104 Mayors, Town Supervisors, County Legislators and Town/City Council Reps Sign Coalition Letter Requiring Public Participation for the DOH Review

Greetings,

I am thrilled to let you know that a total of 104 New York State government officials, including 22 Mayors and Town Supervisors, are now signatories to the coalition letter which requests that Governor Cuomo immediately require public notice, public comment and a public hearing for his Department of Health's Review of DEC's "health impact analysis" of shale gas extraction.

Many of those signatories represent communities throughout New York's Marcellus Shale formation.  This respectfully submitted request will be extremely difficult to ignore. 

Thank You All So Much

I wish to thank each and every signatory for their leadership and courage.  I also want to acknowledge all the activists who worked so hard to build grassroots support for this coalition effort. 

See: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/cuomo/gov-coalition-letter...

DOH Review is Incredibly Important

I cannot overemphasize that any decision to permit shale gas fracking in New York will only be made after the DOH Review is completed.  DEC has stated that neither a Final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) nor a Revised shale gas Rulemaking proposal will be adopted before the DOH Review is done.  That is why it is imperative that the DOH Review be comprehensive in scope, properly conducted and undertaken openly and transparently. 

Secret Cuomo Administration Health Impact Assessment Document is Super Bad

The secret Cuomo Administration Health Impact Assessment document reported last week by The New York Times and other news outlets is super bad.  It concludes: "human chemical exposures during normal HVHF [High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing, not in the original] operations will be prevented or reduced below levels of significant health concern.  Thus, significant adverse impacts on human health are not expected from routine HVHF operations (emphasis added)."

The document adds: "When spills or accidents occur, the Department has identified numerous additional mitigation measures, including emergency-response planning, setbacks and buffers, so that significant exposures to people and resources on which they rely are unlikely (emphasis added).

This shockingly dishonest regulatory fantasy is directly contradicted by hundreds of incidents documenting New Yorkers exposed to high-level contamination associated with on-going gas and oil extraction problems.  Many of those hazards have yet to be cleaned up decades after occurring.

DEC and DOH must not be allowed to ignore these regulatory problems.  See: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/documents/2012/09/26/dmr-o...

See the eight-page secret document and coverage in The NYT at: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/sites/default/files/118765930-Hydraulic-F... and http://www.toxicstargeting.com/news/2013-01-03/gas-drilling-called-safe-...

Conclusion

It is absolutely imperative that a DOH Review conducted completely in secret without any public input must not be used to support adoption of a Final SGEIS or DEC's shale gas Revised Rulemaking proposal.  The DOH Review must be put on-hold until all its shortcomings have been resolved.  

With that goal in mind, I alert you that not a single member of the DEC Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel has signed the DOH Review Public Participation coalition letter.  Please ask them very respectfully to do so.  If you receive a favorable reply, please thank the Panel member profusely.

Check out below an amazing letter sent by a citizen to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  The pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

See Advisory Panel Members and Contact Info: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/dec-fracking-panel

See you this coming Wednesday (1/9/13) in Albany at the State of the State Address.  That will an historic day.  New York's shale gas moratorium is on the line.  Bring every sign you have got.

Click here to get bus ride info: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/node/37555

See more press coverage: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale

Thank you for all your diligent efforts.  Keep fighting with all your might. 

Best,

Walter

Request from a very concerned NY resident

Dear Robert Kennedy Jr.,

I appreciate the excellent work you are doing regarding our environment and getting people and companies to choose green energy sources. We are very grateful for EcoWatch.

My husband and I have been working along with many others so hydrofracking never gets started in NY State, unless it is proven and replicated to be non-toxic and safe for our environment. 

Currently, even without the onslaught of devastation that hydrofracking would bring, Walter Hang has documented many toxic places in NY that the DEC needs to clean-up. 

You are on Governor Cuomo's Fracking Advisory Panel, selected to council and make recommendations to Governor Cuomo about best actions for the health of NY's people, environment and businesses regarding hydrofracking. Governor Cuomo said he wants decisions regarding hydrofracking to be based on science, yet not one of the NY DEC's regulations have been based on science or for that matter, on best economics practices for NY State.  As I'm sure you know, the NY DEC secretly conferred with oil/gas companies regarding what regulations to have in NY State which of course makes all of these supposed regulations bogus from the start.

We believe as do many environmentalists that the NY regulations must be totally redone. They must ethically and efficaciously be based on the best scientific and economic research. Independent scientific facts and scholarly peer reviewed papers are available so there is no reason to not use them except arm-bending politics which does not consider the health and well being of our state residents, environment or our planet.

I write to ask you to stand with us by signing the coalition letter put out by Walter Hang. Please see below.  Contact Walter at Toxic Targeting if need be but please, please, please show that you stand with us for what is environmentally right and ethically correct.

GF

Greetings:

I write to invite you to become a signatory to a government officials coalition letter that could help determine whether Governor Cuomo permits horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in New York's Marcellus Shale formation.

As you probably know, the State Department of Health is conducting a "Review/Assessment" of the Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) "health impact analysis" of Marcellus Shale gas extraction.

Until that DOH Review/Assessment is completed, DEC has stated that neither a Final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) nor a shale gas Revised Rulemaking proposal will be finalized.   

DOH's review has received withering criticism because it is being conducted in secret without any public participation whatsoever.  The three outside experts hired by DOH are reportedly working a mere 25 hours.  DEC's "health impact analysis" has never been publicly released.

See: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2012-12-04/fracking-o... and http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2012-12-04/review-fra...

Given the importance of the DOH Review/Assessment, it is critical that it be a) comprehensive in scope, b) properly conducted and c) undertaken openly and transparently.

To date, Governor Cuomo has utterly failed to respond to concerns raised about the Review/Assessment.

I invite you to become a signatory to a government officials coalition letter which respectfully requests that Governor Cuomo immediately require public notice, public comment and at least one public hearing for the DOH Review/Assessment.

After only a few days, the letter already has more than 100 signatories, including Mayors, Town Supervisors, County Legislators, City and Town Council representatives as well as many other government officials.

You can review and sign the letter by clicking here: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/cuomo/gov-coalition-letter...

I trust that you will find this letter to be self-explanatory.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about it.

Thank you for your consideration.