Thank you all so much/More Great News Coverage for Public Health Impact Study Letters/Home Rule Decision Likely Very Bad for Southern Tier Residents

Write Governor Cuomo using a new "Public Health Impact Study" email application that you can customize to your heart's content. It could not be simpler. Just fill in a couple of blanks with as much or as little as you wish to say and click "send:" http://apps.toxicstargeting.com/ms_email_template.php

Greetings Shale Fracking Activists,

I am pleased to congratulate you once again for keeping New York safe, however tenuously, from Marcellus Shale fracking. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be able to write those words.

Please repeat after me: No DOH Review, No Final SGEIS, No shale fracking in the Empire State.

Thank you all so much for writing Governor Cuomo to request that he undertake a "Public Health Impact Study" to resolve documented shale fracking health concerns on a comprehensive basis.

The Second Floor has been deluged by more than 1,000 eloquent, powerful, coordinated emails sent by health professionals, farmers, elected officials, academic researchers, religious leaders, business owners, civic as well as environmental groups and concerned citizens from all over New York plus fracking victims from across the country. Hundreds of residents of the Southern Tier, where a shale fracking demonstration project has been proposed, wrote Governor Cuomo poignantly and pointedly, yet respectfully.

More Stupendous Media Coverage

A news conference was held yesterday by Matt Ryan, Mayor of Binghamton, Dr. Benjamin Perkus, a board member of New York Residents Against Drilling (NYRAD), and myself. The terrific coverage will make your hearts sing because it addresses all of our hard work over the last 3 and a half years. The WNBF radio interview is especially terrific.

http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2013-05-06/fractivist...
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2013-05-06/wnbf-inter...
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2013-05-07/fracking-o...
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2013-05-07/anti-frack...
http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/news/2013-05-06/activists-...

See news conference pics: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/media/photos/event/bingham...

I invite you to read excerpts of many inspiring missives, each of which echoes the request that Governor Cuomo put on-hold his inadequate and incomplete Department of Health (DOH) Review and undertake a comprehensive "Public Health Impact Study" that fulfills amazingly stringent mandates specified by DEC Commissioner Martens on 9/20/12: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/documents/2013/04/24/email...

Paying Homage Once Again

I want to pay homage once again to Ben and Elaine Perkus as well as Karen Glauber and their NYRAD colleagues who have answered the call each and every time since I met them in July 2010. They bolstered the shale fracking line of battle just in the nick of time. We have been rock steady ever since. Thank you all.

I also wish to honor Matt Ryan who is a tribute to New York's proud history of great elected officials dedicated to the greater good. Matt faced the moment of shale fracking truth sui generis. It is always a privilege to stand by his side. Gracias.

Matt's last term as Binghamton Mayor will end all too soon. He has campaign debt that each and every one of us who has benefited from his leadership should help retire. Please join me in attending the Mayor's Ball this coming Friday. If you cannot attend, please contribute as generously as you can to the Friends of Matt Ryan, P. O. Box 2012, Binghamton, NY 13902.

I am pleased to offer you an invitation: http://www.toxicstargeting.com/sites/default/files/BingBall-Invite.pdf

Thanks for Working So Well Together

I wish to express immense gratitude to everyone who has been so wonderfully supportive and kind in their writings and personal encounters with me. I coached youth hockey for 13 years and concluded that there are basically two kinds of people in the world: those who are coachable and those who are not. Shale fracking has been successfully kept out of New York because I was fortunate to organize so many coachable activists. Here is one of my favorites who I have never met:

Dear Walter Hang,

I thank you for your tireless efforts. Your e-mails are always full of information -- down-to-earth assessments of where we stand, detailed chronology of who did what when, explanations of the legislative process. It's because of you that I can be on top of this fracking issue. When you make a suggestion for action, I am right with you with my phone call or e-mail because you are encouraging and you make it understandable. The current e-mail campaign is brilliant and I love your choice of words as you send us the news. Governor Cuomo was "flooded," then he was "bombarded," and now he's "received an avalanche" of letters. It's not even a full week since the first letter was sent, so congratulations to you. You deserve so much credit. Many thanks for all you do.

Very truly yours,

Martha S

I hesitate to quibble, but the credit belongs to everyone who helped with this campaign. I salute you all.

Local Fracking Ban/Home Rule Appellate Court Decision

Last week an appellate court decision unanimously upheld local zoning ordinances that ban fracking. This "Home Rule" decision could be accepted for appeal by New York's top court, the Court of Appeals, so the matter might not yet be resolved.

The "Achilles Heel" of Home Rule is that not a single local fracking ban has ever been adopted anywhere in New York where Marcellus Shale gas extraction is likely to occur, nor is that likely given strong fracking support in those areas.

Every single fracking ban has been adopted outside the five counties where shale fracking has reportedly been proposed on a demonstration project basis: Broome, Chenango, Tioga, Chemung and Steuben.

In short, Home Rule should send a chill down the spine of every Southern Tier resident. Check out what a gas industry rep said in a recent Jon Campbell Gannett article:

"Some observers said the court decisions give the Cuomo administration an out. James Pardo, an attorney who counts oil-and-gas interests among his clients, said it could allow Cuomo to go ahead with fracking without completely alienating the critics of the technique who say it causes irreparable environmental harm.

"'Normally, that would infuriate the other side, but in this case he can say this: ‘If there are towns and communities that don't want fracking, all they have to do is amend their zoning ordinance and they can prevent it,’' said Pardo, of McDermott, Will & Emery."

In short, Home Rule could allow Governor Cuomo to greenlight shale fracking in New York with deplorable results. Home Rule for shale fracking sounds good in theory until you might have to live by it in the Southern Tier.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Governor Cuomo is the only person who will decide whether to permit shale fracking in New York. We must continue to make sure that No DOH Review is Completed So
That No Final SGEIS is Adopted. As long as we succeed with that strategy, New York's shale fracking moratorium remains in effect.

Keep slugging. Don't stop till you drop. The pen is mightier than the sword. Keep writing the Governor to request a "Public Health Impact Study:" http://apps.toxicstargeting.com/ms_email_template.php

Very best regards,

Walter

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