Welcome to the New and Redesigned Catskill Mountainkeeper Website

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We have changed our look, added substantial amounts of new content and improved our navigation so that it will be easier for you to find the information that you are looking for.

We encourage you to visit our site often so that you can stay informed about the important issues that are relevant to our region and our state.  We will be continually updating and improving it.

Please tell your friends about the website and encourage them to get involved. We’d love to hear from you and have added a “Contact Us” section on each page for your convenience.

Albany Crawling on Gas Drilling Decision

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After Early Gallop, Albany Slows to Crawl in Making Decision on Gas Drilling
New York Times
Mireya Navarro, February 6, 2012

When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took office last year, his administration seemed to be in hurry-up mode as it decided whether to allow hydraulic fracturing, a controversial gas drilling process. State regulators kept to tight deadlines to produce for public review an environmental impact study and proposed drilling rules, and the state’s top environmental official said drilling permits could be granted as early as this year…..

Fracking Land Grab

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Feds Pave Way for Fracking Industry to Perpetrate Biggest Land Grab in U.S. History
The Stuart Smith Blog, February 6, 2012

Officials from Central New York Oil & Gas recently informed landowner Bob Swartz that the company plans to cut “a 50-foot-wide, 400-foot-long gash through an ancient stand of trees” in his front yard to clear the way for a $250 million, 39-mile natural gas pipeline in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania. Not surprisingly, Mr. Swartz balked at the company’s heavy-handed plan, recommending an alternate route for the pipeline out across an open field. Company officials promptly swatted aside Mr. Swartz’s suggestion, and with brazen indifference, offered instead to pay him for the wood from the felled trees……

New Report by Agency Lowers Estimates of Natural Gas in U.S.

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New Report by Agency Lowers Estimates of Natural Gas in U.S.
New York Times, January 28, 2012
By IAN URBINA

WASHINGTON — Just how much natural gas is trapped underground in the United States?

The difficulty and uncertainty in predicting natural gas resources was underscored last week when the Energy Information Administration released a report containing sharply lower estimates.

The agency estimated that there are 482 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in the United States, down from the 2011 estimate of 827 trillion cubic feet — a drop of more than 40 percent. The report also said the Marcellus region, a rock formation under parts of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, contained 141 trillion cubic feet of gas. That represents a 66 percent drop from the 410 trillion cubic feet estimate offered in the agency’s last report.

Join Catskill Mountainkeeper in Albany on January 23, 2012

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The public hearing period run by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to get input for their revisions to the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Study (SGEIS) on fracking is almost complete. The next step in the battle to prevent unsafe and unhealthy fracking in New York is to impact the legislative agenda.  Overwhelming momentum was generated from the SGEIS hearings as so many of you came forward to testify with great emotion, logic, facts and conviction about the threats of fracking.  Crowds had to be turned away because the hearing rooms were packed. The result was increased positive media coverage, a re-commitment to action by those of us who are convinced of the dangers of fracking and an important opportunity to impact the undecided.  Read the full alert…

 

Group Says Fracking Proposal Deficient

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North Country Gazette
January 10, 2012

NEW YORK—Catskill Mountainkeeper,Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Riverkeeper, Inc. have announced that, after extensive evaluation and technical expert review, they have concluded that the state must go back and revisit significant aspects of its revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (RDSGEIS) before fracking can move forward.  Click here for the full press release.

Catskill Mountainkeeper Featured in New York Times Article

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Wes Gillingham, Catskill Mountainkeeper Program Director is quoted In Peter Applebome’s January 10, 2012 New York Times article, “Drilling Critics Face a Divide Over the Goal of Their Fight”, on the issues that divide environmental groups on fracking.  Mr. Gillingham said, “When we started out, what we wanted was more information on what this (fracking) means for New York.  No one had any thought about calling for a ban. But the more you find out about gas drilling and how it’s been practiced by the industry today, the more you realize it can’t be done safely. It would just be a disaster for New York State.”  Even though Mr. Gillingham has worked closely and effectively with national groups, he is still baffled that they can support fracking under any conditions, “For the average person on the ground over the Marcellus Shale who is living with this issue, the fact that the national groups are not saying, ‘Not here, no way,’ is shocking.”

 

Drilling Critics Face a Divide Over the Goal of Their Fight

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With a deadline looming this week for the public to weigh in on gas drilling in New York State, the antifracking movement itself has become divided over what its goal should be: securing the nation’s toughest regulations, or winning an outright ban?.…… “When we started out, what we wanted was more information on what this means for New York,” said Wes Gillingham, program director for Catskill Mountainkeeper, one of the first groups to focus on the issue. “No one had any thought about calling for a ban. But the more you find out about gas drilling and how it’s been practiced by the industry today, the more you realize it can’t be done safely. It would just be a disaster for New York State.”