To The Editor:
(DeRuyter, NY – Aug. 2014) As you may or may not know, the state Court of Appeals ruled that towns can ban hydrofracking by putting in road use, comprehensive plan (citizens deciding what they want their town to look like) and etc. Simply stated home rule is the law. The gas companies lost two lower court decisions by unanimous votes regarding home rule. The state Court of Appeals vote was a 5-2 decision in favor of home rule.
Towns across the state can no longer say, “We can’t rule (ban or moratorium) against hydrofracking because the gas companies will sue the town.” Our government officials should now be looking at the effects of hydrofracking with an open-mind and in a fact related way without trying to appease the few who would benefit (monetarily) if drilling was on their land at the expense of others.
I honestly do understand when there’s a significant amount of money tossed in front of you – it’s easier to not look down the road to see the negative impact poor decisions will have on future generations (which by the way includes kids and grandkids).
Some town boards were sincerely hesitant to pass bans because they were afraid of lawsuits, while others were, I think, were using the lawsuit issue as an excuse to not pass a ban or moratorium. That excuse has just disappeared. DeRuyter now has no reason not to establish land use restrictions.
DeRuyter should now join the more than 200 towns and cities in New York which have passed a ban or moratorium on fracking over the past six years. To enact a moratorium, it only takes one board member to make a motion, another to second it and the Town Supervisor to approve it.
As the majority of the people in DeRuyter don’t want hydrofracking in their community the town should put a moratorium in place and then work on a comprehensive plan and find out what the people want, enact a road use plan to prevent heavy truck traffic, and ban spreading gas well brine on our roads.
We have Utica shale underlying DeRuyter. We need to think about possible threats that might occur in the future. Imagine what DeRuyter would look like if industrial fracking takes place here. Do you think anybody in DeRuyter would want to have fracking take place next door? Industrial fracking threatens our farms, our tourism, our small business, and our residential rural community.
Gas company ads continue to say fracking is clean and safe with financial benefits; and just how great the process is with the new technology. This “new technology” for producing unconventional gas is substantially more destructive of air, land and water than the previous fracking method. It is a new industrial technology, not just a minor change from the fracking of the past 60 years.
Joe Yankowski, DeRuyter