This story is astounding in its duplicity ...
Opinion today: Citizens misled by hydrofracking leases
by The Post-Standard, Syracuse.com -- February 09, 2012
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In 2006, the huge oil and gas companies started sending land men into the Southern Tier and the Finger Lakes to entice the current natives {residents} to sign drilling leases. They had only good things to say. They would give you a price per acre and a percentage of the profits. They did not mention that the wells would be drilled by a procedure called hydrofracking, with possible contamination of our water and a complete disruption to our countryside with truck traffic, drilling rigs, compressor stations, wastewater pits, etc.
They leased the land for as little as $5 per acre, and sold the leases as five-year leases. Chesapeake Energy Corp. described its aggressive lease acquisition program as the “gas shale land grab of 2006-2008.”
Meanwhile, the gas companies had to disclose to their shareholders the operating risks of hydrofracking. One company’s disclosure included:
- Well site blowouts, cratering and explosions.
- Equipment failures.
- Uncontrolled flow of natural gas, oil or well fluids.
- Fires.
- Formations with abnormal pressures.
- Pollution and other environmental risks and natural disasters.
[...]
One audience gets the fairy tale. The other audience gets the blunt economic risks ...
... afterall Investors deserve the truth. The Local Residents, not so much ...
This story is astounding in its fierce creativity ...
The residents of another small town in New York, decided enough was enough. They used their own Zoning Laws to prevent the Frackers from tapping their area's mineral rights, that usually they so cleverly acquire, no questions asked answered.
New York Town Gets Court OK to Ban Hydraulic Fracturing
community.nasdaq.com
posted by Pierre Bertrand from International Business Times -- 2/22/2012
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A New York State court has turned back a natural gas company's bid to stop towns from banning horizontal hydraulic fracturing, potentially boosting local opposition to the controversial gas drilling procedure.
In a case that began in August 2011, the supervisor of the Town of Dryden, in upstate Tompkins County, N.Y., attempted to use the local zoning law to prohibit oil and natural gas companies from drilling within the town. Dryden has drawn interest from companies that do hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
[...]
"What this says is the Oil Gas and Solution Mining Law does not trump zoning laws," said the town's attorney, Mahlon Perkins.
[...]
"By upholding Dryden's fracking ban, Judge [Phillip] Rumsey has brought a renewed sense of hope to the many cities and towns concerned with fracking," Katherine Nadeau, Water and Natural Resources program director for the Environmental Advocates of New York, said in a statement.
[...]
Chalk one up for the little guys. For the good guys. For the human-people, halting in their tracks, the lies and undisclosed risks those corporate-people exceedingly profit from.
I hope this is a sign of a brand new people-powered trend. That of towns standing up and saying Hell No were not gonna to take it anymore. Enough of the BS, Corps -- get the Hell out of OUR Aquifers!