CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Publicly, negotiations between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Binghamton University turned into finger-pointing in the days leading up to the postponement of a meeting on the agency's hydraulic fracturing study.

Behind the scenes, agency officials and their contractors worried about the EPA's public image and rising security costs as talks broke down, documents released this week show.

EPA e-mails obtained by the Press & Sun-Bulletin through a Freedom of Information request show a concern about the agency's appearance in the media after the meeting was abruptly moved from Binghamton University to Syracuse. The meeting ultimately was postponed, just two days before it was scheduled to take place, and is now scheduled for Sept. 13 and Sept. 15 at The Forum in Binghamton.

"We need to seriously reconstruct the agency's humanity and compassionate appearance in light of recent events and mudslinging," EPA Physical Scientist Jill Dean said in an e-mail to agency officials on Aug. 10, the day the meeting was postponed.

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