There are the mega shale $cammers - like Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy - the man who turned fracking shareholders into an art:
And then there are the local variety - the paid shale $hills that slink from one town board meeting to the next.
The shale $hills in New York have two strategies to try to persuade towns to refrain from acting to protect themselves : the carrot and the stick. A town’s response to fracking does not necessarily reflect the will of the people - as evidenced in petitions. Instead, lack of action is based on the indolence of the Supervisor and the intransigence of the Board, some of whom may have signed gas leases. So the frackers give them a rationale for doing nothing - a carrot and a stick.
When doing nothing is the worst option for a town.
I did a narrated power point on this:
http://my.brainshark.com/Fracking-Carrots-and-Sticks-425491941
The Carrots: Jobs and Ad Valorem Tax Revenue
The problem with promising jobs and tax revenue is that dry shale gas is fundamentally uneconomic in New York, and may be for some time.
But lying never was a problem for a fracking $hil - that’s what they’re paid to do
At this time, only wet shale gas - with lots of propane etc. - would be economic to drill for in New York state. So what will happen is that prospectors will drill a lot of test wells - hither and yon - with out-of-state crews - looking for wet shale gas. It’s unlikely they will find much of it - except west of the Finger Lakes - in the Utica - maybe:
But they will shoot up the hills looking , ruining roads and groundwater in the process.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/65577477/How-Gas-Wells-Leak
And they will game the regs. and securities laws to do so
http://www.scribd.com/doc/90510476/Tioga-Landowners-Propane-Clusterfrack
The frackers don’t tell towns this - when they are trying to persuade Town boards and Supers to do nothing. They tell each town the same story - lots of property taxes and lots of jobs for your town - soon.
And if you try to stop us we will sue you - for a “takings” or to overturn your zoning.
The Stick - Threatened Lawsuits:
If the carrots of phantom jobs and hypothetical property tax on hypothetically productive gas wells does not work - the frackers try the stick. There is no precedent for a “takings” claim against a town on a oil and gas property. None. Nowhere. And there won’t be any in New York, because there have been no regulatory takings. The fracking shills have threatened a takings claim against Dryden and Middlefield. But no suits filed - because they were just show-boating to the press. Imagine that. . . .Nor are they likely to be any more zoning challenges - while Dryden and Middlefiled are under appeal.
But that won’t stop the Tom West traveling fracking freak show:
They trot out ex DEC employees to make that pitch - to make it seem more credible. When the Dryden and Middlefield courts already considered the testimony of these sad $hills - and were not persuaded:
So what’s a town to do ?
Act. Adopt a road use ordinance.
Adopt a land use ordinance.
Or you will be stuck with the worst fracking regulations in the US.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/72545747/Worst-Fracking-Regs
Courtesy of the shale shills at the DEC
http://www.scribd.com/doc/76085928/Worst-Practices-at-the-DEC
Chip Northrup
Cooperstown
{ 0 comments… add one now }