Grassroots Groups Unite For Statewide Ban on Fracking in New York

“We spent three years trying to prove that fracking could be done safely, and what we learned is that it can’t be done safely. It is incredibly dangerous; it is incredibly toxic.” Ramsay Adams, Founder and Executive Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper

There’s a huge battle happening in New York.  Catskill Mountainkeeper, the only land-based “keeper” organization in the country, took a position on July 1 (along with other 49 other grassroots organizations throughout the region) in support of a statewide ban on all gas drilling. Drilling in the region currently uses a controversial new Halliburton-created technique of slick water hydro-fracking to capture the gas embedded in the shale rock formations.

Catskill Mountainkeeper and its allies have taken their position in part because New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently announced his support for lifting a temporary ban on drilling and moving forward this year on fracking parts of New York. Ramsay Adams, the founder and director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, lives in the Sullivan County Catskills and comes from a family of naturalists and environmentalists. His father, John Adams, is one of the founders of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and his grandfather was with the U.S. Forest Service in North Carolina. I spoke with him on July 26, 2011.

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