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Ulster County Executive Opposes Tiny 20 MW Gas-Fired Plant

Another case of irrational fossil fuel hatred has cropped up in (surprise!) New York State, in Ulster County (Hudson Valley area). This time the hater is Democrat County Executive Michael Hein. He doesn’t want a teeny tiny 20 megawatt gas-fired electric generating plant because he’d rather have thousands of acres plastered with solar panels and/or windmills–to produce the same drop of electricity this small gas-fired plant would produce. We have to wonder: Why is no one calling for psychological tests of these people? They are literally insane! Pathological conditions. Hein is fine with solar panels and windmills junking up the landscape, but not with a single tiny power plant that nobody would even see. Why? Because it doesn’t have the word “renewable” in the title. And because it uses an evil, vile, nasty “fossil fuel” called natural gas to power it. The plant, proposed by GlidePath, is a “peaker.” It’s a small electric generating plant (powered by natural gas) that doesn’t even run most of the time! It only comes online during “peak” electric demand periods–times when the grid needs some extra juice. It’s used to avoid blackouts, like the one happening right now in Los Angeles. But perhaps Hein and his buddy Andy Cuomo actually *want* New Yorkers to experience prolonged blackouts? GlidePath has responded, strongly, to the blithering idiot Hein, to set the record straight and correct Hein’s lies. Prepare to enter through the Looking Glass…
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300 Turn Out to Oppose Pilgrim Oil Pipe in Kingston, NY

In November 2015, MDN told you about Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings, developing an East Coast pipeline to carry refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet and aviation fuel northbound from Linden, New Jersey to Albany, New York (178 miles). In addition, a second Pilgrim pipeline will carry crude oil from Albany south to NJ and other locations. Two pipelines, side by side, liquids flowing through them in different directions (see Will Pilgrim Pipeline be Allowed to Settle in the NY World?). The oil that would flow south from Albany comes from trains delivering crude from the Bakken Shale play–a double evil in the sight of radical anti-fossil fuelers. So they turned up the pressure on the spineless Andrew Cuomo (see NY Antis Hope Gov. Cuomo Will Halt Pilgrim Pipeline’s Progress). The pressure worked (he’s so predictable). In September the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation and the state’s Thruway Authority, working together, informed Pilgrim they will need to submit to a detailed anal exam, called a full environmental review, before obtaining approval. Anti-fossil nutters rejoiced that the project has been slowed (gives them a chance to kill it). Even with a delay, fossil fuel haters are still worked up about the possibility that those rascally Pilgrims will slip across the continent, laying a pipeline in their wake. So, just like other oil pipeline projects, antis began invoking the sacred name of the great Dakota Access Pipeline killing gods to rain down death and destruction on the innocent Pilgrims (see Indians No Friends of the Pilgrims (as in Pipeline)). The antis continue to agitate and invoke the name of Dakota Access Pipeline, doing so at a packed session in Kingston, NY where antis spread lies about the pipeline…
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Marbletown, NY Frack Ban Passes – 22 Page Manifesto

Sometimes town leaders in New York State who vote to ban hydraulic fracturing are dullards–they don’t bother to research and understand the legal issues. It makes no difference to them that they’re trampling on the Constitutional property rights of their landowning constituents–the very people they’re sworn to protect (but don’t).

Other times, town leaders in New York who vote to ban drilling–like those in Marbletown, NY (Ulster County, Middle Hudson Valley area)–are truly, stupendously stupid misguided. What takes most towns a paragraph or two to do, “Don’t drill and frack anywhere in the town,” has taken the brainiacs in Marbletown 22 pages of new regulations to accomplish in their recently enacted fracking ban. And the town supervisor brags about it!…
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Woodstock, Other NY Towns Want Fracking Criminalized

The town board of Woodstock, NY (say no more, right?) wants New York State to criminalize fracking and passed a resolution supporting its criminalization back in January. Apparently the wizards of smart in Woodstock don’t know that low volume fracking of conventional gas wells has been going on in New York for decades–with no water contamination, no adverse public health affects, no ill effects of any consequence.

Now, Woodstock is attempting to infect other nearby town boards in Ulster County, including  Rosendale, with the same contagion–stupidness…
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List of Mid-Hudson Valley Towns & Companies Supporting Frack Ban

In a recent article from a Middletown, NY newspaper we find a handy list of not only towns who have voted to ban fracking in the mid-Hudson Valley area, but also some of the businesses who have signed on as “friends of the court” to support the fracking bans of Dryden and Middlefield (see Town Frack Ban Cases Heard in NY Supreme Court Appellate Division). These are businesses you may want to consider avoiding in future business dealings—we know we would choose to not do business with them if we lived in Sullivan, Ulster or Orange counties…

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NY Towns in Hudson Valley Ban Fracking, Olive the Latest

Last week the Town of Olive, in Ulster County (Hudson Valley area) became the latest New York town to ban fracking—even though the town sits in the New York City watershed and the DEC has declared watershed areas off-limits for fracking. Why ban it then? Environmentalism run amok, and sheer ignorance:

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Wawarsing, NY Passes Town Ban on Fracking

The town board for Wawarsing, a town in Ulster County, New York (lower Hudson Valley, near New York City) illegally banned hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) at a town board meeting last Thursday night. The vote was unanimous, following a public hearing where not one person stood up for liberty and the Constitutional property rights of landowners. This is how democracy dies—when no one stands up for our hard-won rights.

Not that Wawarsing’s actions make a hill of beans worth of difference. There’s no retrievable Marcellus Shale gas to be had under the town anyway. Still, it’s the principle that’s at stake—that a simple majority of two or three people on a town board can strip away the property rights for everyone in the town with a simple vote.

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Mid-Hudson Valley NY Towns For and Against Drilling

Where do Orange, Ulster and Sullivan county towns (in New York State) stand on the issue of fracking and gas drilling? All three of them could conceivably see drilling of some kind should it be allowed, although only Sullivan is squarely in both the Marcellus and Utica Shale boundary (Orange has just a small slice within the boundary, and perhaps half of Ulster, see the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook Volume 2 for a map showing the boundaries). However, anti-drilling sentiments run deep the closer you get to the orbit of New York City, and all three counties are in that orbit.

The Middletown Times Herald-Record takes a look at the latest towns for and against fracking in Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties:

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Downstate New Yorkers Demand Total Ban on Drilling in Upstate’s Marcellus Shale

Marcellus Drilling News sees a growing chorus of voices from New York City who believe the city’s water supply, 90% of which comes from the Catskill/Delaware watershed area in Upstate, is directly threatened by drilling activity in the Marcellus. And they are becoming vocal in their demands to stop the drilling before it even starts.

Some demand no drilling only in the watershed region itself (take note landowners in those counties). Others want a blanket ban throughout the state. From a recent article in The Villager covering a forum held in New York City:

Worried about an imminent threat to the Catskill/Delaware watershed, which supplies New York City with 90 percent of its water, Community Board 2 [C.B. 2] last week voted unanimously to demand a ban on drilling for natural gas in New York State.

And this:

“We can’t let the bad economy and people wanting to cash in on natural gas provoke wholesale drilling,” said Queens Councilmember James Gennaro at a March 18 forum held by the C.B. 2 Environmental Committee at Judson Church. “We can’t be the generation that loses New York City’s water supply to the lure of natural gas,” said Gennaro, who is a trained geologist.

Gennaro is the sponsor of City Council legislation calling on the state Legislature, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Governor Paterson to prohibit drilling for natural gas within the watershed’s boundaries in Delaware, Greene, Ulster and Sullivan Counties.

The article quotes a parade of officials and heads of environmental groups in NYC that are opposed to any and all drilling in New York. Will the growing chorus of protests make a difference? Perhaps. Landowners need to make their voices heard just as loudly to counter the din that will come from Downstate. Contact Governor Paterson and your state representatives in the Assembly and Senate.

An aside: No one is in favor of contaminating the water supply, least of all our own! The issue of what chemicals are used and in what concentrations is an important one and must be dealt with fairly. Energy companies would do well to diffuse the issue by revealing at least general information about the chemicals they use. However, a blanket ban on all drilling is nonsensical. The problem is, there’s a lot of nonsensical things that happen in our great state. So we must be vigilant to protect our rights as landowners. Let’s not let “the mob” (little “m”) dictate what we can and cannot do with our land. We still have a (precious) few rights left, among them the right to own property. We can protect the water supply and still drill safely in the Marcellus. Let’s figure it out.

Read the full article: No fracking way! C.B. 2 forum warns about water