The Banner, Vol. 3, No. 06 – Contempt and Confusion in High Places

 Press Kit  Comments Off on The Banner, Vol. 3, No. 06 – Contempt and Confusion in High Places
May 132017
 

February 7, 2017
This week was filled with confusing messages from national leaders and those who aspire to national leadership. The result was confusion to say the least, and many theories about why a new presidential administration would wreak such havoc on the public confidence, as well as on institutions vital to the nation’s well-being. We won’t attempt a synopsis nor to make sense of it all. But here you will find a few leading actions and their consequences.
First the news.

We Are Seneca Lake’s fundraiser on Sunday, 1/29/17 was a great success!

At the QuizBowl. Credit Michael Dineen/WASL

Heartfelt thanks go to Todd Parlato, the owner of Trumansburg’s very popular new restaurant, Atlas Bowl, and his wonderful staff for hosting us.

Gratitude also goes to Christopher Wofford, who designed a custom QuizBowl trivia game just for our event, and Jonni Campbell who designed the lovely event poster. Check out Trivia Night at Atlas Bowl every Wednesday:  www.AtlasBowl.com/events . You’ll have fun and learn a lot too!

Many thanks also go to all of the local small businesses, artists, and community members who donated enticing items to our raffle & auction — too numerous to list here — and

  • Peter Drobny, who organized a bountiful, beautiful Silent Auction, and built our display stand; 
  • Laura Salamendra, who rounded up a dozen very cool raffle prizes; Marge Ehly and Edgar Brown, who sold raffle tickets; 
  • Mariah Mottley Plumlee and Michael Dineen who printed photos of Defenders; and
  • Asa Redmond, Roger Beck, and Bela Plumlee for help with set up. 

We made $3,484 for WASL’s legal defense fund, and had a blast doing it! With over half of the 657 WASL cases still open, our battle in the courts is likely to continue all year. Appeals will stretch into 2018. That’s why your ongoing financial support is so crucial to this fight. 

Whether you were able to attend the event or not, we extend sincere thanks to all who have donated to keep Sujata Gibson’s Legal Resource Center going. 

We Are Seneca Lake is truly a campaign “Of, By and For the People.” 

Save-the-date for the next WASL fundraiser

The Annual Winter Squabee, a 3-day festival of local bands at Stonecat Cafe on the Seneca Wine Trail, will be held Friday-Sunday, March 3rd-5th. This is a great way to overcome cabin fever and reconnect with the community. Once again this year, the Squabee organizers have generously offered to donate their event proceeds to WASL. If you can volunteer for a tabling shift, please email our fund raising genius, Jan Quarles: janq99@gmail.com

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Comments Needed on New Gas Storage Rules!

Dear Gas Free Seneca Supporter:

Catastrophic explosions wracked Hutchinson, Kansas, January 17, 2001. They were caused by leaks from storage of methane in bedded salt caverns very similar to those Crestwood wants to use by the shore of Seneca Lake, three miles from Watkins Glen.

Can you help us strengthen the recently passed federal rules on underground gas storage by submitting a comment? Here’s what you need to know:

What’s my deadline?

February 17, 2017

Who wrote the new rules?

PHMSA, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Where can I read them?

Read the proposed new regulations at Regulations.gov <p”>  (Warning: some dense legalese!)

When do they take effect?

July 18, 2017.

What’s good about the rules?

For the first time there are federal safety standards governing underground natural gas storage.

What’s not so good about the rules?

  • they don’t apply to LPG (propane); that’s under NYS rules.

  • they are based on “recommended practices” largely written by industry , so they are missing important pieces and aren’t strong enough to assure safety.

How do I offer suggestions for improvement?

At the above website,

  • click on the blue button, “Comment Now!”
  • review the helpful tips in “View Commenter’s Checklist.”
  • Then type away!

What might I say?

Here are some suggestions—but be sure to use your own words.

  • We applaud PHMSA’s commitment to underground natural gas storage safety and its new Interim Final Rule (IFR).
  • PHMSA should determine what level of risk is acceptable, and require facilities to operate at that level or better.
  • Because of the very high rate of accidents and disasters in salt cavern storage facilities for decades, PHMSA should halt new or expanded underground NG storage in salt caverns until their safety record improves to acceptable levels.
  • Gas storage in salt caverns is riskier than in depleted oil and gas reservoirs. Yet risk management standards like those in PHMSA’s rules for reservoirs (RP 1171 ch. 8) are missing from the cavern rules (1170). They should be added to 1170 and strengthened further.
  • To strengthen risk management standards , PHMSA should at least specify the information to be collected, how often it should be collected and analyzed, and that stakeholders be involved.
  • PHMSA should require more widespread use of subsurface emergency shutdown valves , to reduce the high risk of gas leakage accidents like Aliso Canyon.

How can I strengthen my comment?

From the “tips”: “Agency reviewers look for sound science and reasoning in the comments they receive. They advise that when possible, you should support your comment with substantive data, facts, and/or expert opinions.” So if you need more background information, please refer to the attached comments that Gas Free Seneca has submitted.

Here are two references to Chinese studies of the gas leakage problems common to all bedded salt mines:

  1. Generally, it is noted that salt rock has extremely compact structure, low permeability and good ductility. Therefore pure salt mine is considered as an ideal selection for energy storage and high radiation disposal. However, most of Chinese salt mines [and the Seneca Lake salt mines] have many thin inter beds. According to current literature, the existence of the interlayers has obviously adverse influence on the oil and gas storage operation. If energy storage cavities are built in this kind of formations, interface between different formations would be easily damaged by discontinuous creep deformations between salt rock and interbeds will lead to severe gas leakage during the long-time recycling operation.  Hence, it is considered that more attention should be paid to the integrity test and leakage stability evaluation in Chinese salt rock cavern construction. At home and abroad, much work has been done in the domain of permeability fluctuation under high operation pressure, creep and damage characteristic of pure salt rock and their coupling fluid-mechanical responses. However, when it comes to impure salt rock cavity, the related research just started in recent years. Especially the research emphasized on the influence of interlayers on the safety of salt cavern needs much more attention.— Jun Xiong et al, “Gas leakage mechanism in bedded salt rock storage cavern considering damaged interface,” Ke Ai, December, 2015
  2. As the geologic environment of bedded salt rock in China [an Seneca Lake is very different from that of the huge salt domes frequently used abroad, the energy storage caverns in bedded salt rock carry a higher risk. Construction of underground energy storage caverns has started only a short time ago in China and construction and operational experience remains limited. In addition, compared with the huge salt domes with deep embedding depths in other countries, the salt rock in China has the characteristics of shallow depth, layered structure, and complicated geological conditions. The presence of thin inter-layers in between the saltbeds adds potential flow paths for oil or gas leakage. Shallow depth intensifies ground subsidence, and dense distribution of energy storage caverns increases the possibility of accident-chains resulting from the failure of one cavern or a pillar between caverns. Additionally, the storage caverns in China are located near areas with dense population and developed economy, so not only the safety of storage caverns but also people’s life and property will be seriously affected if a major accident were to happen. Carrying out risk analysis for construction and operation of oil and gas storage caverns in bedded salt rock can provide a scientific basis for disaster prevention and risk reduction for the responsible government department, construction units and operating units.—Chunhe Yang, et al, “Analysis of major risks associated with hydrocarbon storage caverns in bedded salt rock ,” Reliability Engineering & System Safety, May, 2013

From a pdf document assessing risks of LPG storage (not covered by these new rules but relevant to any gas storage in bedded salt solution mines) available at Gas Free Seneca’s website: The probability of serious or extremely serious salt cavern storage events is more than 40 percent over 25 years, including both baseline and incremental risks. The significant possibility of major salt infiltration into Seneca Lake with extreme consequences, and the fact that the salt cavern is located in bedded salt strata rather than salt domes, add to this risk.  

From the perspective of community safety based on this analysis, continued salt cavern storage in Schuyler County carries a baseline unacceptable risk that would rise even higher under this proposal. Risk mitigation efforts in salt cavern storage have thus far proven unsuccessful in significantly reducing the frequency of serious and extremely serious incidents. Therefore the application for the proposal should be denied and strong consideration given to safer forms of gas storage to meet demand

Anything else?
Gas Free Seneca has written Governor Cuomo to ask that he reject Crestwood’s NG permit because it appears Crestwood’s caverns fail to meet the new federal standards.
We depend on the strength of our network to do great things, so thank you! thank you! thank you!

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NYSEG proposes alternative fix to gas needs in Lansing

Tompkins County Legislator Martha Robertson discusses the proposals NYSEG has made to the New York State Public Service Commission to address energy needs in Lansing. Matt Weinstein / staff video

With a proposed $17.8 million natural gas pipeline in development to boost service to existing customers in the Lansing area, officials at NYSEG have agreed to consider an alternative option.

Several Tompkins County legislators and community leaders gathered in the legislature chambers Monday to announce NYSEG has presented the alternative option — building a small compressor station in Lansing — to the New York State Public Service Commission for review. NYSEG has also proposed to solicit creative solutions to reduce current demand for gas and to transition to electric heating systems countywide so the available gas could be targeted for end-users who require the energy qualities of gas.

The proposal of an alternative option was reached through months of conversations between NYSEG and the PSC, initiated by members of the Tompkins County Energy and Economic Development Task Force. In its report last June, the task force identified the proposed West Dryden Road pipeline as a critical issue and recommended working with the PSC to find alternatives that would support economic growth while the county continued to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Members of the task force included community leaders in economic development, energy-related businesses, environmental groups and local government, Tompkins County Area Development President Michael Stamm said.

“The first two recommendations were to work with the PSC to reduce reliance on gas, and also to provide reliable energy to local industry,” Stamm said in a statement. “The work with NYSEG and PSC provides an exciting opportunity for Tompkins County to once again be a leader in tackling the important challenges of our day.”

The possibility of a pipeline still remains if the proposal is rejected by the PSC review committee. If the proposal is accepted, the small compressor station built in Lansing would be a “compressor-based solution” to meet immediate gas reliability needs in the area, as well as potential longer-term solutions to address new requests for natural gas. The new station would address occasional instances of very low pressure, such as on very cold days.…—Matt Weinstein, “NYSEG proposes alternative fix to gas needs in Lansing,” The Ithaca Journal, 2/6/17

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This Week’s Delaware Riverwatch

  • Environmentalists are urging the public to tell their congressional representatives not to approve any new commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
  • The company that wants to build a hazardous waste water treatment plant near the Delaware River says it will move forward with seeking state environmental permits.
  • An 18th Century building along the Delaware River is demolished

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network presents a weekly video news roundup of important stories affecting the Delaware River Watershed. Many people live along and depend on the Delaware River for their water supply, their livelihoods or for recreation. For many it’s a place to escape the stress of living in a densely populated area.

If the Delaware River touches you in some way you’ll want to know what’s happening in all the areas of the watershed. This weekly report will tell you about the important issues that affect the water quality, tributary streams and key habitat in the entire watershed from the Catskills to Cape May County and from Deposit to Delaware City.

You can see past editions of Riverwatch on the Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s YouTube Channel here

Contact
Address: 925 Canal St
Suite 3701
Bristol, PA 19007
Phone: (215)369-1188
Fax: (215)369-1181
Email: drn@delawareriverkeeper.org
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Contempt and Confusion in High Places

Withdrawing Obama climate plan would ‘lead to more litigation,’
AGs warn Trump,”

President-elect Donald Trump leaves a day of transition team meetings at the Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 28. Credit Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post

Donald Trump has not yet taken office [NB This was written before the inauguration—Editor] – but already, legal chess moves over how to dismantle President Obama’s signature climate policy, the Clean Power Plan, are being telegraphed.

It started on Dec. 14 with a letter to Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan from West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, and allied attorneys general from largely conservative states who have opposed and sued over the plan. They suggested several steps to undermine the regulation as soon as the president-elect takes office, including an “executive order on day one” that rescinds the rule and tells the EPA not to enforce it because it is “unlawful.”

The conservative AGs also urged Trump’s and Pence’s consideration of whether to “seek to stay or resolve” court cases that are currently pending over the plan. The Clean Power Plan is being weighed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which could rule on it soon. The note seemed to imply the possibility of the new administration ceasing to defend the rule in court and instead perhaps seeking a settlement with those opposing it.

Notably, the letter was not signed by Scott Click fot, the attorney general of Oklahoma, who has been tapped as Trump’s EPA head and who was previously part of the team of attorneys general suing over the Clean Power Plan.

But their view of the law is hardly undisputed. A band of attorneys general from more liberal states, led by New York’s Eric Schneiderman, wrote to President-elect Trump on Thursday, contesting that these kinds of moves are legally permissible.

When it comes to the pending litigation before the D.C. Circuit, they say, “be assured that we would vigorously oppose in court any attempt to remand the Clean Power Plan back to EPA so late in the litigation, and prior to a decision from the Court on the merits of the claims.” The attorneys general behind the letter include not only Schneiderman but California’s Kamala Harris, Massachusetts’s Maura Healey and several others.

As for a Trump executive order to declare the rule unlawful and stop EPA from enforcing it, they write, “history and legal precedent strongly suggest that such an action would not stand up in court.” The letter argues that a court will have to rule on the legality of the Clean Power Plan one way or another and that there’s little way to short circuit this — indeed, the D.C. Circuit could even rule before Trump takes office.…—Chris Mooney, “Withdrawing Obama climate plan would ‘lead to more litigation,’ AGs warn Trump,” The Washington Post, 12/29/16

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Trump Officials Blaming Media for EPA Turmoil, Leaked Emails Show

It’s been a hand-wringing, hair-pulling week among the rank and file of many federal bureaucracies, perhaps best epitomized by the ongoing battle at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The new administration’s actions amount to a vote of “no confidence” in the agency’s mission: Trump appointed a prominent climate change skeptic to head the agency’s transition, and his nominee for EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, is a man who brags about his years-long efforts to undermine the EPA as attorney general of Oklahoma. In spite of this, several leaked communications obtained by Slate suggest that Trump’s transition team is attempting to frame the anxiety emanating from the agency as normal transition woes, rather than serious concern for the future of the agency. Given the number of leaks already emanating from the agency, these attempts don’t seem to be working.

It was no great surprise when news reports began surfacing last week of a clampdown at the agency: a freeze on all hiring, grants, and spending; a complete gag order; and rumors that various websites and their attendant data might be removed from public view. Donald Trump and his advisers had gleefully promised to throttle environmental protections many times during the campaign, and the leaked information seemed like evidence that the process had begun. For staffers living through it on the inside and sympathetic observers on the outside, it seemed to confirm their worst suspicions—the EPA could be neutered before Scott Pruitt is even confirmed as its director.

In a statement sent out Friday, apparently to all 15,000-plus EPA employees, acting EPA administrator Catherine McCabe attempted to quell some of the hysteria surrounding the transition. It had been a busy week, McCabe wrote, “educating the President’s new transition team about many aspects of the Agency’s programs and operations. This is standard practice for a transition, as are many of the government-wide and agency-level actions the new Administration has taken this week.”

…McCabe, a career government worker who spent 22 years as a manager and attorney in the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division before moving into a series of senior management roles at EPA in 2005, was trying her best to calm the nerves of a workforce whose despair and anger have, by all accounts, been growing by the day. Anonymously sourced statements attributed to EPA staffers have been making the rounds on social media, like missives from prisoners to the outside world. There seems to be a darkening view inside the agency.

But as has so often been the case in this chaotic transition, McCabe’s efforts at morale-boosting were soon undercut by a Trump appointee, in this case Don Benton, a scandal-prone former state senator from Washington state who is serving as a senior White House adviser on the EPA transition team. Benton, who has been on the job for a week, sent a staff-wide email Monday morning that highlighted the “important nature of the work that is done here at EPA” and attempted to establish a chummy bonhomie with “the many career professionals here at the EPA who have been working with me.” He then took a page out of his new boss’s playbook and launched into sharp criticism of the press, noting that “due to the important nature of the work that is done here at EPA, we are falling under a greater media microscope than most agencies. I, like many of you, am surprised each morning by what I read in the newspaper and see on TV news shows, because much of what we see is just not accurate.” (Emphasis his.)

EPA transition team communications head Doug Ericksen, also a Republican state senator from Washington, followed Benton’s lead. In an email sent by the EPA press office under his name Tuesday, he called media reports of potential political vetting of scientific research “inaccurate.”…

Further reading: Senate Republicans suspend committee rules to approve Scott Pruitt, Trump’s EPA nominee

He failed to mention that the articles were the result of his own misstep—while speaking to NPR last week, he suggested that going forward, political appointees would have a say over the EPA’s scientific research. He has been walking back that statement ever since, as evident in this AP story.…—Tim Sohn, “Trump Officials Blaming Media for EPA Turmoil, Leaked Emails Show,” Newsweek, 2/5/17

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Research Finds Hope in Slowing Arctic’s Climate-Warming Black Carbon

Black carbon darkens ice in the Arctic, accelerating global warming and also speeding the melting of the ice. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Researchers have developed a new method for determining the source of black carbon—a particularly nasty type of pollution that can blanket the Arctic—giving some hope that this known accelerator of climate change could be slowed.

Black carbon, the soot that darkens the sea ice, causing it to absorb heat from the sun instead of reflecting it, speeds up the rate at which the ice disappears. It’s yet another severe aspect of climate change—except that its lifespan is just days or weeks, as opposed to carbon dioxide’s, which can last a century or more. That means that finding its source and mitigating its effects can have an almost immediate impact, and might hold a key for helping slow the rapid melting of the Arctic.

A new study, released earlier this week in the scientific journal PNAS, provides “a very powerful tool” in combating black carbon, said Scripps Institution of Oceanography atmospheric scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who was not a part of the study.

“It’s a new tool for understanding who is emitting what and when,” he said. Black carbon can travel thousands of miles from where it is initially emitted, so finding the source of the pollution can make it more feasible for policymakers to attempt to stop it.

The authors of the study gathered two years of black carbon data from eastern Siberia—a remote, sparsely populated region—and developed the method for determining the source. By analyzing the isotopes of the black carbon samples, the authors determined that black carbon in the region was coming primarily from transportation and home heating with coal or biomass. The isotope analysis was then compared with data from observation-based models and inventories of known emissions of black carbon.  

When they began the study, the authors had expected the biggest sources of black carbon would be gas flaring and power plants. “The results related to gas flaring were probably the biggest surprise,” said author Patrik Winiger, an applied environmental scientist at Stockholm University. Instead, they saw that vehicles and residential sources were the main offenders, often coming all of the way from China, elsewhere in Russia and Europe.

Winiger worked on the project from Sweden, while local technicians in Tiksi, Russia sent data at regular intervals. This coordination was a key element in the study, as bringing samples across borders can pose problems for traveling scientists, Winiger said.

Winiger and his colleagues analyzed the isotopes that made up each sample, each of which look different depending on the source.

“Given that we have precise isotopic fingerprints, we can tell you exactly how much carbon is coming from where,” Winiger said.…—Sabrina Shankman, “Research Finds Hope in Slowing Arctic’s Climate-Warming Black Carbon,” InsideClimate News, 2/4/17

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Anxiety Mounts at National Labs Over Future of Climate Research

The Everest Powerwall at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Credit: Lynn Freeny DOE Flickr

Scientists are concerned that climate change research may be in the crosshairs at the Department of Energy under the Trump administration.

Reports that agencies like U.S. EPA and the Department of Agriculture are facing communications restrictions, along with recent proposals from the Trump transition team for drastic cuts in environmental science in federal agencies, have some researchers at DOE’s venerable national laboratories worried that they might be next.

“[Climate change research] does seem particularly vulnerable because this administration has not given us any indication that they take it seriously as an issue affecting us and affecting the world,” said Hansi Singh, a postdoctoral research fellow at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.

Last month, Singh co-signed a letter to President Trump with more than 800 other researchers encouraging him to continue the fight against climate change and support the research behind it.

“During your campaign, you said that your ‘administration will ensure that there will be [scientific] transparency and accountability without political bias,’” the letter said. “Uphold these standards by appointing scientific advisors, Cabinet members, and federal agency leaders who respect and rely on science-based decision-making.”

Trump’s nominee to lead the Energy Department, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), described climate change in his book as a “contrived, phony mess” but walked back his comments slightly during his confirmation hearing earlier this month, saying some of the changing climate is due to human activity and some is due to natural causes (Climatewire, Jan. 20).

Singh, who researches the sensitivity of Arctic and Antarctic regions to atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, said scientists need to be more vocal in making the case for their work rather than counting on job security through obscurity.

“I definitely hear this often from scientists that work for the different agencies that ‘my science is highly insulated.’ I think that is not the correct approach,” she said. “If they’re coming for one of us, they’re coming for all of us.”…—Umar Irfan, “Anxiety Mounts at National Labs Over Future of Climate Research,” Scientific American, 1/30/17

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How Politics and Pollution Could Push China Into the Climate Leader Role the US Is Giving up

Earlier this month China halted more than 100 coal-fired power projects. Scrapping these projects, with combined installed capacity of more than 100 gigawatts, may have more to do with China’s current overcapacity in coal production than its commitment to mitigating climate change. Nevertheless, Chinese leaders are likely happy that the move is framing their nation as a green energy leader, according to experts in Chinese and environmental policy. 

That’s because, they say, the Chinese government is now eager to fill the vacuum in climate change leadership that is being left by the U.S. And, they say, China is poised to eat America’s lunch in the renewable energy sector. 

Pollution Fuels China’s New Energy Priorities

Saying that China is doing nothing on climate change has long been a right wing talking point used to stop U.S. regulations such as carbon taxes. While that may have been true a decade ago, it certainly isn’t true now. 

Already, China is both the world’s leading producer of renewable energy technologies and its biggest consumer. 

A recent Bloomberg New Energy Finance report showed that China invested $287.5 billion in clean energy in 2016, while the U.S. spent $58.6 billion. And in January it announced plans to invest an additional $120 billion a year in renewable power before 2020.

China’s five-year plan on energy and climate is ambitious, calling for an 18 percent reduction in carbon intensity from 2015 levels. It aims to reduce coal to 55 percent of total power by 2020, down from 69 percent now. 

But China’s most urgent need is not reducing greenhouse gases, or even cashing in on the burgeoning green tech market, but eliminating the smog choking its cities, which is caused by burning coal, oil, and biomass. Over the past decade, China’s degraded air quality has caused millions of premature deaths, hurt its economy, and has become a primary cause of social unrest

John Chung-En Liu, a professor of sociology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, told DeSmog that, despite positive stories about scrapping coal plants, these actions don’t mean an imminent end to China’s use of fossil fuels. And they don’t mean China is doing this for the world’s benefit either.

    “The media have been talking about closing down 100 coal powered plants, but the real reason is that China has overbuilt from a massive expansion of coal over the past 20 years,” he said. “The Chinese government is committed to green tech but can’t make the move quickly because of the infrastructure.”…—Larry Buhl, “How Politics and Pollution Could Push China Into the Climate Leader Role the US Is Giving up,” DeSmogBlog, 1/30/17

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How 11 Countries Are Leading The Shift To Renewable Energy

Who’s embracing wind? Solar? Geothermal? These countries could provide blueprints for the worldwide shift to renewable energy.

This December, almost 200 countries from every corner of the world signed the Paris Agreement, committing to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and – dare we say – save the world!The question on everyone’s mind: How?

The truth is, we don’t have to wait on scientists to invent some newfangled contraption. The solutions are already here! We simply need to ramp up renewable energy generation, and fast.

Here’s how: follow the leader. There are many countries already forging ahead towards a low-carbon future. Whether solar is starting to shine or the answer is blowing in the wind, the solutions are growing every day. But don’t take our word for it. Read on to learn how places around the globe are going renewable.…—ClimateRealityProject, “How 11 Countries Are Leading The Shift To Renewable Energy,” Clean Technica, 2/4/17

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Republicans target environmental rules protecting parks and limiting methane

Mitch McConnell said the stream rule in question ‘unfairly targets coal jobs’. Photograph: Aaron P Bernstein/Getty Images

Republicans have begun dismantling Obama-era environmental protections by targeting rules that restrict drilling in national parks, curb the release of methane and prevent people from being harmed when the tops of mountains are blown off to access coal.

House lawmakers are using the Congressional Review Act, which enables them to revoke federal rules imposed in the last 60 legislative days, to strip away what Republicans call “job-killing red tape” designed to tackle climate change and protect people and wildlife from harmful pollution.

The rollback came as Democrats boycotted a committee vote to confirm Scott Pruitt as Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has sued the EPA 14 times as attorney general of Oklahoma over its climate, mercury and smog regulations.

All 10 Democrats on the committee refused to turn up to the environment and public works panel, denying it a quorum, complaining that Pruitt had failed to answer basic questions such as what is a safe level of lead in drinking water. Republicans claimed the move was a “congressional temper tantrum” as they pushed ahead with a bonfire of environmental regulations.

Further reading: G.O.P. Hurries to Slash Oil and Gas Rules, Ending Industries’ 8-Year Wait

On Wednesday, the House will probably vote in favor of axing the stream protection rule, which safeguards waterways from the effects of mountaintop removal mining. The rule prevents mining companies from piling debris into streams and requires them to restore the vista and ecological function of blasted areas.

Mountaintops are regularly blown up in the coal-rich Appalachia region in order to reach the minerals underneath. The rubble is often dumped into the valley below, contaminating the water for nearby residents and wildlife. It is estimated that more than 500 Appalachian mountains have been decapitated, resulting in 2,000 miles of streams becoming strewn with debris.

The Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said the stream rule, introduced in the dying days of Barack Obama’s administration, “unfairly targets coal jobs”, which causes harm to “real people who support real families in real communities”.

However, environmentalists warned that the repeal would endanger public health. Pollution from mountaintop mining has been previously linked to an increase in cancers and birth defects.…—Oliver Milman, “Republicans target environmental rules protecting parks and limiting methane,” The Guardian, 2/1/17

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Biggest Oil Find of 2016 Puts Crown Jewel Texas Oasis in Crosshairs for Fracking

Reeves County, Texas — Travelers crossing the long stretch of arid desert spanning West Texas might stumble across an extraordinarily improbable sight — a tiny teeming wetlands, a sliver of marsh that seems like it should sit by the ocean but actually lays over 450 miles from the nearest coast.

This cienega, or desert-wetlands (an ecosystem so unusual that its name sounds like a contradiction), lies instead near a massive swimming pool and lake, all fed by clusters of freshwater springs that include the deepest underwater cave ever discovered in the U.S., stretching far under the desert’s dry sands.

Famous as “the oasis of West Texas,” Balmorhea State Park now hosts over 150,000 visitors a year, drawn by the chance to swim in the cool waters of the park’s crystal-blue pool, which is fed by up to 28 million gallons of water a day flowing from the San Solomon springs. The pool’s steady 72 to 76 degree Fahrenheit temperatures make the waters temptingly cool in the hot Texas summer and surprisingly warm in the winter, locals say — part of the reason it’s been called “the crown jewel of the desert.”

This remote locale also boasts some of America’s darkest night skies, allowing scientists and tourists alike to peer at far-off galaxies and to closely examine distant parts of the universe through the powerful telescopes at the nearby McDonald Observatory.

Iconic Texas wildlife — diamondback rattlesnakes, road-runners, and javelina — stir in the underbrush. And they’re not alone. Unique animals, including multiple endangered species, have adapted specifically to live in or near these springs’ desert waters, which in recent years have not only kept tourism thriving but also irrigated fields of crops and provided drinking water for the roughly 500 residents of Balmorhea, Reeves County, Texas. 

The wild desert surrounding the springs here looks virtually nothing like it does further east, in the Permian Basin, where the oil industry has been in the midst of the nation’s biggest shale drilling frenzy.

Drivers on the interstate can smell oil in the air before they even see the oilfields outside Midland, Texas. From the mesquite and cactus-dotted plains atop the Permian Basin, over 2 million barrels of oil a day are pumped out of the ground. Dense fields of thousands of oil pump-jacks line roadsides, extracting fossil fuel from wells that are sometimes less than a football field apart.

But attempts to drill for oil here by the oasis at the foot of the Davis mountain range usually turned up dry holes. Until now.

In September, Apache Corp. announced a major new oil and gas find in Reeves County, a claimed $80 billion discovery that could turn the region’s fate on its head.

This has locals, who have seen what happens to people’s air, water, and communities when deserts are transformed into oil fields, worried.

“I just wanted y’all to see it before it happens,” said Paul Matta, 47, a school board member who works for the local housing authority and suspects his way of life will disappear with the arrival of heavy industry in his quiet town, a grid of brightly painted homes, tourist shops, and a single restaurant.…—Sharon Kelly, “‘Biggest Oil Find’ of 2016 Puts Crown Jewel Texas Oasis in Crosshairs for Fracking,” DeSmogBlog, 2/1/17

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Why Environmentalists Are So Worried About Trump’s Supreme Court Pick

Neil Gorsuch was named Tuesday night as Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

For environmentalists worried about future Supreme Court decisions on climate change, the biggest difference between Donald Trump‘s nominee to the court and Barack Obama’s boils down to one word, Chevron.

Neil Gorsuch, chosen by Trump to fill the vacancy of Antonin Scalia, is seen as a steadfast foe of the Chevron standard. That principle says courts should defer to federal regulatory agencies when the regulators are carrying out laws that are ambiguous. In contrast to Gorsuch, Merrick Garland, nominated last year by Obama but stymied by Senate Republicans, adhered closely to the standard.

Chevron is one of the pillars of modern regulatory law, and it matters greatly to climate change activists because it has provided the Environmental Protection Agency considerable leeway in using the Clean Air Act to control carbon dioxide pollution.

Its significance will be stark when the Supreme Court considers the fate of the Clean Power Plan in the next year or so. The rule is a pillar of Obama’s climate policies, but Trump has vowed to discard it. Just before Scalia died, the Supreme Court put it on hold and a federal appeals court is reviewing it. It’s the next big test of the Chevron doctrine.

Ever since a Democratic-controlled Congress failed to pass a climate bill early in Obama’s presidency, attempts to regulate emissions have hinged on the executive branch’s interpretations of existing law. That would be a lot easier to do with Chevron in place than without it.

Chevron is the main reason that climate hawks reacted as they did to the Gorsuch nomination.

“A review of Gorsuch’s writings and decisions indicate that he would seek to overturn well-established Supreme Court precedents and prevent the federal government from enforcing bedrock environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act,” said EarthJustice, the green litigation group.

The Center for American Progress, which supported Obama’s policies, warned: “Gorsuch wants to give unelected judges more power to strike down federal regulations that protect consumers and the environment.”

It’s a fair, if somewhat simplistic, interpretation of his record.                   

In one widely noted opinion on an immigration case, Gorsuch wrote that the Chevron standard “certainly seems to have added prodigious new powers to an already titanic administrative state.”

One remarkable thing about Gorsuch’s view is that it doesn’t just rebalance power away from the executive branch and back to the legislative branch. Congressional Republicans, already on an anti-regulatory spree, would cheer that.

Rather, it shifts the ultimate power of interpretation to the judicial branch. Gorsuch calls Chevron an “abdication of judicial duty.” And that duty is to “interpret the law and declare invalid agency actions inconsistent with those interpretations.”…—John Cushman, “Why Environmentalists Are So Worried About Trump’s Supreme Court Pick,” InsideClimate News, 2/1/17

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Visualizing the True Cost of Oil Pipelines

Click for full size view

…While supporters of DAPL argue that leaks are rare, the potential damage of even a small spill might outweigh its relative unlikelihood. Back in December, reporters at Undark published a thoughtful and revealing breakdown of this topic, including an interactive visualization of all 1,300 spills that have occurred throughout the U.S. since 2010.

In a lesser known parallel to the Standing Rock resistance, the Keystone XL project has also encountered strong opposition from indigenous communities. The origin of the pipeline is located in Alberta, Canada, where lands long inhabited by several First Nations tribes have been compromised in order to expand the so-called tar sands, a type of mine rich in tar-like oil known as bitumen.

The graphics below, from a July 2013 article in Scientific American, show where the tar sands are located and how they are mined for oil, at significant cost to the environment. (It’s worth noting that, while tar sands expansion and mining are already ongoing, they could be stalled if Keystone XL ultimately fails.)…—Amanda Montañez, “Visualizing the True Cost of Oil Pipelines,” Scientific American Blog Network, 2/6/17

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And That’s A Wrap! Much appreciate all the notices, alerts and news coming in from sister organizations! Send your news and notices, along with heart-shaped box of chocolate-covered cherries, to Banner@WeAreSeecaLake.com!

Crestwood Promises Minor Changes to Gas Storage Plans at Seneca Lake. We Are Seneca Lake vows to continue opposition

 Press Kit  Comments Off on Crestwood Promises Minor Changes to Gas Storage Plans at Seneca Lake. We Are Seneca Lake vows to continue opposition
Aug 092016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Media Contact: Lindsay Speer 315-383-7210 lindsayspeer@gmail.com

Crestwood Promises Minor Changes to Gas Storage Plans at Seneca Lake

We Are Seneca Lake vows to continue opposition

 

August 9, 2016 – Watkins Glen, NY—In a last-ditch attempt to make its project palatable to residents of the Finger Lakes, yesterday Crestwood’s attorneys promised the Department of Environmental Conservation that it was cutting back the scale of its plans to store explosive gases in old salt caverns under the shores of Seneca Lake.  These promises did not impress members of We Are Seneca Lake.

“Butane storage was always a minor part of the project,” noted Ruth Young, of We Are Seneca Lake and former Schuyler County Legislator and former Democratic Committee chair in Schuyler County.  “This slight reduction from 2.1 to 1.5 million barrels still builds 70 percent of the propane storage, and changes nothing about the plans to store methane. The risks still remain and threaten Seneca Lake as a drinking water source, a tourist hotspot and world-class wine region.”

“These reductions are not enough,” explained Lindsay Speer, of We Are Seneca Lake. “It’s like a smoker promising to cut back from 3 packs to 2 packs a day with a promise not to smoke in bed: it still puts the kids in the house at risk for asthma and house fires. Underground gas storage in any quantity is inherently unsafe. We do not want an Aliso Canyon at Seneca Lake.”

Crestwood’s decision to scale back to reduce risks and impacts in the face of overwhelming public opposition is validation for what We Are Seneca Lake and other groups opposed to the plans have said since the beginning: pressurized gas storage in unlined salt caverns brings with it inherent dangers.

Crestwood has still not addressed the very serious issue of cavern integrity that continues to be under review by the DEC appointed Administrative Law Judge, and the threat to the salinity level of the lake. Storage of LPG in these caverns in the 1970s corresponded with an increase in Seneca Lake’s salinity.  Further, it appears that the state employee who signed off on the permit for the propane storage project was never authorized to do so, another issue that is currently under review in the adjudicatory proceedings.

Thirty-two municipalities around Seneca Lake have passed resolutions in opposition to Crestwood’s plans.  The outlier remains Schuyler County.

On Monday night, the Schuyler County Legislature ignored a standing-room only crowd of constituents, business owners, and Seneca County Supervisor Steve Churchill voicing opposition to gas storage plans.

Legislative Chairman Denis Fagin, founder of Fagan Engineering, a company with extensive involvement in the oil and gas industry and pipelines, took the role of Crestwood defender during the proceedings.  The resolution passed 6-2, even though only two people spoke in favor of the resolution. Legislators Van Harp and Michael Lausell voted against it.

Crestwood’s revised proposal has been submitted in an unconventional method directly to the Administrative Law Judge in a letter and it is unclear whether it will be accepted.  The full revised plans should be made available for public review.  It is clearly an attempt to placate opposition by removing some of the visual surface impacts of mass industrialization.  All transport LPG by truck and rail are being scrapped, and propane will be transported by pipeline only.

“I believe the elimination of rail transport is significant but it shows they are aware of their weakness on this issue with Senators Schumer and Gillibrand,” noted Daryl Anderson, a local farmer and part of We Are Seneca Lake.

We Are Seneca Lake undertook a major letter-writing campaign last summer to the Senators, highlighting concerns including the risks of butane transport across the 75-year-old rail bridge that spans the gorge at Watkins Glen State Park.  The New York State Parks Commission passed a resolution in December 2015 opposing transport of explosive gases by rail over Watkins Glen State Park.

Crestwood’s concessions only apply to the LPG storage project, and do nothing to stop the storage of fracked methane gas, which is a separately regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the same property as the LPG project.  The drilling, transportation and storage of methane poses huge impacts to the climate.

The We Are Seneca Lake movement began in 2014 when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Crestwood’s plans for methane gas storage in the salt caverns at Seneca Lake, after years of citizens’ concerns voiced through the regulatory process going unheeded.  Since then, regular nonviolent direct action protests at the gates of Crestwood’s facility have resulted in over 650 arrests for civil disobedience or trespass in a massive upwelling of community opposition.  To date, construction of the methane gas project has not yet begun.

The We Are Seneca Lake movement remains committed to opposing gas storage in the unlined salt caverns under the shores of Seneca Lake.

 

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 Posted by at 3:41 pm

Environmental Leaders Arrested at Large Seneca Lake Gas Storage Protest

 Press Kit  Comments Off on Environmental Leaders Arrested at Large Seneca Lake Gas Storage Protest
Jul 182016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 18, 2016

Media contact: Sandra Steingraber, 607.351.0719; ssteingraber@ithaca.edu

photos:  http://www.wearesenecalake.com/new-york-comes-to-seneca-lake-pix/

video: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/new-york-comes-to-seneca-lake-vid/

press release: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/new-york-comes-to-seneca-lake/

 

Environmental Leaders Arrested at Large Seneca Lake Gas Storage Protest

50 people from 18 NYS counties, plus 3 CA and NJ residents, form human blockade as part of We Are Seneca Lake campaign;

 Local arrestees include 92-year-old biochemist Martha Ferger and Damiani winemaker Phil Davis 

 

Watkins Glen, NY –  “We are ALL Seneca Lake” was the message delivered this morning by prominent environmental leaders Wes Gillingham, Program Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, David Braun, Co-Founder of Americans Against Fracking, and Rachel Marco-Havens, Youth Engagement Director of Earth Guardians on the driveway of a gas compressor station.

The three joined 50 others at a civil disobedience action against gas storage in Seneca Lake salt caverns that highlighted our interconnectedness in the struggle for a fast and necessary transition to clean energy and the folly and destructiveness of new fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

Organized by the direct action group, We Are Seneca Lake, the protesters formed a human blockade on the driveway of the Stagecoach (formerly Crestwood) gas storage complex along Route 14 in the Town of Reading shortly before 7:00 a.m.

During the blockade, the protesters stopped all traffic entering and leaving the facility. Shortly before 8:00 a.m., they were arrested by Schuyler County sheriff’s deputies, charged with disorderly conduct, and transported to the sheriff’s department. Watkins Glen police and NYS troopers assisted in the arrest process.

In reference to Con Ed’s recent investment in Seneca Lake gas storage and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s extension of an almost-lapsed permit, protesters held banners that said, “We Will Not be Con-ed“ and “We Will Not be FERC’ed!”

In an address to fellow protesters, Catskill Mountainkeeper’s Wes Gillingham, 56, of Ulster, said, “While we stand here in solidarity with the people of Seneca Lake, we are also standing up against the devastation in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota and the bomb trains bringing that fracked oil to Albany. We are standing up against the oil and gas money that pollutes our politics. We are standing up against pipelines rubber-stamped by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”

Describing the Aliso Canyon gas storage leak near Porter Ranch, California, that prompted thousands of evacuations, Americans Against Fracking’s David Braun, 45, of Oakland, said, “I am risking arrest with you today because of disasters with gas storage that I have seen up close in my home state. Don’t let it happen here. Don’t turn wine country into fracked gas country. Don’t build Aliso Canyon in New York’s Napa Valley.”

Gas storage is the only industry with the power to take down the entire local economy in the case of an accident, Braun noted. “Winemakers don’t poison the air if they have a bad year. Local farmers won’t force thousands to be evacuated from their homes if their crops don’t produce properly. No other industry does this.”

Earth Guardian’s Rachel Marco-Havens, 46, of Woodstock, said, “We must move to renewable sources of energy now. This summer, as fossil fuel build-out escalates, we will continue to escalate our efforts—for the protection of our children and those to come.”

Salt cavern storage accounts for only seven percent of total underground storage of natural gas in the United States but, since 1972, is responsible for 100 percent of the catastrophic accidents that has resulted in loss of life.

Crestwood’s methane gas storage expansion project was originally approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2014 in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of Seneca Lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

Crestwood also seeks to store two other products of fracking in Seneca Lake salt caverns—propane and butane (so-called Liquefied Petroleum Gases, LPG)—for which it is awaiting a decision by Governor Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Biochemist Martha Ferger, PhD, 92, of Dryden, said, “As a scientist, I know that there is no bigger threat to our planet than climate change. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Storing methane in the salt caverns here at Seneca Lake will make the problem of climate change worse, not better.”

The 53 protesters arrested at Seneca Lake today came from 18 New York State counties plus California and New Jersey.  Eight were from Schuyler County. They are:

Richard Battaglia, 54, Richford, Tioga County

Marie Ely Baumgardner, 69, Burdett, Schuyler County

Michael D. Black, 64, Dundee, Yates County

Thomas Blecher, 68, Ithaca, Tompkins County

David Braun, 45, Oakland, Alameda County, California

Desmond A. Brown Jr., 22, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Patricia Anne Campbell, 73, Sterling, Cayuga County

Lyndsay Clark, 55, Springwater, Livingston County

Fred Conner, 60, Dryden, Tompkins County

James Connor, 84, Mecklenburg, Schuyler County

Ann Cain Crusade, 60, Starkey, Yates County

Phil Davis, 64, Hector, Schuyler County

Daryl B. Denning, 66, Corning, Steuben County

Wendy J. Dwyer, 61, Canaan, Columbia County

Karen Edelstein, 55, Lansing, Tompkins County

Wesley Glenn Ernsberger, 68, Owego, Tioga County

Richard L. Evert, 69, Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey

Elisa Evett, 71, Brooktondale, Tompkins County

Martha Ferger, 92, Dryden, Tompkins County

Paula Fitzsimmons, 58, Hector, Schuyler County

Kenneth Fogarty, 76, Guilford, Chenango County

Lyn Gerry, 60, Watkins Glen, Schuyler County

Wes Gillingham, 56, Livingston Manor, Sullivan County

Ryan Goetz, 22, Woodstock, Ulster County

Wayne I. Gottlieb, 58, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Deborah Guard, 65, Schenectady, Schenectady County

Evelyn Hamilton, 69, Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey

Margaret Hammond, 62, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Ellen Z. Harrison, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Niall Hodges, 19, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Wendy Roe Hovey, 73, Horseheads, Chemung County

Catherine Johnson, 54, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Sharon Kahkonen, 67, Mecklenburg, Schuyler County

Bill Kitchen, 64, Johnstown, Fulton County

Kim Knight, 32, Covert, Seneca County

Yvonne LaMontagne, 66, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Nathan Lewis, 33, Hector, Schuyler County

Peter E. Looker, 65, Glenville, Schenectady County

Rachel Marco-Havens, 47, Woodstock, Ulster County

Sage Anthony Mannino, 24, Shokan, Ulster County

Sandra Marshall, 67, Newfield, Tompkins County

Rebecca J. Meier, 59, Canaan, Columbia County

Mariana D. Morse, 67, Brooktondale, Tompkins County

Edward Nizalowski, 68, Newark Valley, Tioga County

Mary Ott, 59, Trumansburg, Seneca County

Dianne Marie Roe, 73, Corning, Steuben County

Jane Pfeiffer Russell, 64, Pulteney, Steuben County

Coby Schultz, 56, Springwater, Livingston County

Elan Shapiro, 68, Ithaca, Tompkins County

John W. Suter, 71, Dryden, Tompkins County

Peter F. Tringali Jr., 64, Brewster, Putnam County

Jan Zeserson, 69, Ulysses, Tompkins County

Kenneth Zeserson, 68, Ulysses, Tompkins County

 

More about the protesters: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/seneca-lake-defendes/.

Bill McKibben’s March 2016 arrest with We Are Seneca Lake: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/science/earth/environmental-activists-take-to-local-protests-for-global-results.html?_r=0

NYT story on widespread objections to Crestwood’s gas storage plans: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/nyregion/new-york-winemakers-fight-gas-storage-plan-near-seneca-lake.html?_r=0.

Gannett’s investigative report about the risks and dangers of LPG gas storage: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/06/26/seneca-gas-storage-debated/29272421/.

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 Posted by at 1:20 pm

Victory for We Are Seneca Lake Protesters as Mistrial Declared in Town of Reading Court

 Press Kit  Comments Off on Victory for We Are Seneca Lake Protesters as Mistrial Declared in Town of Reading Court
Jun 282016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | June 28, 2016

Contact: Sandra Steingraber, 607-351-0719, ssteingraber@ithaca.edu

video [reaction statements of defendant Tom Angie and defense attorneys Joseph Heath and Sujata Gibson]:

http://www.wearesenecalake.com/mistrial-in-reading-vid/

photos:  http://www.wearesenecalake.com/mistrial-in-reading-pix/

press release:  http://www.wearesenecalake.com/mistrial-in-reading/

 

Victory for We Are Seneca Lake Protesters as Mistrial Declared in Town of Reading Court

 

In surreal breakdown of criminal procedure, Judge announces guilty verdict before defense presents case, then recuses himself amid charges of bias and lack of legal training

 

Watkins Glen, NY – The trial of a Seneca Lake gas storage protester ended in dramatic fashion in the Town of Reading Court on Tuesday afternoon when Justice Raymond Berry declared a mistrial at the urging of the prosecuting attorneys and accepted a motion from defense attorneys to recuse himself from this and future Seneca Lake protest trials. Berry’s rulings came after a strange series of declarations that appeared to indicate both prejudice against the defendant and ignorance of the law.

Defendant Tom Angie, 63, of Aurora in Cayuga County, was charged with violation-level trespass stemming from a December 16, 2014 protest near the main gates of the Crestwood Midstream compressor station near Seneca Lake in the Town of Reading.

Angie’s trial today – which was to represent the first trial of gas storage protesters in the Town of Reading Court – began at 10 a.m. By 2 p.m., the prosecutor, Schuyler County assistant district attorney John Tunney, who had put on the stand three witnesses, had just rested his case, and chief defense attorney Joseph Heath had just entered a motion for dismissal. At this point, Judge Berry abruptly issued a guilty verdict for Angie.

Clearly flummoxed, prosecutor Tunney explained to the judge that his verdict was premature in light of the fact that defendant Angie had not yet presented his defense or called his own witnesses to the stand.

Heath, noting Tunney’s attempt to explain criminal procedure protocols to Judge Berry, respectfully moved that the case be transferred to a law-trained judge. Heath noted that the judge’s premature ruling of guilt at this stage showed a fundamental lack of knowledge of basic criminal law, most notably, the right to present a defense.

Heath further said that the fact that the prosecution needed to stop the trial in order to lecture the judge on “the simplest trial procedures” was clear proof that his clients were unable to obtain a fair trial in this court.

In spite of the fact that the prosecutor had just warned the judge that his ruling was premature, Justice Berry then reiterated his verdict, saying, “I still find him guilty.”

Heath insisted that the trial could only go forward before a law-trained judge, which Berry is not. Heath noted, “The prosecutor is running this trial.”

Sujata Gibson, a second defense attorney, stated that if the judge were going to insist on finding guilt before allowing a defense, then the defendants would simply appeal. She then entered a motion that Berry recuse himself from hearing Angie’s case. She asked that the recusal be extended to all future cases of gas storage protesters.

In making her motion, Gibson described for the record a pattern of prejudice, unfair treatment, and blatant bias and provided examples. Among them: courtroom observer Daniel Pautz, who was neither a party to the trial nor an officer of the court, was allowed use of his cell phone in the courtroom while she herself, an attorney for the defense, along with all other courtroom observers, had been forbidden cell phones.

According to witnesses, the Bailiff’s response, when asked why Pautz alone was allowed to have access to his cell phone inside the courtroom was “because he is with Crestwood.”

Pautz, whose legal work focuses on defending property owners against lead paint claims, is an attorney for Crestwood. He was merely an observer in court today.

Justice Berry granted Gibson’s motion and agreed to recuse himself in this and all future trials involving Seneca Lake gas storage protesters.

He then asked, “Okay, where are we at?”

The prosecution then moved for an official declaration of mistrial. The defense attorneys offered no objection.

Granting the prosecution’s motion for a mistrial, Judge Berry adjourned the court.

In a reaction statement outside of the courtroom, defendant Tom Angie said that while he saw the mistrial and recusal as a victory for We Are Seneca Lake, he was nevertheless deeply shaken by the experience.

“To have somebody look me in the face and say that I was guilty before I had a chance to put on my defense … is chilling. I was not really given my day in court.”

Angie, who works as a mechanical design engineer, said that his time spent on legal defense comes at a personal financial cost. “I’m a contractor. When I don’t work, I don’t get paid, so being hauled into court over and over to defend my First Amendment rights of protest is tough. Like every other average American who wants to exercise my rights, I still have to live. And this affects my livelihood. That concerns me.”

Chief defense counsel Joe Heath noted that, even prior to the judge’s abrupt guilty verdict at the midpoint of the trial, the prosecution had failed to provide evidence that Angie was standing on Crestwood’s property and had already conceded that, at the time of his arrest, the no-trespass signs demarcating the line between public and corporate property were incorrectly located. “In 41 years of practicing law, this is one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen in the courtroom.”

Defense counsel Sujata Gibson hailed both the mistrial and the recusal. “This is a victory for the defense and for We Are Seneca Lake. I firmly believe Mr. Angie is not guilty. This is not a game. Each individual has the right to a fair trial.”

Out of 606 total arrests in the 21-month-old We Are Seneca Lake campaign, 370 cases remain open. The majority of the adjudicated cases have been dismissed in the interests of justice at the prosecution’s request or with their approval, many for admitted lack of evidence of guilt.

Last week, in the Town of Dix Court, Seneca Lake defendants Sue Kinchy and Barbara Barry were both found guilty of trespass.

Read more about the arrested protesters at http://www.wearesenecalake.com/seneca-lake-defendes/.

Read more about widespread objections to Crestwood’s gas storage plans:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/nyregion/new-york-winemakers-fight-gas-storage-plan-near-seneca-lake.html?_r=0

 

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 Posted by at 7:33 pm

Star Trek Actors James Cromwell, J.G. Hertzler and 17 Others Arrested at Seneca Lake Gas Storage Facility, Call on Gov Cuomo to Boldly Go Beyond Fossil Fuels

 Press Kit  Comments Off on Star Trek Actors James Cromwell, J.G. Hertzler and 17 Others Arrested at Seneca Lake Gas Storage Facility, Call on Gov Cuomo to Boldly Go Beyond Fossil Fuels
Jun 062016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 6, 2016

media contact: Sandra Steingraber, 607.351.0719; ssteingraber@ithaca.edu

 

photos: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/boldlygo-pix

video: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/boldlygo-vid

press release: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/boldlygo

 

Star Trek Actors James Cromwell, J.G. Hertzler Arrested at Seneca Lake Gas Storage Facility, Call on Gov Cuomo to Boldly Go Beyond Fossil Fuels

19 arrested this morning at Crestwood as total arrests in the We Are Seneca Lake civil disobedience campaign pass 600 

 

Watkins Glen, NY – Early this morning on a hillside above Seneca Lake, actors James Cromwell and John “J.G.” Hertzler, of Star Trek fame, joined 17 area residents in an act of civil disobedience that is part of an ongoing citizen campaign against salt cavern gas storage here.

While blockading the main entrance to the Crestwood compressor station, the two actors urged Governor Cuomo to stand up to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for greenlighting an expansion of this fracked gas infrastructure project against overwhelming local opposition and for undermining the governor’s own stated commitment to a rapid transition to renewable energy.

Starting at 6:45 a.m. and continuing until their arrests by Schuyler County deputies shortly before 7:30 a.m., the protesters blocked all traffic from leaving and entering the facility, including two Crestwood tanker trucks. All 19 were transported to the Schuyler County sheriff’s department, charged with disorderly conduct, ticketed, and released.

John Hertzler, 66, who played Klingon General Martok on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, said“The prettiest place I’ve ever seen is right here: the Finger Lakes region of New York….Governor Cuomo, we, the people, do not want to see these pristine lakes turned into cheap, contaminated, industrialized storage facilities for Crestwood and Con Ed. Stand with us, Governor! Defend your own program for getting New York State off of fossil fuels and transitioned to renewable energy. FERC—the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission—seeks to keep us chained to the energy of the past and, in so doing, threatens our water, our lands, our safety, and the very climate of this, our planet. Boldly go with us, Governor Cuomo, into a renewable energy future.”

Hertzler lives in the Finger Lakes region with his family in the Town of Ulysses where he serves on the town board.

James Cromwell, 76, who played Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact and who was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Farmer Arthur Hoggett in Babe, called on New Yorkers to join the We Are Seneca Lake movement. He said, “FERC-approved fracked gas infrastructure projects are taking over our entire state—from the crumbly salt caverns of Seneca Lake, where the gas will be stored, to the pipelines and compressor stations that devastate our farmlands, wetlands, and maple groves, all the way to the burner tips of the natural gas-fired power plants that are planned for downstate. With all of New York under attack by the fossil fuel industry and by the rogue agency called FERC, all New Yorkers now need to stand up, stand together, and say NO.”

[Full text of both statements appear below.]

Referencing the films in which the two have appeared, protesters held banners and signs that read, “We Are Seneca Lake, Babe / And We Will Not Be FERC-ed” and “Trekkies Against Crestwood-Con Ed Boldly Going Toward Renewables.”

The total number of arrests in the 20-month-old We Are Seneca Lake civil disobedience campaign now stands at 604.

Crestwood’s methane gas storage expansion project was originally approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2014 in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of Seneca Lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people. In spite of near-unanimous citizen opposition, FERC’s last-minute permit extension on May 16 gave Crestwood’s Arlington subsidiary another two years to build out its natural gas storage facility.

Salt cavern storage accounts for only seven percent of total underground storage of natural gas in the United States but, since 1972, is responsible for 100 percent of the catastrophic accidents that has resulted in loss of life.

Crestwood also seeks to store two other products of fracking in Seneca Lake salt caverns—propane and butane (so-called Liquefied Petroleum Gases, LPG)—for which it is awaiting a decision by Governor Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

 

The 19 arrested at Seneca Lake today were:

Richard Battaglia, 54, Richford, Tioga County

Leslie Brack, 49, Ithaca, Tompkins County

James Cromwell, 76, Warwick, Orange County

John V. Dennis, 66, Lansing, Tompkins County

Lauren Eastwood, 46, Plattsburgh, Clinton County

Bob Eklund, 63, New Lisbon, Otsego County

Linda C. Fedele, 53, Perinton, Monroe County

John Garman “J.G.” Hertzler, 66, Ulysses, Tompkins County

[Reverend] Gary Judson, 76, Burdett, Schuyler County

Jeanne Judson, 78, Burdett, Schuyler County

Sandra Marshall, 67, Newfield, Tompkins County

David H. McLallen, 61, Ulysses, Tompkins County

Patricia Rodriguez, 47, Brooktondale, Tompkins County

Mark Scibilia-Carver, 63, Ulysses, Tompkins County

Trellan Smith, 50, Oxford, Chenango County

Dan Taylor, 65, Oxford, Chenango County

Catherine Taylor, 52, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Suzanne Winkler (Suzy), 57, Burlington, Otsego County

Robyn Wishna, 58, Slaterville, Tompkins County

 

Full text of J.G. Hertlzer’s prepared statement:  

Hi, everyone. My name is John Hertzler, although some of you may know me better as Klingon General Martok on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

My forty-some years as an actor have taken me all over the world. But the prettiest place I’ve ever seen is right here: the Finger Lakes Region of New York.

And so I chose to live here, just on the other side of Seneca Lake. I have a daughter going to school here.

I am also a member of the Ulysses Town Board. When I first ran for office, our platform was PRESERVING OUR HERITAGE and PLANNING for the FUTURE. Today, I am here for both of those reasons.

Governor Cuomo, we, the people, do not want to see these pristine lakes turned into cheap, contaminated, industrialized storage facilities for Crestwood and Con Ed.

Stand with us, Governor! Defend your own program for getting New York State off of fossil fuels and transitioned to renewable energy. FERC—the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission—seeks to keep us chained to the energy of the past and, in so doing, threatens our water, our lands, our safety, the very climate of this, our Planet.

Boldly go with us, Governor Cuomo, into a renewable energy future.

And now I’d like to introduce my friend and fellow actor, James Cromwell.

 

Full text of James Cromwell’s prepared statement:

Good morning. My name is James Cromwell. I’m an actor and a producer. You might know me as Farmer Arthur Hoggett in the movie Babe; as Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact; as Captain Dudley Smith in L.A. Confidential; as Hal Moores in The Green Mile; or from my work on American Horror Story.

Today, I’ve come from my home in Orange County to take a stand against gas storage at Seneca Lake and to take a stand against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that has enabled and approved this project in spite of near unanimous public opposition.

And I bring a message to all New Yorkers: FERC-approved fracked gas infrastructure projects are taking over our entire state—from the crumbly salt caverns of Seneca Lake, where the gas will be stored, to the pipelines and compressor stations that devastate our farmlands, wetlands, and maple groves, all the way to the burner tips of the natural gas-fired power plants that are planned for downstate.

Thus, with all of New York under attack by the fossil fuel industry and by the rogue agency called FERC, all New Yorkers now need to stand up, stand together, and say NO.

Last December, I was arrested along with five other people while blocking the construction of the CPV Valley Power Plant in Waywayanda, New York, near my home in Warwick.

Here is what I said on that cold winter day:

‘I am here in support of the people of this town, this country, and people all over the world who have a right to live in an environment that is not being polluted poisoned and devastated by an industry that cares more about its own profits than the well-being of all sentient beings.’

And I bring those same words to Seneca Lake, where I am risking arrest with 18 other people on a warm summer day—and where I just may have the honor of becoming arrest #600 here on the driveway of the Crestwood compressor station.

Fellow New Yorkers, we have a movement on our hands. It’s a growing movement of peace-loving people who are saying YES to renewable energy and NO to poisonous, devastating fracked gas projects.

Join us here at Seneca Lake.

 

More about the protesters: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/seneca-lake-defendes/.

Bill McKibben’s March 2016 arrest with We Are Seneca Lake: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/science/earth/environmental-activists-take-to-local-protests-for-global-results.html?_r=0

NYT story on widespread objections to Crestwood’s gas storage plans: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/nyregion/new-york-winemakers-fight-gas-storage-plan-near-seneca-lake.html?_r=0.

Tom Wilber’s award-winning investigative report about the risks and dangers of LPG gas storage: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/06/26/seneca-gas-storage-debated/29272421/.

 

#  #  #

 Posted by at 11:41 am

Families Arrested at Seneca Lake Protesting FERC Extension for Crestwood/Con Ed Gas Storage – 5.26.16 (Press Release)

 Press Kit  Comments Off on Families Arrested at Seneca Lake Protesting FERC Extension for Crestwood/Con Ed Gas Storage – 5.26.16 (Press Release)
May 262016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 26, 2016

Media contact: Sandra Steingraber, 607.351.0719; ssteingraber@ithaca.edu

photos: http://wearesenecalake.com/we-will-not-be-ferced-pix

video: http://wearesenecalake.com/we-will-not-be-ferced-vid

press release: http://wearesenecalake.com/we-will-not-be-ferced

Families Arrested at Seneca Lake Protesting FERC Extension for Crestwood/Con Ed Gas Storage 

21 arrestees include spouses, siblings, parent-child teams

 

Watkins Glen, NY – “We Will Not be FERC’ed!” was the rallying cry this morning as 21 New York residents from seven counties engaged in an act of civil disobedience in response to a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Crestwood Midstream’s permit to expand gas storage in Seneca Lake salt caverns.

Forming a human blockade at the main entrance of Crestwood along Route 14 in the Town of Reading, the group included several family teams. Among them were Robert and Katie Eklund (father and daughter) from New Lisbon; Clare, Teresa, and Ellen Grady (sisters) from Ithaca; Margaret and Hervie Harris (spouses) from Elmira; Lisa and Grace Marshall (mother and daughter) from Horseheads; and Elan and Gabriel Shapiro (father and son) from Ithaca.

Starting at 6:45 a.m. and continuing until their arrests by Schuyler County deputies shortly before 7:30 a.m., protesters blocked all traffic from leaving and entering the facility, including two tanker trucks. Watkins Glen police assisted in the arrests. All 21 were transported to the Schuyler County sheriff’s department, charged with disorderly conduct, ticketed, and released.

Lisa Marshall, 48, of Horseheads in Chemung County, arrested with her daughter, delivered a message to Governor Cuomo while blockading. “Governor Cuomo, New York’s families are full of resolve, but we can’t do it alone. Help us stand up to the bullies here at Seneca Lake, Crestwood and Con Ed. And help us take a stand against FERC … that shows such disregard for New York’s water, safety, health, climate, and for your own good plans to make our state a leader in renewable energy.”  [Full text of statement below.]

The group held banners that read, “New York Families Against Crestwood/Con Ed” and “99.1% Said No / Shame on FERC!”

99.1 represents the percentage of public comments received by FERC that expressed opposition to gas storage expansion: 332 out of 335 comments received during the public comment period were against the expansion. In spite of this overwhelming citizen opposition, FERC’s last-minute permit extension, giving Crestwood’s Arlington subsidiary another two years to build out its natural gas storage facility, was granted on May 16.

Salt cavern storage accounts for only seven percent of total underground storage of natural gas in the United States but, since 1972, is responsible for 100 percent of the catastrophic accidents that has resulted in loss of life.

The total number of arrests in the nineteen-month-old civil disobedience campaign now stands at 585.

Bob Eklund, 63, of New Lisbon in Otsego County, who was arrested with his daughter, said, “While I applaud Governor Cuomo for the wisdom he displayed in banning fracking in our state, I would ask that he show the same wisdom in doing everything in his power to halt further infrastructure build-out here in New York. We must build infrastructure for renewable energy, not for fossil fuels. We can do it. We must do it.”

Ellen Grady, 53, of Ithaca in Tompkins County, who was arrested with her two sisters, said, “The decision on the part of FERC to give Crestwood more time to complete its expansion project is totally irresponsible. This is the time when our government should be encouraging renewable energy, not helping gas companies expand their very life-threatening work.”

Gabriel Shapiro, 19, of Ithaca in Tompkins County, who was arrested with his father, said, “FERC represents one component of the powerful partnership between energy and politics, a system based on exploitation and protected by deceit. This moment requires us to make clear the crimes being committed by our government.”

Crestwood’s methane gas storage expansion project was originally approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2014 in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of Seneca Lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

Crestwood also seeks to store two other products of fracking in Seneca Lake salt caverns—propane and butane (so-called Liquefied Petroleum Gases, LPG)—for which it is awaiting a decision by Governor Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

This morning’s action follows immediately on the heels of other actions directed at FERC-enabled gas infrastructure projects in New York State. Yesterday, FERC opponents in Peekskill, New York locked themselves into a shipping container at a construction site for Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline that would run within 400 feet of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. On Saturday, 21 civil disobedients were arrested after forming a human blockade at the Peekskill site. On May 21, NY Senators Schumer and Gillibrand  joining an earlier call by Governor Cuomo, urged FERC to halt construction of the AIM pipeline, citing safety concerns and the need for more study.

The 21 arrested at Seneca Lake today were:

Marguerite (Peggy) Abbott, 65, Phelps, Ontario County

Heather Mackenzie Cook, 54, Dundee, Yates County

Colleen A. Coss, 61, West Henrietta, Monroe County

Timothy Dunlap, 61, Hector, Schuyler County

Katie Marie Eklund, 18, New Lisbon, Otsego County

Robert Eklund, 63, New Lisbon, Otsego County

Clare T. Grady, 57, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Ellen Grady, 53, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Teresa Grady, 51, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Hervie Harris, 70, Elmira, Chemung County

Margaret R. Harris, 65, Elmira, Chemung County

Nathan Lewis, 33, Hector, Schuyler County

Grace Evelyn Marshall, 18, Horseheads, Chemung County

Lisa Marshall, 48, Horseheads, Chemung County

Sandra Marshall, 67, Newfield, Tompkins County

Kelly Morris, 57, Danby, Tompkins County

Jeanne Olivett, 69, Jacksonville, Tompkins County

Barbara Perrone, 42, Caroline, Tompkins County

Todd Saddler, 51, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Elan Shapiro, 68, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Gabriel Shapiro, 19, Ithaca, Tompkins County

 

Full text of Lisa Marshall’s statement:

Hi, everyone. My name is Lisa Marshall. I’m 48 years old, and I live in Horseheads, New York.

Horseheads is the place where the Millennium Pipeline connects with the Dominion Pipeline. And those very pipelines are both connected to the abandoned salt caverns right under our feet here on the banks of Seneca Lake where Crestwood, along with its new partner Con Ed, seeks to store massive amounts of fracked gas.

Now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, has just approved a two-year extension for this reckless project. This decision, along with the nearly one billion dollars that Con Ed just dumped into Crestwood’s pockets, is why we are here today.

The families of the Finger Lakes are threatened by gas storage in salt caverns, while the families of the Southern Tier and elsewhere are threatened by the pipelines that will be fed by these salt caverns.

Hence, I am risking arrest today with my 18-year-old daughter, Grace, who just voted in her first election.

I have three beautiful children who have a bright future ahead of them but for the threat of climate change. We are an all-American family. My husband Geoff served in the Navy for 21 years, and we’ve done everything within our power to protect and nurture our kids.

Here’s our story. Six years ago, shortly after we moved here from Pensacola, Florida, I awoke to the news that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had exploded, killing 11 men and sending untold gallons of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill went on and on and on for 87 days; no one knew how to stop it.

This catastrophe hit close to home for us. Big balls of tar and dead fish washed up on the pristine white sand beaches where my children had played.

My son Charlie, who was eight years old, began building contraptions out of Legos to try to stop the oil spill. Seeing this disaster through the eyes of my own sweet child struck me to the core. It hit me that the fossil fuel juggernaut was on a course to destroy human life. I knew that I could not keep my children healthy and safe as long as the fossil fuel industry was hell bent on their destruction.

So here I am. I am proud to stand in the way of Crestwood’s dangerous gas storage project along with other parents and their young adult children, along with husbands, wives, and sisters and brothers. Standing here blocking trucks, I feel that I am doing my mother’s job.

And I bring three messages with me. The first one is to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

FERC, shame on you!  Your permission slip to Crestwood is outrageous. This two-year extension sanctions a project that threatens drinking water, imperils the climate, keeps New York dependent on fracked gas, and flies in the face of public opinion.

Indeed, 99.1 percent of the hundreds of comments that FERC received from ordinary families like us were OPPOSED to the extension and to gas storage itself. Nobody wants Seneca Lake turned into a gas station.

FERC, you know that, and we know that.

The second message is to mothers and fathers. Though my own children are all teenagers now—Grace here is 18 and headed to college in the fall—it is still my job to do what I can to keep them healthy and safe. I’ve realized the only way I can do this is to fight climate change, fight fossil fuel build-out, and fight for immediate, large-scale investment in renewable energy.

Mothers and fathers, I implore you. Will you stand up and fight with me? Will you join me in fighting for a livable planet for our kids?

My final message is to our governor. Governor Cuomo, New York’s families are full of resolve, but we can’t do it alone. Help us stand up to the bullies here at Seneca Lake, Crestwood and Con Ed. And help us take a stand against FERC, the federal agency in Washington that shows such disregard for New York’s water, safety, health, climate, and for your own good plans to make our state a leader in renewable energy.

Join us in saving Seneca Lake, Governor Cuomo. Tell FERC they’re not the boss of you.

This is the defining issue of our time. This is the issue that will test our mettle and show us who were truly are as a people. Will we allow ourselves to be extinguished for the short-term profit of the oil and gas profiteers?

Or will we say to them, as we say to our children when they are unruly, “Stop it right now! Mom has had enough!”

 

More about the protesters: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/seneca-lake-defendes/.

Bill McKibben’s March 2016 arrest with We Are Seneca Lake: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/science/earth/environmental-activists-take-to-local-protests-for-global-results.html?_r=0

NYT story on widespread objections to Crestwood’s gas storage plans: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/nyregion/new-york-winemakers-fight-gas-storage-plan-near-seneca-lake.html?_r=0.

Gannett’s investigative report about the risks and dangers of LPG gas storage: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/06/26/seneca-gas-storage-debated/29272421/.

#  #  #

 Posted by at 11:34 am

We Are Seneca Lake Unites with NYC Advocates Protest Con Ed Investment in Underground Fracked Gas Storage Facilities

 Press Kit  Comments Off on We Are Seneca Lake Unites with NYC Advocates Protest Con Ed Investment in Underground Fracked Gas Storage Facilities
May 162016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, May 16, 2016

Contact: Lindsay Speer, We Are Seneca Lake, 315-383-7210 lindsayspeer@creatingchangeconsulting.com

 

Photos:  http://www.wearesenecalake.com/wasl-nyc-pix/

Video:  http://www.wearesenecalake.com/wasl-nyc-vid/

 

We Are Seneca Lake Unites with NYC Advocates to Protest Con Ed Investment in Underground Fracked Gas Storage Facilities

 

“An Aliso Canyon-style disaster in New Yorks wine country is not worth the risk!” says actor James Cromwell and others outside Con Ed shareholder meeting

 

May 16, 2016 – New York, NY—More than 100 upstate and downstate New Yorkers joined forces today in a demonstration against Consolidated Edison’s recently announced $975 million investment in fracked gas infrastructure, including a controversial gas storage facility in old salt mines at Seneca Lake in the heart of New York’s wine country.

Joined by New York City-based climate and environmental justice advocates, unions, and actor James Cromwell, Finger Lakes residents made their voices heard outside of the Con Edison annual shareholder meeting. This diverse community minded group assembled to call for an end to risky gas storage projects in the Finger Lakes and for Con Ed instead to put its resources into energy efficiency and renewable energy.

While demonstrators outside the shareholder meeting urged Con Ed to back out of the risky deal, We Are Seneca Lake activist and environmental consultant John Dennis, PhD, delivered a similar message, speaking for eight minutes, inside the meeting to the shareholders themselves. Dennis drew attention in particular to the geologic and water quality risks associated with the Seneca Lake facility, while also questioning the wisdom of a partnership with Crestwood Equity Partners, which has a troubled record of environmental violations throughout the United States.  Dennis hand-delivered a letter from the Finger Lakes Wine Business Coalition stating their concerns and opposition to the project.

“Seneca Lake is the heart of Finger Lakes wine country,” explained winemaker Will Ouweleen. “We simply can’t afford any accidents there.”

“We can’t believe Con Ed would invest, and become liable, in this facility, particularly under continued Crestwood management,” noted Jan Quarles, a Seneca County farm owner, during a press conference outside Con Ed headquarters near Union Square. “Does Con Ed, its shareholders and ratepayers really want this risk? The methane leak in Porter Ranch, California was a complete disaster and forced 5000 people to evacuate, and SoCalGas is being sued for over $2 billion.  New York can’t afford that.”

“Crestwood has a terrible history of water quality violations and brine spills,” she continued. “Our drinking water, our health, and our sustainable economy based on farming and viticulture are beyond value and cannot afford to be compromised.”

Chanting “No Porter Ranch in New York” and “Break free from fossil fuels,” the protesters held banners that read “We will not be Con-ned #BreakFree” and “Say no to fracked gas infrastructure,” and confronted shareholders as they arrived for the annual meeting.

Con Ed’s joint venture with Crestwood Equity Partners is to “own and expand” four underground methane gas storage facilities and three pipelines in the Northeast, including the Seneca Lake facility. Bloomberg reports the joint venture is expected to be finalized in the second quarter. Demonstrating opposition to the danger posed by this project, over 550 area residents who call themselves “We Are Seneca Lake” have been arrested peacefully protesting this facility in the two years since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved construction.  Since then, Crestwood’s stock has plummeted, and notably Crestwood has teetered on bankruptcy for the past year.

No construction has begun to date.

Thirty-one municipalities and 372 businesses have also voiced opposition to gas storage in salt caverns under the shores of Seneca Lake, and FERC has been flooded with comments opposing the extension of the project’s construction permit, thanks to years of organizing work by Gas Free Seneca.

Maria Castaneda, Secretary Treasurer of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the largest healthcare union in the nation said, “As healthcare workers and community members, we are opposed to the building of this gas storage facility because it could be a threat to clean drinking water and public health.”

“We oppose efforts to expand dependence on fossil fuels that exacerbate the crisis of climate change, and instead support the creation of good, middle-class green energy jobs,” Castaneda continued. “It’s fundamentally wrong to build out the infrastructure for fracking, which is known to be toxic and dangerous for human health. We stand in solidarity with the Finger Lakes against the risks of this project.”

“Communities across New York are fighting to protect themselves from an onslaught of fracked natural gas pipelines, storage, and power plants,” said Irene Weiser, a town councilmember in the Finger Lakes region and organizer of Fossil Free Tompkins. “Together we banned fracking in New York – now we’re standing together, united against all fossil fuel expansion.  Our futures depend on it!”

Methane is 86 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a twenty year timeframe, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  A 2015 study found that methane leakage rates from gas infrastructure have been nationally underreported due to a faulty sensor in the device used to measure such emissions at each site. A study from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in March 2016 found that methane emissions in the United States have increased by 30% over the past decade.

Annel Hernandez of NYC Environmental Justice Alliance said, “it’s the communities that can least afford it – low income, people of color – that bear the biggest costs of climate change.  We need Con Ed to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy infrastructure, not tie itself to risky fossil fuels.”

Con Ed’s bet on methane gas as New York City’s energy future undermines New York’s commitment to 50 percent of all electricity consumed in New York State is to result from renewable energy sources by 2030, as laid out in the Clean Energy Standard.

“Creating ‘sacrifice zones’ upstate will only result in New York City becoming a sacrifice zone itself as the sea levels rise,” Cromwell concluded.  “This is an incredible opportunity to bring all these movements together.  When we recognize the interconnection between all the issues – economic justice, racial justice, justice for women – and stand together, we will win.”

###

 

We Are Seneca Lake is an ongoing, citizen-based, grassroots campaign that seeks to protect Seneca Lake and the surrounding region from gas storage expansion by Texas-based energy company, Crestwood Midstream. Crestwood’s intention is to repurpose the crumbling salt mines underneath Seneca Lake’s hillside into massive, unlined gas tanks for three highly pressurized products of fracking: methane (natural gas), and propane and butane (LPG, or Liquefied Petroleum Gases) and to turn the Finger Lakes into a fracked gas transportation and storage hub for the entire Northeast. Our intention is to direct the future of our community down sustainable, renewable pathways.

 

 

Danielle Filson

BerlinRosen Public Affairs

(O) 646.335.0443

(C) 860.707.3584

danielle.filson@berlinrosen.com

 

 Posted by at 1:49 pm

15 Arrested Protesting Con Ed’s Joint Venture with Crestwood at Seneca Lake During Week of Global Action Against Fossil Fuels

 Press Kit  Comments Off on 15 Arrested Protesting Con Ed’s Joint Venture with Crestwood at Seneca Lake During Week of Global Action Against Fossil Fuels
May 052016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 5, 2016

Media contact: Sandra Steingraber, 607.351.0719; ssteingraber@ithaca.edu

 

photos: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/we-will-not-be-conned-pix/

video: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/we-will-not-be-conned-vid/

press release: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/we-will-not-be-conned/

 

15 Arrested Protesting Con Ed’s Joint Venture with Crestwood at Seneca Lake During Week of Global Action Against Fossil Fuels

 

We Are Seneca Lake warns downstate Con Ed ratepayers of bad deal; calls on Con Ed to ‘break free’ of gas infrastructure build-out; SUNY Geneseo senior arrested wearing graduation cap; two Cornell U students join blockade

 

Watkins Glen, NY – In an act of civil disobedience aimed at the recently announced gas storage partnership between downstate energy giant Consolidated Edison and Houston-based Crestwood Midstream, 15 residents from across the Finger Lakes, the Southern Tier, Albany, and Long Island formed a human chain across the main entrance of Crestwood.

Starting at 7 a.m. and continuing until their arrests by Schuyler County deputies for disorderly conduct shortly after 8 a.m., protesters blocked tanker trucks from leaving and entering the facility.

The group held banners that read, “Crestwood + Con Ed = Bad Deal for NYS” and “We Will Not Be Con’Ed.”

Three of the 15, who ranged in age from 19 to 73, were Schuyler County residents. Another three were college students.

With her commencement ceremony days away, SUNY Geneseo honors student, Julia Mizutani, 22, was arrested wearing her graduation cap.

Cornell students Elizabeth Chi, 19, and Gabrielle Illava, 27, were also arrested with the group.

This morning’s protest was a direct response to the April 21 announcement by utility giant Consolidated Edison that it had formed a joint venture with Crestwood Equity Partners to own three pipelines and four gas storage facilities, including the controversial Seneca Lake storage facility where Houston-based Crestwood has been pursuing a massive expansion project. Con Ed will invest $975 million to own a 50 percent stake in the newly named entity, dubbed Stagecoach Gas Services.

The protest was timed to correspond with a two-week wave of civil disobedience actions against fossil fuel projects that is taking place all around the world under the banner Break Free 2016.

Among those arrested this morning was the co-founder and executive editor of Fresh Dirt magazine, Rebecca Barry, 48, of Trumansburg in Tompkins County.  As part of a statement of solidarity with residents of New York City, where she lived for ten years, Barry said, “Everyone who lives downstate is a Con Ed ratepayer, and, with this 50 percent purchase in Crestwood’s gas storage facility at Seneca Lake, they are all now participating in a threat to an important source of drinking water here in the Finger Lakes.”

“Water matters. I can’t believe I have to fight for this idea,” Barry continued. “Con Ed, the whole world is going renewable, which we have to do. Help New Yorkers lead the way. Let wine, food, and culture connect the Finger Lakes to Manhattan, not pipelines and salt caverns full of fracked gas.”

Fresh Dirt is a profile-driven, green living magazine that celebrates sustainability in the Finger Lakes region.

The protesters this morning were all charged with disorderly conduct and transported to the Schuyler County Sheriff’s department, where they were ticketed and released.

The total number of arrests in the eighteen-month-old civil disobedience campaign now stands at 564.

Laura Salamendra, 32, Geneva, Ontario County, said,  “I’m here today to introduce myself to Con Edison. I’m a daughter, a sister, and an aunt who will fiercely protect her family from the threats associated with Crestwood’s dangerous gas storage plan. The people of the Finger Lakes oppose this project and if Con Edison plans to align with Crestwood, they should plan on seeing a lot of me and my fellow defenders.”

  1. Timothy Walcott, 64, of Johnson City in Broome County, said, “I stand in solidarity for the protection of Seneca Lake and its environs. Con Ed may be leading white horses for Crestwood, aka Stagecoach Gas Services, but they are wearing black hats.”

Crestwood’s methane gas storage expansion project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2014 in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of Seneca Lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

Crestwood also seeks to store two other products of fracking in Seneca Lake salt caverns—propane and butane (so-called Liquefied Petroleum Gases, LPG)—for which it is awaiting a decision by Governor Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

The 15 arrested today were:

Rebecca Barry, 48, Trumansburg, Tompkins County

Marie Ely Baumgardner, 68, Burdett, Schuyler County

Elizabeth Chi, 19, Great Neck, Nassau County

Timothy Dunlap, 61, Hector, Schuyler County

Wesley Ernsberger, 68, Owego, Tioga County

Jim Gregoire, 47, Geneva, Ontario County

Gretchen Herrmann, 67, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Gabrielle Illava, 27, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Gale Lyons, 73, Elmira, Chemung County

Julia Mizutani, 22, Geneseo, Livingston County

Jeanne Olivett, 69, Jacksonville, Tompkins County

Lory Peck, 65, Cayutaville, Schuyler County

Laura Salamendra, 32, Geneva, Ontario County

Regi L. Teasley, 64, Ithaca, Tompkins County

  1. Timothy Wolcott, 64, Johnson City, Broome County

 

Full text of Rebecca Barry’s statement:

My name is Rebecca Barry. I am a 48-year-old mother of two boys, ages 12 and 10, and I am also the co-founder and executive editor of a magazine called Fresh Dirt, which celebrates sustainable living here in the Finger Lakes.

Although I’m a native of this place, like a lot of writers, I got my professional start in New York City, where I lived for ten years.

And as an upstate resident with downstate roots who loves both places, I would like to talk to Consolidated Edison.

Con Ed recently joined together with the Texas gas company called Crestwood to jointly own the abandoned salt caverns here at Seneca Lake—right under our feet where we are standing.

Their plan, for which Con Ed laid down nearly a billion dollars, is to store massive amounts of fracked gas here in an underground facility like the one that catastrophically failed this past fall in California and caused 5,000 people to be evacuated from their homes.

It’s a plan that involves not just Seneca Lake but three other gas storage facilities in both upstate New York and Pennsylvania, along with three pipelines, and it will keep downstate New Yorkers hooked on dirty fossil fuels for years to come.

In a time of climate emergency, this is no way to link downstate with upstate.

Everyone who lives downstate is a Con Ed ratepayer, and, with this 50 percent purchase in Crestwood’s gas storage facility at Seneca Lake, they are all now participating in a threat to an important source of drinking water here in the Finger Lakes.

Water matters. I can’t believe I have to fight for this idea.

Con Ed, the whole world is going renewable, which we have to do. Help New Yorkers lead the way. Let wine, food, and culture connect the Finger Lakes to Manhattan, not pipelines and salt caverns full of fracked gas that threaten vast bodies of water and wineries that win awards all over the world.

Creativity and progressive ideas connect upstate to downstate, including ideas that help move us into a sustainable future. I know because I profile these ideas in my magazine, and I’ve seen over and over that an economy based on renewable energy is a lived reality here.

The symbiosis between the Finger Lakes and New York City is all about wine, bread, and models for sustainable living.

And it all depends on water.

As a mother, as a writer, as an editor, as a former Manhattanite and as a current resident of the Finger Lakes, I’m risking arrest today to protect our upstate water from dangerous fracked gas infrastructure before it locks downstate communities into evermore fossil fuel dependency.

To New Yorkers in the city: join us. Tell Con Ed you want investments in renewable energy not potentially catastrophic fossil fuel projects that endanger drinking water here at Seneca Lake.

More about the protesters: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/seneca-lake-defendes/.

Bill McKibben’s March 2016 arrest with We Are Seneca Lake: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/science/earth/environmental-activists-take-to-local-protests-for-global-results.html?_r=0

NYT story on widespread objections to Crestwood’s gas storage plans: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/nyregion/new-york-winemakers-fight-gas-storage-plan-near-seneca-lake.html?_r=0.

Gannett’s investigative report about the risks and dangers of LPG gas storage: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/06/26/seneca-gas-storage-debated/29272421/.

 

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 Posted by at 11:27 am

Statement from We Are Seneca Lake on Crestwood-Con Ed Gas Storage Joint Venture

 Press Kit  Comments Off on Statement from We Are Seneca Lake on Crestwood-Con Ed Gas Storage Joint Venture
Apr 252016
 

For Immediate Release

Monday April 25, 2016

Contact: Sandra Steingraber, ssteingraber@ithac.edu, 607.351.0719

 

Statement from We Are Seneca Lake on Crestwood-Con Ed Gas Storage Joint Venture 

Stagecoach Gas Services is a dangerous, archaic plan that undermines Governor Cuomo’s climate goals and pits downstate against upstate residents

 

Watkins Glen, NY – We Are Seneca Lake denounces the ill-conceived venture by Crestwood and Consolidated Edison to jointly own four gas storage facilities that will deepen New York State’s dependency on dirty fracked gas at a time when Governor Cuomo is leading our state toward a renewable energy future. In addition, this alliance results in downstate Con Ed gas customers endangering the drinking water of 100,000 upstate residents, placing them on the hook for possibly tragedies and financial losses.

“At a time when Governor Cuomo has struck a bold course on climate, a New York energy giant is investing nearly a billion dollars to tie a fossil fuel ball and chain to downstate residents while putting upstate lives at risk—along with drinking water and climate,” said Sandra Steingraber, We Are Seneca Lake steering committee member.

Downstate utility giant Consolidated Edison Inc announced last Thursday that it had formed a joint venture with Crestwood Equity Partners to own three pipelines and four gas storage facilities including the controversial Seneca Lake storage facility where Houston-based Crestwood has been pursuing a massive expansion project. Con Ed will invest $975 million to own a 50% stake in the newly named entity, dubbed Stagecoach Gas Services.

“‘Stagecoach’ is a comically apt name for this outdated venture. In an age of Tesla, it’s an investment in the Pony Express,” Steingraber added. “$975 million would buy a lot of off-shore wind,”

For years, local residents have opposed lakeside gas storage expansion in the heart of New York’s wine country because this massive industrial project imperils the wine and tourism industry brings air and noise pollution to the beautiful Finger Lakes region, threatens a source of drinking water, poses a demonstrable health and safety risk to residents, and is destructive to the climate.

Opposition to the facility has been vigorous and widespread, resulting in 549 arrests for civil disobedience and 31 municipal resolutions, representing 1.2 million New York residents.

By providing cash to Crestwood, whose stock has been deeply devalued, Con Ed provides an antiquated gas giant financial life support and undermines New York’s Clean Energy Standard, as announced by Governor Cuomo during the Paris Climate Accord negotiations last December. The Clean Energy Standard mandates that 50 percent of all electricity consumed in New York State is to result from renewable energy sources by 2030.

Winemaker Will Ouweleen, of Eagle Crest and O-Neh-Da wineries on Hemlock Lake, said, “Con Ed is purchasing crumbly salt caverns to store pressurized, explosive hydrocarbons just at the moment when we are hitting cost tipping points in wind and solar such that they will increasingly undermine the viability of expensive gas infrastructure projects.”

He added, “And what kind of neighbor will Stagecoach be for us here in the Finger Lakes? Con Ed was just ordered to pay $171 million for briberies and kickbacks. Meanwhile, Crestwood has a terrible track record in North Dakota regarding spills, including a million gallon spill that made its way into a lake that serves as a source of public drinking water. New York’s winemakers have no trust in these two reckless players.”

We Are Seneca Lake calls on the Public Service Commission, Senators Gillibrand and Schumer, Con Ed investors, and downstate Con Ed customers to join us in opposition to this wrong-headed venture.

 

Background:

We Are Seneca Lake is an ongoing, citizen-based, grassroots campaign that seeks to protect Seneca Lake and the surrounding region from gas storage expansion by Texas-based energy company, Crestwood Midstream. Crestwood’s intention is to repurpose the crumbling salt mines underneath Seneca Lake’s hillside into massive, unlined gas tanks for three highly pressurized products of fracking: methane (natural gas), and propane and butane (LPG, or Liquefied Petroleum Gases) and to turn the Finger Lakes into a fracked gas transportation and storage hub for the entire Northeast. Our intention is to direct the future of our community down sustainable, renewable pathways.

 

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 Posted by at 4:04 pm

12 arrested: Earth Day blockade of Crestwood on Seneca Lake

 Press Kit  Comments Off on 12 arrested: Earth Day blockade of Crestwood on Seneca Lake
Apr 212016
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 21, 2016

media contact: Sandra Steingraber  607.351.0719, ssteingraber@ithaca.edu

photos:    http://www.wearesenecalake.com/earth-day-2016-pix/

video: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/earth-day-2016-vid/

press release: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/earth-day-2016/

 

On Eve of Earth Day, the Whole World Joins Human Blockade at the Gates of Crestwood Midstream  

Irene Weiser, Town of Caroline councilmember, among 12 arrested as total number of arrests reaches 549 

 

Watkins Glen, NY – Five feet in diameter and swirling with clouds, a blue and green replica of Planet Earth helped a dozen human inhabitants block three trucks this morning at the main entrance of Crestwood Midstream. The Earth Day-themed civil disobedience action was part of an ongoing campaign against proposed gas storage in Seneca Lake’s abandoned salt caverns.

Organized by the direct action group, We Are Seneca Lake, the protesters, plus Earth, formed a blockade on the driveway of the Houston-based gas storage and transportation company shortly after sunrise at 6:45 a.m.

The group held banners that read, “Happy Earth Day! Decarbonize Now” and “We All Are on This [Earth] Together.  While blockading, they read aloud together from a new report released this week by the World Resources Institute, which documents alarming new scientific findings about the ongoing climate crisis.  Among them: 2015 was the warmest year on record, and the first three months of 2016 each far surpassed the warmest average temperature ever recorded for those months.

In a public statement to fellow blockaders, Town of Caroline Councilmember Irene Weiser, 57, said:  “Today is the day before Earth Day and the historic signing of the Paris Climate Treaty—enjoining the United States, China, and 195 other nations of the world in a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to keep global warming below the catastrophic 1.5 degree level. I am proud to stand here today, an elected official, joined by activists from across the region—to say that we stand in solidarity with the people of nations across this one precious earth, with a commitment to hold ourselves and our leaders accountable in upholding that essential promise.”

Weiser is an active member of Fossil Free Tompkins,  working politically across Tompkins County to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase renewable energy construction. Their work includes political action against new fossil fuel infrastructure, including the Crestwood storage facility on Seneca Lake.

 

The protesters this morning were all charged with disorderly conduct and arrested at about 7:30 a.m. by Schuyler County deputies and transported to the Schuyler County Sheriff’s department, where they were ticketed and released.

 

Among the 12 arrested was a member of the We Are Seneca Lake media team, Michael Dineen. At the time of his arrest, Dineen, who was not part of the blockade, was photographing the protest from across Highway 14.  Dineen was also charged with disorderly conduct.

The total number of arrests in the eighteen-month-old civil disobedience campaign now stands at 549.

Nathan Lewis, 33, of Hector in Schuyler County, said, “We will not stop blocking the gates of Crestwood until the expansion is canceled. We will not sit idle as our community is threatened. There is more than one way to vote. We vote with our body and soul when we resist the fossil fuel industry.”

 

Debb Guard, 65, of Schenectady in Schenectady County, said, “It’s been six years since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; six months since the failure of the methane storage in Aliso Canyon; and over six days since TransCanada’s 16,800 gallon dilbit leak into South Dakota farmland. Earth Day is a time to remind people that water, air, and land are still at risk of contamination by the oil and gas industry. Earth Day is also a time to embrace renewable energy sources: solar, wind, and geothermal.”

 

Crestwood’s methane gas storage expansion project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2014 in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of Seneca Lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

Crestwood also seeks to store two other products of fracking in Seneca Lake salt caverns—propane and butane (so-called Liquefied Petroleum Gases, LPG)—for which it is awaiting a decision by Governor Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

The 12 arrested today were:

Bruce Agte, 59, Binghamton, Broome County

Jim Crevelling, 70, Keuka Park, Yates County

Michael Dineen, 67, Ovid, Seneca County

August Faller, 25, Ithaca, Tompkins County

Lyn Gerry, 60, Watkins Glen, Schuyler County

Debb Guard, 65, Schenectady, Schenectady County

Nathan Lewis, 33, Hector, Schuyler County

Kelly Morris, 56, Danby, Tompkins County

Mark Pezzati, 57, Andes, Delaware County

John Suter, 70, Dryden, Tompkins County

Irene Weiser, 57, Caroline, Tompkins County

Suzanne Winkler, 57, Burlington Flats, Otsego County

 

Full text of Irene Weiser’s Earth Day statement:

 

Today is the day before Earth Day and the historic signing of the Paris Climate Treaty – enjoining the US, China, and 195 other nations of the world in a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to keep global warming below the catastrophic 1.5 degree level. I am proud to stand here today, an elected official, joined by activists from across the region –  to say that we stand in solidarity with the people of nations across this one precious earth, with a commitment to hold ourselves and our leaders accountable in upholding that essential promise.

Forty seven years ago a peace activist named John McConnell proposed Earth Day at a UNESCO conference – with a vision to create a special day each year to draw people together in appreciation of their mutual home and to bring a global feeling of community through the realization of our deepening desire for life, freedom, love, and our mutual dependence on each other.

As a peace activist he considered the devastation caused by pollution as acts of violence against the earth. One can only imagine what he would have thought about today’s desperate measures to unearth fossil fuels by blowing off mountain tops, and raping the ground by injecting poisoned waters. What of the violence of slashing trees and leaving huge scars across our landscape to make way for pipelines? And what of the violence of ocean acidification killing countless species, and the warming waters and habitat loss in the arctic? What of the violent storms, massive floods, fires, droughts, and heat waves that have claimed countless lives? And the violence to the workers who are subjected to unsafe conditions to feed this planet’s fossil fuel habit, and the cancers, heart and lung disease, low birth weights to those who live in sacrifice zones? What of the violence that is already visiting the poor in under-developed countries, where sea level rise has caused them to relocate, and where droughts and famine underpin massive uprisings and refugee crises?

As part of his Earth Day proclamation McConnell wrote that “Planet Earth is facing a grave crisis which only the people of the earth can resolve, and in our shortsightedness we have failed to make provisions for the poor as well as the rich to inherit the earth…and our new enlightenment requires that the disinherited be given a just stake in the earth and its future.”

I am not so naïve as to believe that the disinherited will be given that stake. I believe we have to take it – take it back from the purveyors of violence like ExxonMobil who have lied about the harms their industry causes; take it back from Williams and Cabot for their unconstitutional pipeline, take it back from Crestwood who threatens the drinking water for thousands of people, and take it back from the regulators and elected officials who fail to do their jobs of protecting the public and our future.

And so I am proud to stand here today – not in violence – but in peaceful, loving, hopeful protest – to pledge my commitment to preserving this one and only and beautiful and cherished earth for future generations.

 

Read more about the protesters at: http://www.wearesenecalake.com/seneca-lake-defendes/.

Read about Bill McKibben’s March 2016 arrest with We Are Seneca Lake: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/science/earth/environmental-activists-take-to-local-protests-for-global-results.html?_r=0

Read more about widespread objections to Crestwood’s gas storage plans: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/nyregion/new-york-winemakers-fight-gas-storage-plan-near-seneca-lake.html?_r=0.

Read Gannett’s investigative report about the risks and dangers of LPG gas storage: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/06/26/seneca-gas-storage-debated/29272421/.

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 Posted by at 9:55 am