With Frack Ban Mission Accomplished, Joe Martens Leaves NY DEC
A day after issuing the final nail in the coffin of fracking in NY (see It’s Official: Cuomo Bans Economic Opportunity & Prosperity in NY), the guy doing the nailing is leaving. Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens is leaving the DEC to go back to the anti-drilling Open Spaces Institute–the organization where he was employed before coming to the DEC. It certainly appears like the main purpose in hiring Martens was to slow down, and then stop the momentum to allow fracking in NY. Now that Martens’ mission has been accomplished, he’s ready to make more money again, working for an organization dedicated to stopping any kind of development on land–including and particularly oil and gas development. MDN has been around long enough to have seen Martens come, and now go. We’re proud to say from his very first day on the job we questioned his appointment and commitment to seeing that fracking happens in the Empire State (see our article from February 2011: Gov. Cuomo’s Nomination to Head the NY DEC: Will the Real Joe Martens Please Stand Up?). We’ve always suspected, and shared with you our suspicions, that Martens is anti-drilling. We were right–not that being right feels any better because Martens has royally screwed every landowner in our beloved home state…
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Let the lawsuits begin! Yesterday the anti-drilling, anti-fossil fuel head of the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Joe Martens, did his master’s bidding (his master being Lord Andrew Cuomo, Earl of the Hamptons) by imposing an official, TEMPORARY (not permanent) ban on hydraulic fracturing in the Empire State. The document issued yesterday by Martens is called a Findings Statement (full copy below) and it provides the DEC’s official rationale for the action they are taking in not granting permits for high volume fracking in the state. News coverage is blaring the trumpets that New York has “banned” fracking. Well, yes, in a sense that’s true. But the implication is that it’s a permanent ban–which is not true. Far from it. Martens uses profoundly weak arguments in the Findings Statement to justify his political action. One of his central arguments is what fracking “may” do to water supplies. A few weeks ago the federal EPA, after four years of intense study, found fracking is perfectly safe for water supplies (see 
The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) and JLC United will air another live session of the Good News Table Talk Radio Show this Sunday, June 28 from 7-8 pm on WNBF Radio 1290 in Binghamton (listen online at: 
This story comes right from MDN’s own backyard–in the Town of Windsor, NY. Following Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to temporarily ban shale drilling while he’s in the governor’s chair, there was talk that some New York towns along the border of Pennsylvania are considering seceding from NY State and joining PA (see 
There’s no denying that compressor stations located in populated neighborhoods create problems. We have two examples to share–one from Lawrence County, PA, and one from Broome County, NY (MDN’s backyard). The usual complaint about compressor stations–required to compress natural gas and send it on its way through a pipeline system–is the noise. Noise seems to be the chief issue with a compressor station in Lawrence County, PA where landowners, many of them (most? all?) have signed leases with Hilcorp, the company that owns the compressor station in Mahoning Township, a township that borders Ohio. Although noise has also been an issue at the compressor station in the Town of Windsor, NY (Windsor borders Pennsylvania)–about five miles from the border of the City of Binghamton–noise at the Williams compressor station is now largely mitigated. In the case of the Williams compressor, the concerns by those who live closest to it are regular releases of mercaptan and constant truck traffic to and from the station…
Earlier this week Marcellus Drilling News launched the fourth series of our 
It’s not often (enough) that the odious and disgusting Park Foundation suffers a total defeat–so we do a happy dance when it happens. It happened yesterday at ExxonMobil’s annual meeting where shareholders handed the Park Foundation (of Ithaca, NY) a humiliating defeat of their resolution that Exxon compose a cockamamie report every year detailing the so-called “risks” involved with unconventional drilling. Apparently the self-loathing Park Foundation wants Exxon to become self-loathing too–to produce a report that essentially says they’re creeps destroying Mother Earth by fracking. Three-fourths of Exxon shareholders said “no thanks.” Shareholders also voted down an idiotic proposal by a group of Catholic priests from Milwaukee who have lost their first love (Jesus Christ) in favor of a new love (Global Warming) to put a global warming expert on the board of directors. Ah, excuse us Fathers, whatever happened to your vow of poverty? Seems the priests of Milwaukee now have more money than the Lord Himself and want to throw their weight around at shareholder meetings rather than save souls…