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Somehow despite the poorly lit room, the lack of a PA system, jockeying for position with other videographers, and people standing in front of the camera, this came together into a fairly coherent (but not too pretty) video. I also have to admit that the dark picture is partially due to my incorrect choice of camera settings.
See all Gas Drilling videos on Essential Dissent.
Albany, NY
January 25, 2010
Statement from Catskill Mountainkeeper:
DRILLING AROUND THE LAW
In yet another important release of scientific data, today the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., made public a comprehensive report focused on the illegal use of toxic petroleum distillates in gas drilling wells utilizing hydrofracking. Based on a six-month investigation of chemical disclosure records filed by several of the largest drilling corporations and interviews with regulators in five states, EWG found that drillers for natural gas and oil are skirting federal law and injecting toxic petroleum distillates into thousands of wells, threatening drinking water supplies from Pennsylvania to Wyoming and that federal and state regulators are largely looking the other way. To read the full press release, click here.
As a result of their study EWG made the following recommendations:
1. Congress should require companies to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act when using any substance for hydraulic fracturing to ensure that water supplies are not ruined in the rush to produce more natural gas.
2. Congress should require drilling companies to publicly disclose the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing in each well.
3. The U.S. Department of the Interior should exercise its authority under the oil and gas leasing program to require such disclosures for wells drilled on federal land.
4. Congress should investigate federal and state oversight of hydraulic fracturing and insist that federal and state personnel be properly informed about the law.
5. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should use its existing authority to determine whether companies are using diesel and enforce permit requirements.
The New York State DEC, the EPA and other affiliated agencies must close this loophole as quickly as possible, issue new regulations that make the use of any petroleum distillate illegal in connection with hydrofrack drilling and aggressively enforce them. This is another glaring example of the blatant problems with the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Study (dSGEIS) that the DEC issued in September 2009 and why we must bring our case to our legislators in Albany on Lobby Day on January 25, 2010. We are asking people to join us to demand that the DEC scrap the dSGEIS and write regulations that will protect us.
Speakers: Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper; State Senator Tom Duane; Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton; Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh; Tompkins County Legislator Martha Robertson; Chief Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation; Laurie Pollock-Smith; Walter Hang, President of Toxics Targeting; Adrian Kuzminski of Sustainable Otsego; and Al Appleton, Senior Fellow with the Regional Planning Association, among others.
Sponsors: Environmental Advocates of New York, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Sierra Club-Atlantic Chapter, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, Shaleshock Citizen Action Group, Sustainable Otsego and dozens of environmental and conservation groups from across NY state.
Keywords: Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling
, School Of Americas Watch, Peace Has No Borders, Veterans For Peace and many other organizations, at events across the country. 
and on their CCP Leadership Team. He has also done nonviolence and social movement trainings for School Of Americas Watch, Peacemakers of Schoharie, Student Environmental Action Coalition, War Resistors League, and other groups.