Table of Contents

The Revised Draft SGEIS was released in September, 2011; comments are due to the NYS DEC by January 11, 2012.

The RdSGEIS document is available from the NYS DEC web site.
There is a cover page which has links to each section (20 separate PDF files), to supplemental documents, and to the online comment submission page. Alternately, you can fetch the entire document (1000+ pages, about 46MB) in one big file.

The View From Above

The TCCOG's Mapping Working Group has created a presentation illustrating potential buildout of gas wells in Tompkins County and the Town of Danby.

The Preliminary Revised Draft SGEIS was released on July 8, 2011; an update, to discuss social and economic impacts, is expected by the end of July; comments are expected to be due to the NYS DEC by September 30, 2011.

The PRdSGEIS document is available from the NYS DEC web site.
There is a cover page which has links to each section (17 separate PDF files) or you can fetch the entire document (1000+ pages, about 29.3MB) in one big file.

NY Legislature Bill Search

Search for any active New York Legislation, or use one of the "Quick Links" to bills relevant to Gas Drilling. The information is provided by the NYS Assembly web site.

General Bill Search Summary   Actions   Votes   Memo   Text   Summary of Bill Assembly / Senate Number Amend Env Cons 23-0303: Home Rule Zoning and Ordinances A3245 S3472 Sen.Seward's version: Home Rule Zoning and Ordinances A8557 S5830 Add Env Cons 23-1501: Home Rule, Regulation, Disclosure, Strict Liability (No Assembly) S5879 Alters the law so that a person (or municipality) who is suing to recover damages related to drilling has to prove only a causal connection, not negligence A2108 S0893 Gas production contamination: response and compensation A8572 (No Senate) Just plain and simple, in a few thousand words: fracking is illegal A7218 S4220 A moratorium on issuance of permits until June 1, 2012 A7400 S5592 A moratorium until 120 days after EPA releases its report A5547 (No Senate) All waste from oil/gas exploration is to be treated as hazardous waste A7013 S4616 Requires screening of fracking wastewater, to avoid harm to treatment facility A7072 (No Senate) Defines fracking; special treatment for radioactivity in fracking waste A6488 (No Senate) Passed A+S Amends several laws; requires DEC permit for water withdrawals/diversion A5318 S3798

The NYS DEC Forestry Division developed a draft Unit Management Plan for its Rapid Waters Unit, which includes the Danby State Forest (about about 25 percent of Danby's footprint). Rules for potential gas drilling are included in the Plan; the GDTF prepared an official response.

Todd Miller Talk

Todd Miller, of the US Geological Survey, presented a talk about the Danby Aquifer on September 22, 2010. You can read thru the slides that accompanied his presentation.

The draft SGEIS was released on September 30; comments are due to the NYS DEC by December 31, 2009.

The dSGEIS document is available from the NYS DEC web site.
There is a cover page which has links to each section (15 separate PDF files) or you can fetch the entire 809 pages in one big file.
In addition, the Final Scope document, a precursor to the dSGEIS, gives some background on how the dSGEIS was prepared.

Printed copies are available at NYS DEC offices, and some libraries may have them as well, but your best bet is via the web. If you download the "one big PDF", it'll be more easily searchable for key words and phrases.

Danby has prepared an official response to the dSGEIS, along with an appendix containing land use maps of Danby.

The Danby GDTF has also prepared an informative flyer highlighting gas drilling issues.

Two documents comparing Greenness / Emissions of Natural Gas with other energy sources:

We have prepared three letters that you can send to our congresspeople. They talk about a law that will provide at least some Federal supervision of the type of gas and oil industry operations expected in the Danby area.

We hope you'll send the three letters and, if you can, it would be great if you could add a personal sentence or two to each letter. In addition, to make this effort more effective, please tell your friends (whether in Danby or not) about these letters and ask them to do the same.

This way, the people in Washington, D.C. will feel pressure from us to get this bill through Congress. Thank you.

Here's a little bit of background about these letters:

• FRAC Act: Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009
• Bill Numbers: H.R.2766 and S.1215
• Summary from the Congressional Research Service:
  Amends the Safe Drinking Water Act to: (1) repeal the exemption from restrictions on underground injection of fluids near drinking water sources granted to hydraulic fracturing operations under such Act; and (2) require oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations.
• New York State Representatives Hinchey, Maloney, Hall, Massa, Tonko, and Arcuri are co-sponsors of the house bill; Senator Schumer is a co-sponsor of the Senate bill.
• The bill has been referred to committees for consideration and action (House: Committee on Energy and Commerce; Senate: Committee on Environment and Public Works). In addition, Senator Gillibrand is a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
• Links to complete status information about each bill
• House Bill H.R.2766
• Senate Bill S.1215