The fracking fight is not simple. Supplies of cheap natural gas are bringing U.S. carbon emissions down - but at what price to drinking water, air quality, and communities?
Helen Slottje back in 2007, was helping her brother in law search for a small farm in upstate New York when she ran into drilling leases, and the energy companies behind them. It was the early days of the fracking of the Marcellus Shale, and people were only beginning to realize what fracking was all about. Slottje eventually became concerned enough to use her skills as a lawyer to fight back, and has now been recognized for her work.
...the more she learned about the gas drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, which was starting in Pennsylvania, the more concerned she became.
That interest led Slottje on a path to being named the 2014 North American winner of the prestigious $175,000 Goldman Environmental Prize.
How did she do it?
When New York officials began to weigh how to open the state to gas companies that were using leases to gain drilling rights on hundreds of thousands of acres, Slottje became a quick study in state mining law. She developed a legal theory that contradicted what was then commonly accepted as fact — that if the state approved and regulated fracking, local governments would have no choice but to allow it everywhere.
Now, 74 towns across the state's potential gas-drilling region of the Marcellus Shale have adopted fracking bans based on her idea that local zoning codes can bar such "heavy industrial" uses regardless of what the state does. Another 86 towns have supporters advocating a zoning ban, and 99 towns have enacted moratoriums while waiting to see what happens.
New York State has a strong 'home rule' tradition which allows local communities a lot of autonomy. While the state can regulate fracking, Slottje's insight was that local governments still have a lot of power to decide where and if. So far, this has held up in several
court challenges. It's also drawn attacks on Slottje by the energy industry.
Rachael Bunzey grew up in Bainbridge, an agricultural area in the heart of what could become frack country, and has worked as a blogger for Energy in Depth, a gas industry website supported by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and for another gas-related site, NaturalGasNow.org.
"Town boards have been manipulated by the Slottjes with their cookie-cutter moratorium," Bunzey said.
...Bunzey and EID have peppered posts about the Slottjes and their supporters with words like elitist, outside money, political correctness and trendy causes popular with bored elites.
Bunzey said the Slottjes are motivated as lawyers seeking to drum up more clients — even though those clients do not pay them. "Their name is out there now and they are building cases and clients, who will call them for something later," she said. "In Ithaca, they are seen as gods."
There's no question that natural gas is a far cleaner energy choice than burning coal, and it is making a big difference in America's energy position in the global markets. That being said, there are questions how long the boom can last, questions about the behavior of the companies exploiting fracking, and questions about the other consequences of fracking. The risk to water supplies, air quality, chemical exposure, noise, disruption - these are all problems on which the energy industry does NOT have a good record. It is the nature of extraction industries that they have every incentive to maximize their returns, while cutting corners wherever they can get away with it.
Read the rest of the Times Union article for more on a person who found a way to make a difference, as did the 5 other winners of the Goldman Prize.