Chenango County

  • | | | | | |

    Three Upstate Landowners on New York City Public Radio Discuss Drilling in the Marcellus

    An interesting radio segment from WNYC Public Radio. Leonard Lopate conducted an interview with three Upstate landowners. From the program description:

    We’ll look into the controversy over drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale in Upstate New York, and discuss the challenges landowners face when deciding whether to lease their land to gas companies, the role of landowners coalitions, and how public officials are managing the drilling already occurring in their towns. We’ll speak with Mark Dunau, organic farmer from Delaware County; Jim Bays, Supervisor of the Town of Smyrna, in Chenango County; and Abby Tamber, steering committee member of the Central New York Landowners Coalition.*

    While Mr. Dunau is clearly anti-drilling and Mr. Bays is somewhat anti-drilling, Ms. Tamber does a good job of representing local landowner groups and the concerns of landowners. The questions by the host are pretty good, and as far as public radio goes, this is about as fair and balanced as it gets. Overall, a B+ from MDN. Worth listening to as it does discuss some very important issues for landowners. Embedded player below—give it a listen! The segment is 34 minutes in length.

    *WNYC (Mar 23) – The Lenoard Lopate Show

  • | | |

    Morrisville State College Creating New Program to Train Workers for Marcellus Shale Drilling

    SUNY Morrisville Morrisville State College, part of the State University of New York system and located in Morrisville, NY with a satellite campus in Norwich, NY, is looking to launch a program to train workers for drilling in the Marcellus Shale. According to an article in the Norwich, NY Evening Sun we get this interesting comment:

    Many natural gas industry followers are predicting a June release date for the state’s revised hydrofracking regulations. Energy companies and their suppliers have been waiting in the wings for 18 months for the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement to be released.*

    If and when drilling commences starting in June as predicted:

    [I]f it’s anything like what happened when the Marcellus Shale action began heating up two years ago in neighboring Pennsylvania, there will be hundreds of jobs available at well sites within the first 18 months.*

    Initially, Morrisville is looking to create a 2-year program, with the possibility of extending that into a 4-year program. Let’s hope Morrisville has many students in their program, and that those students will have jobs drilling in the Marcellus when they graduate.

    *Norwich Evening Sun (Mar 10) – Morrisville readies to train natural gas drilling workforce

  • | | | | |

    Central New York Starting to Heat Up with Marcellus Drilling

    A recent article published in The Oneonta Star covered two gas drilling “forums” that were conducted in Otsego County by the anti-drilling group Sustainable Otsego. The article is a lazy, biased view of a complicated issue–but there’s no surprise there. The mainstream media is not an impartial, investigative source of information as it once was. For example, the “reporter” didn’t bother to interview people attending the forums, but instead interviewed the people presenting the biased material. Go figure.

    Amidst the standard talking points and mountain of…(ahem) less than objective information (ahem)…in the article, are a few nuggets of useful intelligence on drilling activities in the central region of New York State. Forthwith:

    According to geologists, Otsego, Delaware and Chenango counties are potentially rich in gas deposited in the Marcellus Shale formation below ground. Groups representing landowners and gas company representatives have said the findings may make some landowners wealthy.

    On how much land has been leased in Otsego County:

    The Otsego County Conservation Association reports that 8.7 percent of acreage in Otsego County is leased for natural gas drilling, according to a media release from the group issued Monday. The rate is up from 7 percent reported previously by OCCA.

    OCCA said since the beginning of the year, an additional 204 parcels have been signed, totaling 12,190 acres. Parcels now under lease contract number 839, with total acreage rising to 54,443 acres.

    And on test wells:

    Test wells several thousand feet deep have already been drilled in Springfield and Cherry Valley.

    And this on applications for new drilling:

    The DEC has received 31 applications for horizontal drilling wells, [Yancey] Roy [DEC spokesman] said, and the breakdown by county is Delaware 23; Tioga, four; Chenango two, and Chemung, two.

    Read the full article: Gas drilling forums wrap up