," or "NDAs," when they enter into settlement agreements....continued→
Posted May 15, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Health and the Environment
Now more than ever we find ourselves at a critical juncture when it comes to the question of fracking in New York State. With new information about fracking’s risks becoming available, literally on almost a weekly basis, it is clearer...continued→
Posted April 28, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
It was Nancy Reagan who famously popularized the phrase “just say no,” in the context of drug abuse. Now, an attorney named Helen Holden Slottje has won major recognition for helping dozens of municipalities across the State of New York...continued→
Posted April 14, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
What is the fracking industry trying to sell us in Marcellus? Certainly not logical consistency. In one notorious case, now described at length by Jonathan H. Marks in The Hastings Center Report, we get a stark look at the contradictory...continued→
Posted April 2, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming
Arriving at the same time as a big-screen film about an epic, world-changing flood described in the Book of Genesis, the almost biblical sweep of gloomy news from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change portrays an unfolding global future of...continued→
Posted March 20, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
Drip by drip, study by study, event by event, we keep getting additional reasons to worry about what fracking could potentially do to damage the environment of New York and the health of New Yorkers. Last month, for example, I...continued→
Posted February 19, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
The agonizingly slow grinding of bureaucratic gears can be a source of frustration. But in New York, where the study of potential impacts of fracking has been moving without noticeable hurry, there’s new reason to see that steady pace as...continued→
Posted February 12, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
The future health of the Hudson River depends heavily on decisions that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation must make soon. That may sound like the-sky-is-falling overstatement, but it’s not. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo seems pretty...continued→
Posted February 10, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
It’s a question we have been asking urgently at NRDC: Why would the Environmental Protection Agency prematurely shut down its study of the water quality impacts of fracking in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming? Now, there’s a hopeful sign that the...continued→
Posted January 15, 2014 by Kate Sinding in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
Earlier this week, NRDC finally received a response to a letter we sent last September to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy seeking an explanation for EPA’s sudden withdrawal from important investigations into suspected drinking water contamination from fracking in...continued→
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