CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

PROPOSAL NUMBER ONE
VOTE NO

While NY State is in fiscal crisis an slashing budgets, our enlightened legislators again propose a give away to accommodate a private utility company (special interest). Enough is enough. Vote NO on Proposal No. 1 (TOP LEFT OF BALLOT) on Nov. 3rd.

SPRINGWATER PRESERVATION COMMITTEE

Please consider doing the same in your local paper.
Thanks,
Katherine

(Click to read Proposal Number One)

Today, more than 100 protesters lined up today outside our studio in downtown Rochester.

It was all part of "Operation Can You Hear Us Now".

It’s a re-creation of this year's September 12th rally in Washington D.C. Two-million people participated in the D.C. rally, to protest what they say is out of control government spending, big government, and budget deficits.

Today’s group says most media outlets didn't cover the story correctly, or underestimated how many people feel this country is in trouble.

John Cocca, a protestor said, "The alternative is to do nothing and just sit there. I just think that these people, for quite a while, have wanted to say something. And I think they see where we've been...where we are...and where we're going. And if we don't change our course, we're going to head off a cliff."

Rochester is just one stop on their tour through cities across the country.

The group also protested outside the democrat and chronicle.

HARRISBURG -- One of the most active exploration companies on the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation said it is using a water-recycling system it devised.

Oil and gas company Range Resources Corp. said Monday it is reusing all the water it recovers from newly drilled wells in its core exploration area in southwestern Pennsylvania.

That adds up to millions of gallons of water being reused in Washington County.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based company said the recycling is cutting drilling costs, water use and trucking traffic while eliminating the dumping of wastewater into waterways.

Solids are filtered on location from the flowback before the water is piped above ground to a central impoundment. There it is mixed with fresh water to reduce salt and reused.

New York state's environmental regulations on gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale task local municipalities with important responsibilities on the front end and the back end.

Last week, it was reported that local health departments would be responsible for monitoring private wells before, during, and after gas drilling.

The overseers of wastewater treatment plants will also bear a large "responsibility and burden" if they choose to accept waste from hydraulic fracturing, according to Jimmie Joe Carl, an engineer with Penfield-based MRB Group.

Carl said his initial look at the supplemental generic environmental impact statement released by the state Department of Environmental Conservation found little clear direction from the state on how to protect publicly owned treatment plants or the public water bodies into which they discharge if a plant chooses to accept the wastewater.

(Click to read entire article)

Companies should ignore calls from "environmental extremists" and other adversaries to resign from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a senior official with the business association implored today.

In a letter to chamber members, the Washington, D.C.-based association's chief operating officer, David Chavern, conceded that some companies may have received e-mails, letters and other communications from third parties as the chamber lobbies Congress and the White House on climate change policy, health care, union voting rights and other contentious issues.

"Please note that these calls against the chamber are part of a broad-based, multi-source campaign against us being carried out by our normal adversaries -- trial lawyers, activist unions, environmental extremists, etc.," Chavern wrote. "It is a 'corporate campaign' in the classic sense, where groups are looking for public leverage to force us to do things against the best interests of the business community."

(Click to read entire article)

"Yes We Can!" the slogan used by then-Senator Obama during last year’s presidential campaign – is now being used by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) to launch a last ditch effort to jumpstart cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate.

Graham and Kerry’s commentary, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)” published in the New York Times last weekend outlines elements of a bipartisan legislative framework on cap-and-trade.

The commentary follows the launch of "We Can Lead" -- a campaign to promote climate change legislation by a coalition of big business, environmental, labor and left-wing special interest groups.

This high-profile corporate support of Obama’s energy policy exposes a long-simmering development in public policy: the progressive takeover of the boardroom.

(Click to read entire article)

Imagine discovering that you don't own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard. Split Estate maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health.

Zeroing in on Garfield County, Colorado, and the San Juan Basin, this clarion call for accountability examines the growing environmental and social costs to an area now referred to as a "National Sacrifice Zone."

This is no Love Canal or Three Mile Island. With its breathtaking panoramas, aspen-dotted meadows, and clear mountain streams, this is the Colorado of John Denver anthems -- the wide-open spaces that have long stirred our national imagination.

(Click to read entire article)

Approval of a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot would allow a land swap along State Route 56 in Colton so that the New York Power Authority and National Grid can avoid a six-mile detour through the Adirondack Park in bringing a new power line to Tupper Lake.

Adirondack Council Communications Director John F. Sheehan said the detour would be “environmentally disastrous,” as it would involve road construction through an old-growth forest, cross 95 streams and wetlands and infringe upon habitat for the endangered spruce grouse.

“It would also erect a permanent barrier to expansion of that section of the Forest Preserve,” he said.
The power line, which has already been activated, runs from the Stark Falls Reservoir to the village of Tupper Lake.

It needs an after-the-fact constitutional amendment because it traverses a section of the state Forest Preserve protected by Article 14, Section 1 of the New York State Constitution, also known as the “Forever Wild” clause. The clause forbids logging or development on the preserve.

Sheehan said the Senate and the Assembly have approved the amendment, noting that Tupper Lake has been a frequent victim of mid-winter blackouts because it only has one power source. In fact, he said, the amendment required passage by two separately elected legislatures.

(Click to read entire article)

(Click to read announcement)

What impact will Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus
Shale have on our Water, Environment and Economy?
Monday, October 19, 2009 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Free)
Brighton Town Hall Downstairs Meeting Room
2300 Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14618
Orientation to the Issues
Wes Gillingham - Program Director of Catskill Mountain Keeper
http://catskillmountainkeeper.org
Expert Panel
Dr. Diane Hope - William A. Kern Professor in Communication
Rochester Institute of Technology
www.rit.edu/cla/communication/kern/
Ashur Terwilliger - President, Chemung County Farm Bureau
Dr. Ron Bishop - Lecturer in Chemistry and Biochemistry
SUNY Oneonta
Co-sponsors
Federation of Monroe County Environmentalists
League of Women Voters
Rochester Regional Group - Sierra Club
Genesee Valley Audubon Society
Genesee Valley Chapter - Adirondack Mountain Club
Center for Sustainable Living
Pre-register
for Pre-Forum Reference Materials
info@fmce.org
www.fmce.org
(585) 392-4918

Academic-business collaborations are already producing results in New York state alone:

* Rochester Institute of Technology's partnership with Delphi Automotive of Rochester will help develop fuel-cell technology for military vehicles.

* Cornell University is partnering with Biodiesel Technologies of Saratoga Springs to develop continuous-flow biodiesel production technology.

* Another Cornell partner, Primet Precision Materials of Ithaca, is utilizing nanoscale materials technology to accelerate the pace of fuel-cell research.

(Click to read entire article)