Supporters of natural gas drilling made their voices heard in Albany earlier today, with a pro-hydrofracking rally that started at the Corning Preserve near the Hudson River and made its way up state street to West Capitol Park.
The rally was in some ways a mirror of the large anti-fracking rally in August, following the same general outline and route. But culturally and message-wise it was the polar opposite.
There were no Hollywood stars like Debra Winger (who has a home upstate) or acclaimed authors like Bill McKibben here, but GOP Sen Tom Libous of Binghamton, one of the legislature’s main proponents, said they were glad not to have them.
“Stay in Hollywood,” Libous said of the high-profile protestors. “We don’t want to hear it here.”
And while protestors said they were worried about the potential for water table pollution or other disruptions, the drilling supporters focused on one central theme — the need for jobs, especially in the hard-pressed Southern Tier. Indeed, many of the participants who were largely middle aged men, wore red “Jobs” t-shirts.
“We’re so out of it economically,” remarked Don Zaengle, a geologist from Worcester, Otsego County. He said he’s previously worked for big oil companies in Texas and Louisiana and the growth and economic prosperity that mineral development has transformed many of those areas, in contrast with the decay in upstate New York. For work, Zaengle heads for Pennsylvania, about 90 minutes away, where hydrofracking has revitalized that region as well.
Douglas Lee, a native of China who now works on Wall Street and who has a second home in Sullivan County, said he helped organize Monday’s rally because he was tired of seeing the poverty that much of upstate is mired in.
He drove along the state’s Southern Tier recently and “All I saw was dilapidated houses, farm houses falling down…able bodied men without jobs.”
We need JOBS all right – JOBS in CLEAN Energy – Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Conservation. Who needs Fracking? GAS companies, Corporate Polluters. Who care about Corporate profits but don’t give a damn about Climate Change or clean drinking water. Who I’m guessing paid for this party.
When we marched against Fracking, there were Thousands of us. How many pro-polluter marchers were there today? Can you tell us Rick?
The gas is trapped in pre-Cambrian era shale. It has been in the ground for 400 million years. I think you can wait a wee bit longer.
oh and there’s this gem
“Douglas Lee, a native of China who now works on Wall Street and who has a second home in Sullivan County, said he helped organize Monday’s rally because he was tired of seeing the poverty that much of upstate is mired in.”
He owns a second home in Sullivan County and works on Wall Street. I wonder if he will tell his investors to bet on natural gas…Mr. Lee has the resources to pick up and leave if the area becomes unbearably uninhabitable.
What happens once the wells are tapped? The companies will leave and the region will return to poverty and with less arable land. I am not modeling this image off my perspective, it has happened all over the country in other oil/gas boom bust towns.
You let Sullivan County go the way of the drill you might as well call it “Sullied” County.
The anti’s want us to be dependant on arab oil.
Libous should examine the facts, besides the environmental concerns:
Drilling companies bring in labor, they don’t use locals. Once the well is completed and tied in to the nearest pipeline, very little additional labor is needed.
US Natural gas prices are at an all time low, driven by a glut in supply. Companies are looking for better prices overseas and investing in Liquified Natural Gas facilities to enable export shipping. So much for ‘energy independence’; the gas companies have no obligation to keep our resources within the US, they can sell anywhere they please.
Sammy: your rally didn’t have thousands of people. Stop. I was there.
The reason you get anyone to show up is because the enviros in NY are well organized and professional obstructiionists. You about the risks and raid the college campuses and pick the idealists who don’t know any better. Your actions are shameless.
Floyd: True the gas isn’t going anywhere, but NY’s economy is (down the drain). Jobs also are going somewhere – to other states. The problem is the enviro movement has given the public a false choice: enviroment v. economy. Both can exist together. Go look a farmer in the eye in the so. tier and tell him he should wait. The gas is a gift for the these people, and the devastation they claim are just not occurring elsewhere.
“The gas is trapped in pre-Cambrian era shale. It has been in the ground for 400 million years. I think you can wait a wee bit longer.”
Actually, this is one thing I do agree on with the Anti-Frackers.
This is your best photo? The backsides of two guys blocking the large crowd along with a backwards American flag? Nice work.
Waited too long? Get used to it. New York State Citizens do not, and will not, want your freaking fracking.
Solar, wind geothermal and conservation? Very funny. The few ‘green jobs’ that are out there are all subsidized with tax dollars.
The stalling on this project is a total travesty to upstate NY.
Sammy,
Your corporate polluter mantra is as tiresome as it is misguided. Who do you think builds and installs wind mills and solar panels? Corporations do, my friend. Guess what? They do it for money – for (gasp) profit!
They don’t do it to fight global warming. They are every bit as interested in maximizing profit as oil and gas companies. If they weren’t, they’d never get the financing they need from (gasp) Wall Street to build the projects to begin with. They need to demonstrate the economics of their projects to get the money to get them built.
That’s right, my friend, wind and solar are built with Wall Street money. Corporations, banks, one percenters all colluding with incentives from the federal government to install and profit from clean, renewable energy. It doesn’t happen based on fuzzy feelings about global warming. It’s about the money.
If fracking comes to NY, it will be done under the strictest environmental/health/remediation regulations ever.
That will make NY fracking more expensive, so few drillers will be rushing into the Southern Tier anytime soon.
unclefracker – I was there & we were THOUSANDS.
Rick- can you and/or other TU staff respond with an objective approximation of how many attended that anti-fracking & pro-fracking rallies?
Yes Bump, businesses invest in what makes them profits.
Whether they profit from destroying the environment and public health, as Oil & Gas companies do, or from beneficial energy technologies such as Solar and Wind, is a matter of what our Government creates incentives & disincentives for. The problem, the Corruption, is when Corporations buy political power, and then they regulate government instead of government regulating them. And the Gas companies buying politicians, like the Repub NY Senate which they largely own, is the underlying problem.
“Responsible Liberal” (although you’re as liberal as I am the Easter Bunny) – Germany gets 30% of its power from Clean Renewable sources.
Why can’t we?
What part of “Fracking has never contaminated a water well” do the animal worshippers not understand?
They wont be happy until we are all sitting naked in the woods and eating leaves.
Easy to see these people are sponsored astroturfers. Why? Because they all have on the same shirt. I wonder if it has the CSNY logo on it.
A serious comment:
I have no position on fracking one way or the other. I’m fine with it as long as it’s done safely.
There does seem to be some questions about how safe it is. As such, let’s make a capitalist argument for slowing down/waiting: Isn’t now a perfect time to slow down and see if those questions can be answered, given the glut of natural gas on the market now which is driving down prices anyway? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to be patient and see if the tech to do it can be improved in the meantime? If we are to wait a few years until the supply glut goes down, won’t this make both the gas and the land-leases more valuable?
Sammy,
So now it’s not profits that make corporations evil, it’s the harm they do to the environment and health. Well, there’s quite a few folks who believe wind companies are harming the environment and endangering public health (they’ve even coined a name for it – wind turbine syndrome). I don’t buy it, but there are folks who feel as strongly about being anti wind as you do about being anti gas.
As for buying government, wind and solar companies also employ lobbyists and donate to political campaigns just like the oil and gas industry – and every other industry for that matter. They also deploy armies of environmental groups to help carry their message just like the gas guys have done with today’s demonstration.
As for Germany – their level of renewable energy is the result of costly subsidies that guarantee a fixed, above-market (profitable) rate for the renewable energy. It’s become so costly that they’re scaling back and reducing their incentives – and talking about increasing the use of coal to replace the nuclear power they no longer want to use.
If you’re that supportive of renewables here you should want to see more gas on the system because we can use gas-fired power plants to compensate for the variability of wind and solar output. Gas is also replacing coal throughout much of the country. Since gas burns cleaner than coal, fraking is good for the environment overall.
Solar and Wind will save us as long as it is not in my back yard. 2 years ago Berne blocked personal wind turbines and Ballston just passed zoning laws preventing free standing solar panels. The same environazis that don’t want fracking don’t want their aerial view obstructed by clean energy sources. What exactly do they want???
Sure there are folks who claim Wind power harms the environment – they’re funded by Oil, Coal, Nuclear & Gas companies. There are also folks who claim Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya.
While Fracking creates less carbon pollution than coal (of course we should end coal burning), it also releases methane into the atmosphere, which is a dangerous contributor to Climate Change.
Germany is NOT scaling back but expanding its’ Clean energy, not at all going to coal.
There is no need to drill for oil or gas. We can do what Germany is doing and transition to CLEAN energy. We can get rid of subsidies for dirty energy & create subsidies for Clean energy. It will create jobs that can’t be outsourced. Many more jobs can be created with Clean energy than Fracking.
Frack in Your backyard, not mine!
“Easy to see these people are sponsored astroturfers. Why? Because they all have on the same shirt.”
Isn’t that the same at every union rally?
Even in Germany, clean energy is a losing proposition without heavy government subsidies.
Starting in January 2013, German homeowners should see a tax they pay to support renewable energy increase by nearly half, according to a Monday press release from the country’s four main grid operators. And rise it has: the surcharge has more than quadrupled since 2009, according to Philipp Roesler, Germany’s Economy Minister. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com
Except, Chip, that UNIONS represent Working Class Americans, the 99%.
Astroturf groups are fronts for the Corporate Elite 1%.
“What part of “Fracking has never contaminated a water well” do the animal worshippers not understand?
They wont be happy until we are all sitting naked in the woods and eating leaves.”
The assertion that HVHF has never contaminated a water well is categorically false. 16 residents in Dimock had to have their water source replaced because of near by drilling. Cabot Oil paid for it.
If we don’t stop the reliance on fossil fuels we WILL be living in the woods and eating leaves because we will fight each other until the last drop. Wars will increasingly be fought over fossil fuels and water. I can’t drink natural gas to survive. But all the frack supporters should try.
Chip – If you don’t understand the difference between astroturfers and unions, I’m not qualified to help you work through that partisan driven cognitive dissonance.
Of the 400,000 fracking wells in the US, some dating back to the late 40′s you site 16 people that have been affected. According to the EPA, only 1 fracking well in Wyoming has contaminated drink water and they aren’t sure if it was their own examination well or the fracking well that caused the contamination. All other reports of fracking contaminating water wells has been from poorly built surface reclamation ponds that could easily be certified by the DEC before drilling began.
Sammy,
Article detailing that Germany’s use of coal is expected to increase from 42% to 50%. This at a time when U.S. use of coal is diminishing to lowest levels in decades due to abundant natural gas. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19168574)
Article detailing Germany’s decision to cap incentives for renewables because the costs of subsidies are expected to increase by nearly 50% (http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/10/debate-continues-in-germany-over-cost-to-ratepayers-for-renewable-energy-incentives. By the way – it’s folks in the middle class that pay those taxes for supporting renewables. Is that what you want us to emulate?
It’s a nice story line for you that somehow the oil and gas companies are driving opposition to wind, but the folks who show up at hearings opposing wind projects are typically just people who have live in rural communities for decades and don’t like the thought that their community will be “marred” with wind mills. The validity of their argument is as relevant as yours is against gas. A lot of hyperbole and emotion. Not a lot of fact to back it up.
Darth Stateworker,
I understand 100% the difference… in your terms astroturfers are any group that don’t support your opinion and unions are…
Let’s not even talk about how “astroturf” most union protests are. My mother and sister have been told that if they didn’t attend a protest they’d “pay for it” from their union boss.
sammy, Unions do NOT “represent Working Class Americans”, the represent the 7% of Americans who in most cases are FORCED to be part of the union.
When given the optin in WIS, over 70% of “Working Class Americans” decided on their OWN to LEAVE the union. That speaks volumes for whom they “represent”.
Ah yes, Sen. Libous’ class warfare against the rich is exactly why they are supposedly fleeing New York in droves.
These folks are just property owners who don’t want the value of their land gutted and their drinking water poisoned, just like the tens of thousands of non-Hollywood actors who oppose fracking.