CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

With Election Day right around the corner, the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York has issued its endorsements of candidates seeking office on Tuesday.

Not a whole lot of surprises in their list. The JLC endorsed the seven state senators who voted against a moratorium bill that overwhelmingly passed that house earlier this year, as well as a handful of others running for Assembly, Congress and statewide office that have pledged support for natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

Just a note: I'm only passing this along. I'm not sure if New York Residents Against Drilling or environmental groups are making any endorsements ahead of Tuesday's vote, but if they are I'd be happy to post them here.

The JLC endorsements are as follows:

Sen. Tom Libous, 52nd NYS Senate District
Sen. George Maziarz, 62nd NYS Senate District
Sen. Betty Little, 45th NYS Senate District
Sen. Joseph Griffo, 47th NYS Senate District
Sen. Andrew Lanza, 24th NYS Senate District
Sen. Catherine Young, 57th NYS Senate District
Sen. Darrel Aubertine, 48th NYS Senate District
Clifford Crouch, 107th NYS Assembly District
Gary Finch, 123rd NYS Assembly District
Phil Palmesano--136th NYS Assembly District
Dan Donovan—Attorney General
George Phillips--22nd Congressional Race
Richard Hanna - 24th Congressional Race
Tom Reed-- 29th Congressional Race

Wind farm developer First Wind Holdings has put its IPO on hold after cutting it’s price range by 24%, Reuters reported. Boston-based First Wind, which is funded by private equity firm Madison Dearborn and hedge fund operator D.E. Shaw, originally aimed to raise $300 million from the offering. The company faced skepticism from investors due to a heavy debt load, Reuters reported.

(Reuters) - Wind farm owner and operator First Wind Holdings Inc canceled its IPO after cutting its expected price range by 24 percent and facing investor skepticism about its balance sheet and wind industry financing.

The company, which had planned to raise $300 million in its IPO but cut that figure back to $228 million on Wednesday, has been posting losses and had outstanding debt of more than half a billion dollars as of Sept 30. It had hoped to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “WIND”.

Some U.S. government financing — of which First Wind has received hundreds of millions of dollars — could be suspended at the end of the year. Analysts have also warned that weak electricity prices could be too low to secure private financing.

(Click to read the entire article)

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Five Republican state senators have written to their caucus leader, asking him to revive the stalled negotiations over imposing a new tax on natural gas extraction that Gov. Ed Rendell has said were killed by their party.

The five southeastern Pennsylvania lawmakers wrote to Senate President Joe Scarnati late last week, urging him to work toward enacting a tax on the state's booming Marcellus Shale gas exploration before this year's legislative session ends.

They disagreed with the Democratic governor's claim that Republicans have not bargained in good faith, but said the state cannot miss the chance to establish a reliable source of tax revenue.

"We also believe that any agreed-to legislation should include a regulatory scheme that will provide enhanced environmental and safety protections to prevent damage to our environment while ensuring that we have a sustainable natural gas industry," they wrote.

(Click to read the entire article)

Anti-gas drilling "terrorists" to show film Sunday

Jeff and Jodi Andrysick had saved up $10,000 to try to get their dream of a multi-vendor farmers' market up and running. But after a natural gas giant chose their town, Pulteney, near Keuka Lake, as the first place in New York to try storing hydraulic fracturing flowback fluid, the Andrysicks put their dream on hold and used the money to fund an anti-gas drilling documentary: "All Fracked Up."

In January, Pulteney residents learned that Chesapeake Energy had submitted paperwork with state and federal agencies seeking to convert a defunct traditional natural gas well in the town into a disposal facility for wastewater from natural gas drilling using horizontal hydro-fracturing in Pennsylvania.

Jeff Andrysick said when they learned about the plans, they spent $1,200 to take out half-page ads in the newspaper and to mail letters to their neighbors -- including the many lakefront cottage owners who only live in Pulteney part-time.

(Click to read the entire article)

ALBANY -- Environmental groups, unions and lawmakers on Friday publicly condemned Gov. David Paterson's decision to abruptly fire state Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner Pete Grannis.

Grannis' termination on Thursday came shortly after an internal DEC memo was leaked to the media this week that bashed Paterson's proposed layoffs at the agency.

The agency is slated for 209 layoffs this year. If the layoffs go through, it will have lost 23 percent of its work force since 2007, the memo said.

"We find it abhorrent that the governor and his staff fired our commissioner without a hint or an elementary consideration of due process, which is a strong principle of the labor movement and the American judicial system," said Wayne Bayer, who sits on the executive board of the Public Employees Federation union.

(Click to read the entire article)

ALBANY -- Pete Grannis, state Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner, was fired effective immediately Thursday in the wake of an agency memo that was critical of layoffs planned at the agency.

Jessica Bassett, a spokeswoman for Gov. David Paterson, confirmed the firing of Grannis, a former state assemblyman from Manhattan who has led the agency since 2007.

She declined further comment.In a telephone interview Thursday night with the Gannett Albany Bureau, Grannis said he was contacted Wednesday by Paterson's top deputy, Lawrence Schwartz, and was asked for his resignation because the memo became public.

But Grannis said he decided Thursday that he would not resign and said he didn't release the memo to the media, which reported on its details this week. He was then fired.

(Click to read the entire article)

State regulators are still pondering whether to require a formal environmental impact statement for a year-old plan to store liquid propane and butane in the salt caverns north of Watkins Glen. In his latest column on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, Burdett journalist Peter Mantius looks into the regulatory delay.

A full year after a Kansas City-based company announced plans to store millions of gallons of liquid propane and butane in the salt caverns just north of Watkins Glen, state regulators still haven’t decided whether to order an environmental impact statement for the project.

Their hesitation is puzzling.

After all, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has been conducting formal environmental impact statements this year for a subdivision in Genesee, a waste disposal facility in Varick, a church mega-complex in Brighton, a quarry, a technology park and a couple of wind power projects. This list goes on.

So what’s taking DEC officials so long to order an EIS for the ambitious $191-million project proposed at the old US Salt plant?

(Click to read the entire article)

"We need to do a better job of transmission. We need to get the power from upstate New York, from Western New York, low-cost power from Canada down to the metropolitan area of New York City. That's basically a challenge of transmission lines." - Andrew Cuomo, Hofstra/Newsday Gubernatorial Debate, October 18, 2010.

Andrew Cuomo is dead wrong on the issue of using upstate New York as a thoroughfare to transmit power to New York City. The residents of upstate recently fought and won a three year battle against New York Regional Interconnect's (NYRI) $2.1 billion plan to construct dangerous transmission lines that will destroy the environment, harm the local economy and potentially cause health and safety risks. (http://www.evesun.com/news/stories/2009-04-06/6667/NYRI-pulls-the-plug-on-powerline-project/)

Andrew Cuomo wants to breathe life back into the dead NYRI proposal and will surely support other similar plans to mar the beautiful upstate scenery with massive transmission towers. He also made it clear last night that he'll likely support further theft of upstate power allotments just to feed the lights of Manhattan. Andrew Cuomo's comment proves that he has no knowledge or respect for the values of upstate New Yorkers and will cater to the special interest and New York City power base.

Andrew Cuomo didn't misspeak. Twice. This is why he won't come out of his hole to speak to the voters in an unfiltered, uncontrolled format - because he doesn't understand the issues and he makes serious mistakes.

If Monday's gubernatorial debate is any indication, natural gas development and hydraulic fracturing in New York should be one of the major issues confronting the state's next top executive.

All seven candidates for the office addressed the issue at the debate at Hofstra University on Long Island, prompting a wide variety of positions that ranged from banning hydrofracking entirely to drill, baby, drill.

"It was obvious to anybody watching that natural gas drilling and shale drilling is going to be one of the premiere issues that the next governor takes on," said Katherine Nadaeu, water and natural resources program director for Environmental Advocates of New York.

Republican candidate Carl Paladino repeated his call for immediate natural gas drilling outside of the New York City watershed, while Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo said he would be supportive of drilling as long as hydrofracking -- a drilling technique -- is proven safe first.

(Click to read the entire article)

In 30 years of appraising, studying and consulting on all types of real estate and development projects, I have never seen the effects, impacts and reactions of the magnitude or severity that turbine neighbors and their property rights are subjected to. Short of a nuclear reactor meltdown (e.g., Chernobyl), nothing has caused so many people to experience the physical and health-driven need to relocate. It is amazing that industry and government both are doing absolutely nothing to address this trend, and correct it before it is too late for even more residents.

If this continues unchecked, I predict a series of rural “ghettos”—of abandoned, unmaintained homes, and an economically disadvantaged class of people finding these devalued homes to be the only place they can afford. Great places to hide illegal operations—few neighbors, cheap structures and the ability to vacate in a hurry if the heat gets turned up—much like the old buildings in poor neighborhoods in the cities. Who else is going to want them?

Wind companies should be required to offer buy-outs at market value (pre-project value) within 2 miles of projects, and certainly within the massive footprints. In this manner they can prove they are not destroying value by reselling for the same price. However, in each instance I know of when a wind developer did indeed buy and resell a neighboring home, they re-sold for 60% to 80% below their purchase price.