Nov 1
2009

DELAWARE-OTSEGO AUDUBON SOCIETY
PO Box 544, ONEONTA, NY 13820

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 11/2/09

AUDUDON GROUP OPPOSES HYDROFRACTURING, CALLS PROCESS AN UNACCEPTABLE DANGER

The Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society has announced its opposition to hydrofracturing gas exploration and production in our region. In a recent statement released by the group, DOAS also calls on NY State to permanently ban the practice.

Dangers to humans, wildlife, and water resources were cited as primary reasons the group finds hydrofracking unacceptable. The statement details multiple areas of concern created by injecting hundreds of millions of gallons of water treated with toxic chemicals under ground at extremely high pressures.

“After a careful review, our board of directors found it unacceptable to expose present and future generations to the contamination produced by this drilling technique,” said DOAS president Tom Salo. The group’s statement calls hydrofracking ” . . . an assault on the very resources that sustain life,” and says, “this damage will remain for millennia, and will threaten unseen future generations, as well as present-day humans and wildlife.”

Other reasons cited for the group’s opposition include wildlife and social impacts from noise and air pollution, large water withdrawals, and damage to habitats and roads from pipelines and wells.

The DOAS statement reads “Hundreds of wells are anticipated for our area, and this may change the region to a permanent industrial landscape. Potential contamination and depletion of water, and pollution of air, soil, and of farm and forest ecosystems could destroy the many resources available today. Water withdrawal and contamination are of special concern. The fragmentation and loss of habitats, and the disturbances of noise and traffic will have an adverse affect on birds and other wildlife, some already in precipitous decline.”

A recently released impact statement from the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation is insufficient to overcome the fundamental threats from hydrofracking, according to DOAS Director Jean T. Miller. “How can we engineer away permanent physical changes and poisoning of the earth?” she said. “We are trading a few more years of fossil fuels for tens of thousands of years of damaged and tainted ground below us.”

Regarding the DEC proposal, DOAS’ statement reads, “Even with the most stringent controls and oversight, this activity is an unacceptable danger to our planet, with no environmental benefits.”

The Audubon group is calling upon the state of New York to permanently ban hydrofracking. “In our view, there is no way this can be done without serious and long-term negative impacts,” said Salo. DOAS is urging the public and their members to contact DEC on the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement before November 30. Comments should be sent to

dSGEIS Comments,
Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation, NYSDEC Division of Mineral
Resources, 625 Broadway, Third Floor, Albany, NY 12233-6500,

or submitted on-line at DEC’s website.

The DOAS position on gas drilling and hydrofracking wells can be found on their website <http://www.doas.us/>www.doas.us.

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