Photo courtesy of Cuong Nguyen

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, joined by a coalition of elected officials including City Council Environmental Protection Committee Chair James Gennaro and top environmental advocates, including the National Resources Defense Coucil, Riverkeeper , and Earthjustice, today announced the launch of “Kill the Drill,” a campaign by city residents to voice opposition to any hydraulic fracturing in the city’s upstate watershed. 

Borough President Stringer said, “This is an issue that every New Yorker should pay attention to.  Today we start a campaign with one clear goal: to make certain that before this State’s draft plan becomes law, it includes a ban on drilling for natural gas in the city’s upstate watershed.”

The Borough President demanded that the State environmental agency’s plan for natural gas drilling be modified to include an outright ban on drilling in the Catskill / Delaware watershed, which supplies 90 percent of New York City’s drinking water.

“The State’s safeguards are half measures,” continued the Borough President.  “No special permit or buffer zone can prevent the kind of human error that has resulted in the pollution of freshwater from Pennsylvania to Colorado.  An outright ban is the best protection, and anything less than the best protection for our drinking water is a bad choice.”

Stringer also said that he had received the Governor’s commitment that a public hearing on the matter will be held in New York City sometime during the period for public comment on the drilling plan.

The State’s draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, issued yesterday, states that of the 1,549 square miles making up the Catskill / Delaware watershed, “1,077 square miles of the Watershed that are not protected potentially are available for the placement of well pads for the development of shale gas reservoirs.” Sixty-nine percent (69.5%) of the watershed is open to drilling.

In “Uncalculated Risk,” a report issued in February 2009 by the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, 14 examples of significant freshwater contamination were documented in 9 different states, with more than 24 incidents of environmental harm catalogued in total.

Borough President Stringer said, “I believe the choice is simple: we either correct this error and ban drilling now, or soon enough the officials entrusted with protecting our environment will be asked to explain why they were asleep at the switch when it mattered most.”

To join the Borough President’s “Kill the Drill” Facebook group, click here

You can read today’s New York Times article on this issue here. 

Also, click below to listen to a WNYC interview on this issue