Hydraulic Fracturing Debate at SUNY Cortland, Ingraffea vs Siegel
Yesterday, a debate on horizontal hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), the process used to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, was held on the campus of the State University of New York at Cortland. “Debating the Pros and Cons of Gas Drilling” featured Professor Anthony R. Ingraffea from Cornell University on the anti-drilling side, and Professor Donald Siegel from Syracuse University on the pro-drilling side. Unfortunately MDN could not be in attendance. Since those opposed to drilling focus almost exclusively on the issue of fracking, one would expect this event to be heavily covered by the media. But checking news sources in the Binghamton, Cortland, Syracuse and Ithaca areas finds only a single report from all of the news outlets, from Binghamton’s WBNG-TV Channel 12 (embedded below).
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Many landowners in the Broome County, NY area who signed gas leases years ago are now receiving letters from the energy companies holding those leases that the landowner is “locked in” to the terms of the lease even though the original term has now expired. Why? The legal term is “force majeure,” which roughly means “due to circumstances beyond our control—the fact that New York State continues to prevent drilling—you have to stick with us for a while longer.” Because this involves contracts and interpretation of the terms of those contracts, it’s now in the hands of lawyers, or heading in that direction.