Guest post from Larry from Fremont, NY:
Typical truck traffic in front of our house. This kind of traffic was almost non-stop, often 24 hours/day, for seven to eight months. They'd shine their bright lights into our bedroom at 3:00 am, blast horns, rev their engines, and shout and curse at all hours. There were typically four or five trucks waiting in a line to go up and down the neighbor's driveway, with their diesel engines going non-stop.
“It’s not just the drilling. We live next to the Delaware River in Fremont, NY, and unfortunately, our neighbor, a rare weekend visitor from the city, took the money from the Millennium Pipeline and allowed them access to her property. It was supposed to be for 2-3 months. Two years later and they’ve finally left – for good we hope – but not before they ruined two years of our lives with their noise, heavy machinery, blasting, not to mention urinating on our property, dumping trash, intentionally sweeping tons of dirt on our property while laughing at us, intentionally blocking our driveway, spitting, cursing, and much more abuse.
Pipeliner urinating across the street next to a no trespassing sign. This picture was taken by my wife while I was at work!
“These people they bring in to work on these projects are disgusting. They bring them in by the busloads – probably migrant workers who have no respect for our lands. It’s going to cost us thousands to clean the dirt off our house and outbuildings and repaint them, plus cleaning up our property in general. But the part-time neighbor from the big city gets tens of thousands of dollars and doesn’t have to live with it. She’s on the hill, so all the filth blew down to our property.
Blocked driveway. This was a typical day with all kinds of heavy machinery blocking our driveway for hours at a time, every day, for month after month.
“The DEC sued Millenium Pipeline for $200,000. The violations included reports of neighbors’ dogs coming back from the woods covered in human feces, not providing Port-o-johns – obviously, and general damage to the environment such as causing landslides, polluting protected streams, etc. The potential contamination of the woods behind our house is going to prevent us from enjoying those woods for years.
“We have no doubt that the same type of people will be brought in to work on the gas wells. People around here are excited because they think this will bring in jobs and money. But the jobs are going to these outsiders, and the gas is going back to the big city, not to us. They think they’ll get royalties on these wells, but we’re told the companies often drill the wells and then cap them, so the royalties aren’t realized for years. However, now these companies have right-of-way access to their land forever.
Another blocked driveway, but this one showing the tar and macadam they left in our driveway for months. When we finally shoveled it out, it was 7" thick in places, not including the large chunks. This is clearly mid-winter; they originally promised us they'd be out of there by August.
“We’ve been told by authorities that a lot of the people leasing their land to these companies are these “weekend visitors from the city”, who tell them to go ahead and drill all they want, just don’t do it on the weekends when they’re here. So, these weekenders get all the cash, and we get all the trash.
Pipeline street sweeper sweeping up plumes of dirt on the hot, dry road. Sweeping the dirt is useless unless the road is wet. For months we begged and pleaded with the guy in charge of the pipeline job for water trucks to moisten the road. That was all we asked for; just wet the road and keep the dirt down. They rarely came, and when they did they sometimes left without watering. The only purpose to sweeping the dirt on the dry road in front of our house was to taunt us. At one point this sweeper went up and down in front of our house six times with his sweeper angled at our property each time, blowing huge plumes of dirt over our property. On the sixth run he stopped in front of our mailbox and laughed at us.
“We feel really bad for all those people who are suffering from these pipelines and wells. The wells don’t affect us directly because we’re in an area that is not economically feasible to drill in, and we have a shallow well because our aquifer comes from the mountain behind us. We can recover from the damage Millennium Pipeline has done to us in two to three years, but those damaged by these wells may never recover. So, we may be protected – for now – at least from the drilling. But as I keep telling my wife and others, if we don’t speak out on behalf of those who are suffering now, then who’s going to speak out on our behalf when our time comes?”
Dirt and dust blowing over our property. This went on every day for a year, every time a vehicle went up or down the road.
Tags: landowners, Millenium, pipelines
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