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We are some of the luckiest people on the face of the globe, to live here in New York State, in an area that has an abundance of freshwater from all the streams, creeks, rivers, Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes, we can enjoy sport fishing, swimming, all sorts of water sports and recreation in fresh water. Other parts of this country are so envious of all this bountiful, fresh water, they have tried to buy into it and have water from the Great Lakes piped to the arid western states. We don’t suffer from wildfires, floods tornados or hurricanes, only snowstorms and an occasional blizzard, which is not a bad thing because the melting replenishes the aquifers and the freshwater resources we rely on and enjoy.
Agriculture (such as crop and dairy farms, grape growers, winemakers, apple growers, etc.) tourism and recreation are some of our sources of economy builders, and all rely on our fresh waters.
We all rely on water wells, whether we reside in rural areas or the village, and it is the aquifers that supply our wells and the village reservoir that ere destined to be destroyed by hydrofracking. No 4,000-foot buffer zone around the Finger Lakes is going to protect them. Hydrofracking releases the gas trapped in pockets in the layers of shale by blasting those pockets with a slurry of water, sand and terrible chemicals. This process is forced underground horizontally under great pressure. These pockets of natural gas are also located exactly where our aquifers are, and those chemicals contaminate the aquifers.
Now think about that — your neighbor gets a fracking station, and you and your other neighbors water wells become tainted. Suddenly you can’t drink the water, or cook with it, or bathe or shower in it, or wash your clothes, or water your garden, or water your livestock. Now what do you do?
The greedy gas companies don’t care, and the government can’t afford to employ enough watchdogs to make sure the gas companies obey all the regulations; so, now the ruthless gas companies dump the captured, chemical-laden slurry into nearby creeks and streams and roadside ditches. That slurry finds its way into our rivers, Finger Lakes, and then the Great Lakes. It kills the sport fish. Livestock and wildlife can’t survive on tainted water either. Cash crops become contaminated from the slurry run off.
We are some of the luckiest people on the face of the globe, to live here in New York State, in an area that has an abundance of freshwater from all the streams, creeks, rivers, Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes, we can enjoy sport fishing, swimming, all sorts of water sports and recreation in fresh water. Other parts of this country are so envious of all this bountiful, fresh water, they have tried to buy into it and have water from the Great Lakes piped to the arid western states. We don’t suffer from wildfires, floods tornados or hurricanes, only snowstorms and an occasional blizzard, which is not a bad thing because the melting replenishes the aquifers and the freshwater resources we rely on and enjoy.
Agriculture (such as crop and dairy farms, grape growers, winemakers, apple growers, etc.) tourism and recreation are some of our sources of economy builders, and all rely on our fresh waters.
We all rely on water wells, whether we reside in rural areas or the village, and it is the aquifers that supply our wells and the village reservoir that ere destined to be destroyed by hydrofracking. No 4,000-foot buffer zone around the Finger Lakes is going to protect them. Hydrofracking releases the gas trapped in pockets in the layers of shale by blasting those pockets with a slurry of water, sand and terrible chemicals. This process is forced underground horizontally under great pressure. These pockets of natural gas are also located exactly where our aquifers are, and those chemicals contaminate the aquifers.
Now think about that — your neighbor gets a fracking station, and you and your other neighbors water wells become tainted. Suddenly you can’t drink the water, or cook with it, or bathe or shower in it, or wash your clothes, or water your garden, or water your livestock. Now what do you do?
The greedy gas companies don’t care, and the government can’t afford to employ enough watchdogs to make sure the gas companies obey all the regulations; so, now the ruthless gas companies dump the captured, chemical-laden slurry into nearby creeks and streams and roadside ditches. That slurry finds its way into our rivers, Finger Lakes, and then the Great Lakes. It kills the sport fish. Livestock and wildlife can’t survive on tainted water either. Cash crops become contaminated from the slurry run off.
In some rural areas of Pennsylvania the gas companies have used the slurry to cut down the dust on the dirt roads. That slurry finds its way into fields and yards, and on hot days in summer when it evaporates on the dirt roads, the chemical dust travels in the air for you to breathe and contaminate the air your animals breathe. It also lands on your fields and gets plowed under when you till your land, and so the contamination continues.
The 444-mile-long Susquehanna River, which originates near Binghamton and flows south through Pennsylvania, and on into Chesapeake Bay and then into the Atlantic Ocean, is already showing extensive signs of contamination from the careless Pennsylvania hydrofracking. That is one of the largest rivers east of the Mississippi River, and it is becoming contaminated.
We can’t live without potable (drinkable) water. You can’t sell your property without a potable water well. So what do you do?
The few specialized jobs that fracking may generate are not worth the loss of our existing livelihoods and life as we’ve known it. The fracking stations operate 24/7/365. They are huge, noisy and destructive to the whole ecosystem. The greedy gas companies only care about their bottom lines. They don’t care at all about the collateral damage caused to all of us! When they’ve exhausted all the resources, and contaminated our environment, they move on like gypsies and leave us with a world we won’t even recognize.
We can not afford to lose our God-given water resources and all this Finger Lakes region of New York State is noted for.
I beg you politicians, mayors, town and village fathers, etc. to say No! No! No! to hydrofracking in New York State. We have much more to lose than we could ever gain, say nothing about the effects on our health from all the chemicals they want to pump into our ecosystem.
God gave this area an abundance of fresh water, we do not have the right to waste it, abuse it, contaminate it or allow others to do it either. We are the caretakers of our environment, not the owners. We have a huge responsibility to protect it. We can’t survive without fresh water, nor can anything else. It is our greatest natural resource. Without fresh drinkable water, we die.
Priscilla Rowe Howe
Dansville
