I feel like I have been run over by a truck this morning. I went to a showing last night of “Split Estate” which documents the problems with drilling for Natural Gas using the fracking process in the west. I cried through the whole movie, on the way home, and afterwards.

I’ll share this link to an article in the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-reinbach/gas-drilling-in-new-york_b_332831.html

Even if you don’t believe that accidents, problems, pollution are widespread enough to warrant banning the process, the cavalier way the gas companies and our government treat those who are hurt, is disgusting. If a company is proven to have contaminated your well, but at the time was drilling using approved standards and required setbacks (which currently are 100′ from a residence in NYS) they will not address your problems.

Even IF the process was pristine – which it is NOT- the practice would ruin the landscape, quality of life and real estate values in rural NYS. The wells will be drilled closer together, on many more and much larger sites than indicated by the men who came pushing landholders to sign leases. There is constant noise from the sites an heavy truck traffic. In many cases the gas companies will be able to take land even when there was no lease agreement.

I hope those folks who managed to make a stink big enough to cause the company to restrain from drilling in the NYC watershed, will continue to fight for the rest of us. We’ll need all the help we can get.