Deborah Goldberg

Mon, 2014-06-02 11:53Justin Mikulka
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Earthjustice to Defend Right of Dryden, NY, to Ban Fracking Within Town Limits

Don't Frack New York

On June 3rd, lawyers from Earthjustice will argue to New York’s highest court that the town board of Dryden, NY, has the right to ban fracking within its borders.   

Gas company Norse Energy has sued the Town of Dryden to try to negate its town council’s 2011 unanimous vote to ban fracking. Dryden’s decision has withstood challenges at two lower levels of New York’s judicial system, but this decision in the state’s highest court will be the one that sets precedent.

Dryden’s initial efforts to ban fracking were organized by a group of citizens with legal help from Helen Slottje, a lawyer who has since won the prestigious Goldman Prize for her work on this issue. Once the gas industry sued the Town of Dryden, Earthjustice volunteered to take on the case and has represented the town in this legal battle.

Earthjustice has produced a video, narrated by actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, which tells the story of the Dryden residents who organized the petition drive that led to the unanimous town board vote establishing the ban on fracking. 

Read more: Earthjustice to Defend Right of Dryden, NY, to Ban Fracking Within Town Limits
Sun, 2011-04-24 21:10Brendan DeMelle
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Check Out Earthjustice's Fracking Video Short "Things Always Find A Way To Happen"

Earthjustice released a great video short earlier this month explaining the threats posed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for unconventional gas, including water contamination, an exploding house, dead livestock, and health impacts on residents living near fracking operations, to name a few. 

It’s a great brief overview of the reasons why the lax oversight of fracking and other unconventional gas industry practices deserves immediate and intense scrutiny from public health and safety officials. Just last week, we witnessed Chesapeake Energy’s fracking well blowout in Bradford County, Pennsylvania - which eerily took place one year after the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico - contaminating local waterways and properties with drilling chemicals. That well blowout is thankfully now under control and awaiting a permanent plug, but it serves as another reminder of how ill-prepared the gas industry is to respond to such emergencies, and to prevent them in the first place.

Watch the Earthjustice short:

Read more: Check Out Earthjustice's Fracking Video Short "Things Always Find A Way To Happen"
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