Dateline: 18 April 2012
The Sempronius Town Board Meeting of April 16 had only around 10 people in the audience. Our town attorney, Charles Marangola, was there, as was David Slottje, an attorney from the Community Environmental Defense Council (CEDC).
Board members were given a copy of a proposed hydrofracking moratorium law, as drawn up by the CEDC. Mr. Marangola spoke well of the law and attorney Slottje’s qualifications for doing what he does, helping towns in New York draw up moratorium and ban laws (this legal work is done at no cost to the town).
Attorney Marangola said that there were some minor changes that he wanted to incorporate into the proposed law, and that he had not yet had time to make the changes, but that this would be done by the next board meeting in May.
However, after some discussion on the subject, it was decided that we would have the proposed law in time for a special meeting on May 14th (a week prior to the regular May 21 board meeting).
The special meeting would be for the board to ask questions and discuss specifics of the law. Mr. Marangola, along with an attorney from the CEDC, would be present to answer any questions. The meeting will be at 7:00 pm at the town office building. Itwill be open to the public, but the public will not play a part in the discussion.
After the May 14 meeting, a public meeting will be scheduled for the specific purpose of answering all questions that anyone from the community has about the moratorium law. Sometime after that, the town board will vote to adopt the moratorium law, or not.
Mr. Slottje explained to the board that once the state of New York begins to issue drilling permits, the ability to pass an effective moratorium is compromised because the town would then be open to “takings” litigation from gas companies or landowners.
When the State will begin to issue the permits is a great unknown. They’re not saying when it will be. Some people believe they will start to issue permits by summer. Others think it will be much later in the year. Time is of the essence if Sempronius is to get an effective moratorium in place.
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For those of you who have not heard, the neighboring town of Summerhill has enacted a ban on hydrofracking. They did not have a moratorium first.
Once our town has a hydrofracking moratorium in place, the moratorium time span (typically one year) will give our seven-member citizen committee time to research the impacts that hydrofracking would have on our town, and recommend a proper course of action for dealing with the impacts. A ban is certainly an option. If we do not have a ban we should at least have effective strategies in place to protect the town roads and/or ensure that gas companies pay for the road damage that will surely occur if gas drilling—especially hydrofracking—takes place.
With those things in mind, the citizen committee will have their first meeting on April 18. These meetings are not open to the public.
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My postings here have tapered off since the March board meeting. This is due to a lot of personal and business demands on my time. I will continue to post reports here on the status of the hydrofracking issue as events develop, but there will be less about hydrofracking in general.
I hope that those of you who are concerned about hydrofracking in Sempronius will continue to educate yourselves on this issue. A person in our town who is keeping track of leasing activity tells me that the gas companies are still renewing leases in Sempronius (often against the wishes of the landowners). This would not be happening if the gas companies did not have plans to drill in our town.