Pass More Anti Fracking Symbols !

December 13, 2013 More Towns Pass Fracking Bans

By Joe Mahoney Staff Writer The Daily Star Fri Dec 13, 2013, 06:00 AM EST

Most Otsego County residents are now living in communities that have enacted bans or moratorium against gas drilling.

This week, the town of Butternuts approved a ban on shale gas drilling and storage, with a 3-2 vote of the town board, Butternuts Town Supervisor Charles Eckelmann said.By another 3-2 vote earlier in the week, the town of Hartwick approved an eight-month moratorium against all heavy industry, including gas drilling.

The towns that have already banned gas drilling include Middlefield, Cherry Valley, Milford, New Lisbon, Otsego, Plainfield, Roseboom and Springfield. Moratoriums against drilling have been enacted by the town of Otego and the town of Oneonta. In addition, fracking has been banned by the the city of Oneonta and the village of Cooperstown.

That adds up to 12 of the county’s 24 towns moving to keep out drilling ­ either permanently or temporarily ­ with the only city and most populous village in the county following suit.

Pro-drilling Worcester (Where the sauce is from JLN) Town Board Member Dave Parker conceded that in the debate over natural gas extraction, his side is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Otsego County residents.

“Let them revel in their symbolic victories,” Parker said in an interview Thursday. “They use the methods and tactics of activists, while we try to use logic and common sense.” (Whatever he’s telling people, they aren’t buying it. JLN)

Eckelmann, who backed the ban enacted in Butternuts this week, said there is no question from his vantage point that opponents of horizontal hydraulic fracturing for gas have the momentum as state government leaders wrestle with the question of whether it should issue drilling permits to the energy industry.“We didn’t enact our ban on a whim,” he said. “All the evidence indicates that the people who don’t want it far outnumber the people who do want it. It’s the will of the people.”

Towns that remain open to drilling include Worcester, Burlington, Unadilla, Edmeston, Decatur, Maryland, Laurens, Pittsfield, Richfield, Westford, and Exeter. (Meaning they are open to getting dumped on JLN)

Richfield Town Supervisor Fran Enjem said he would like to enact a moratorium against heavy industry in his town, but has been unable to generate sufficient support from fellow board members. It would behoove the town, he said, to have such a moratorium in place while it works on developing a comprehensive plan.As for whether he fears the drilling industry would seek to explore for shale gas in Richfield, Enjem said, “I don’t think we have enough shale for it.”

Whether New York municipalities are even empowered to enact such bans is the subject of an ongoing legal dispute between the gas industry and drilling foes. The state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, is expected to settle the question in 2014, with the ban on heavy industry enacted by Middlefield in 2011 central to that case.

Parker said his town council in Worcester is focused on issues more important and relevant to the townspeople than the gas drilling debate, such as the condition of the town barn. (The town barn ? JLN)

“We’re a good decade away from having any drilling in New York,” said Parker. “The drilling rigs that came into Pennsylvania are heading west. Why waste your time on issues that are purely symbolic?” (How about a convoy of some hot symbolic Fracksylvania frack waste ? Or some symbolic radioactive drill cuttings you can stick in your symbolic town barn. JLN)