CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Many people in Sidney, N.Y., were outraged when the town board voted unanimously to provide a 50-year franchise to Leatherstocking Gas Co. for a natural gas pipeline at a meeting last month. Dozens shouted “Postpone the vote!” as they protested the town board’s vote in favor of the franchise. Their fear: that it will open the door to the controversial natural gas drilling technique known as fracking.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a hot topic in upstate New York these days, where the gas drilling debate has moved to the local level.

Across the region, town boards are debating its merits and some are deciding to use zoning to ban fracking locally. And as the debate heats up, it is pitting neighbor against neighbor: landowners who want gas leases against environmentalists and others who fear fracking.

This drilling technique, of shooting water, sand and chemicals into rock to extract natural gas, requires millions of gallons of chemically treated water when it is used on deep horizontal wells.

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