Kirkwood NY Landowner Group Actively Negotiating Lease Deal (!)
What’s this? Signs of life in moribund New York on the gas leasing front?? Indeed it’s true. MDN was tipped on two bits of news that will be encouraging for some New York landowners. One bit of news is that the Kirkwood, NY Gas Coalition (outskirts of Binghamton, NY, in Broome County) may soon call for a meeting of coalition members. It seems behind the scenes the coalition steering committee has been negotiating a gas lease for members.
The second bit of news is that some NY landowners who live close the border with PA (in the Kirkwood and Windsor areas) have been contacted and asked to sign an agreement to allow seismic testing on their land. We have a copy of a generic contract proposed by the Kirkwood Coalition attorney (embedded below) which he says strikes a better balance for landowners who want to sign such an agreement. Both pieces of news together give a spark of hope for NY landowners. But let’s not go overboard. As Donald Sutherland’s character says in the Hunger Games, a little hope is a good thing, a lot of hope is dangerous…
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Talk about biting (off) the hand that feeds you. Get this one: The dunderheaded City Council members of Dunkirk, NY (near Buffalo) voted yesterday to ban fracking. Not only that, they want the entire county to follow suit! City Council members recited, almost chapter and verse, the same worn-out old lies told in Gasland, the fictitious movie from Josh Fox. After reading their comments we’re left to think the sum total of research done by the braintrust in Dunkirk into fracking was to munch popcorn and watch a movie. They apparently bought it hook, line and sinker. What dolts.
What do you call it when a company pays money to local organizations and agencies before the project has been fully approved by federal, state and local agencies? These payments, mind you, are not fees for permits or licenses, but voluntary chunks of money offered to groups that may be affected by the project if it’s built–in this case a pipeline. Is it called, Good corporate citizenship? Being a responsible member of the local community? Or perhaps, payola?
As hard as it is to believe, New York’s Attorney General continues to work against his own constituents. We’ve known since his election that Democrat Eric Schneiderman is anti-drilling–what we didn’t know was was how much of an activist he would be, using his office to further his own distorted views on oil and gas drilling. He’s misused the power of the subpoena to go after drillers (see