Thursday, October 21, 2010

Latest Mountainkeeper News


Commission: Gas regulations not ready yet

The Daily Star - Oct 20 12:42am
The Catskill Mountainkeeper said in the release: "If the DRBC does issue these regulations, Catskill Mountainkeeper will be looking at legal action on behalf of all Catskill region residents to have them nullified. This will be an additional and substantial expense on top of all the other expenses Mountainkeeper is making to continue to lead the fight against gas drilling in our state and region."


SPARC dinner features Mountainkeeper director

Times Herald-Record - Oct 16, 2010

MONTGOMERY — Wes Gillingham, a director of the Catskill Mountainkeeper and on the front lines of the struggle to stop the gas mining process called...

Steve Israel: No rhyme or reason to fracking debate?

Times Herald-Record - Steve Israel - Oct 10, 2010

"It's a no-brainer," says Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper. "Why would you go forward with the rules and regulations before you ...

Catskills Lark in the Park Runs Oct 2-11

ReadMedia (press release) - Sept 29, 2010

4PM - Join Catskill Mountainkeeper Regional Director Aaron Bennett, and his sons Hudson and Samuel (and their stroller) on a walk along the Ashokan ...

The quiet rise of American Big Gas

CNNMoney - Katie Benner - Shelley DuBois - Sept 29, 2010

... history of trashing the places where our energy comes from," says Wes Gillingham, director of a conservation group called the Catskill Mountainkeeper. ...

US energy companies rush into shale oil projects

Financial Times - Sheila McNulty - Sept 29, 2010

“This industry has proven time and time again that they can not be trusted to regulate themselves,” said Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper, ...

Lark in the Park to highlight diversity of the Catskills

Catskill Daily Mail - Jim Planck - Sep 22, 2010
The ramble begins at 2 pm On Wednesday, Oct. 6, Sullivan County-based Catskill Mountainkeeper officials will lead an eight-mile hike, rated difficult,

DEC forest plan weighs fracking

Times Herald-Record - Adam Bosch - Sep 18, 2010
... threat we face is the large-scale industrialization of this wild and scenic area," said Ramsay Adams of the watchdog group Catskill Mountainkeeper.

Natural gas drilling meetings in Binghamton wrap up

RocNow - Jonathan Campbell - Sep 16, 2010

Wes Gillingham, program director for Catskill Mountainkeeper, asked the EPA to expand its study to look at what fracking does to the geology of the land. ...

Second day of EPA hearing sparsely attended

Ithaca Journal - Jon Campbell - Sep 15, 2010
Wes Gillingham, program director for Catskill Mountainkeeper, asked the EPA to expand its study to look at what fracking does to the geology of the land.

My View: Groundswell of groups joins to fight gas drilling

Times Herald-Record - Wes Gillingham - Sep 14, 2010
While we at Catskill Mountainkeeper have worked really hard on this issue, ... Catskill Mountainkeeper may have started singing early and may sing louder at

New Yorkers Rally at EPA's "Fracking" Hearing to Voice Concerns ...

WBGH - Sep 14, 2010
Wes Gillingham, Program Director for Catskill Mountainkeeper said "The 2005 Energy Act exempted the gas industry from all of the critical federal

EPA's New York fracking hearing may lack star power, but not energy

Platts - Sep 10, 2010
Nor will the celebrities, according to officials with Catskill Mountainkeeper, an environmental group helping to organize the anti-drilling contingent.

Is Fracking Poisoning Our Food?

Newsinferno.com - August 31, 2010
The drilling industry, of course, characterizes such occurrences as “isolated incidents”, but Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, ...

YOUNGSVILLE — The phone rings in the storefront office with homemade desks and no air conditioning.

Middletown Times Herald-Record - Aug 21 11:02pm


The New York Times and Catskill Mountainkeeper have reported that the EPA’s last hearing on fracking, held in Canonsburg, Pa., in July drew over 1,200 people without a hitch.

Online Journal - Aug 15 09:29pm


It isn’t often these days that the good guys win one. But here’s a beautiful example of a successful effort so far by the activist group Catskill Mountainkeeper and friends.

Online Journal - Aug 12 09:59pm


MONTICELLO, NY — When the New York Senate voted in the wee hours of August 4 to impose a moratorium on gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale until May 15, 2011, many gas drilling opponents in New York and other states were watching the process unfold live over the Internet, and were surprised at the lopsided outcome, 48 to nine.

The River Reporter - Aug 12 06:37am


The Sullivan County Legislature will present its third public forum on natural gas development.

The River Reporter - Aug 12 06:36am


Environmentalists Call for More 'Fracking' Hearings

The Washington Independent - Andrew Restuccia - August 10, 2010

The call for an extension was endorsed by the following environmental groups: Catskill Mountainkeeper, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Earthworks Oil ...

Groups Call on Environmental Protection Agency to Extend Comment ...

ReadMedia (press release) - August 10, 2010

The groups calling on the EPA to extend the comment period include Catskill Mountainkeeper, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Earthworks Oil & Gas ...

LAJARA: What's the fracking problem?

Kingston Daily Freeman - Ivan Lajara - August 10, 2010

Anti-drilling groups include Catskill Mountainkeeper (of Doom!); Frack Action (of Decadence!); Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy (of Despair! ...

Hearing on gas drilling postponed

Times Herald-Record - Steve Israel - August 10, 2010

"It's a travesty, but it's the right thing to do under the circumstances," said Ramsay Adams, executive director of Catskill Mountainkeeper in the Sullivan ...

EPA moves NY drilling hearing, expecting crowds

BusinessWeek - Mary Esch - August 10, 2010

Ramsay Adams, executive director of the community-based environmental advocacy organization Catskill Mountainkeeper, said the sudden change of venue raised ...

EPA moves “fracking” hearing because of cost

Times Herald-Record - Steve Israel - August 10, 2010

“They're disenfranchising the whole public comment period,'' said Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper, which stills plans to rally. ...

Fracking meeting: Change of venue sends rally organizers scrambling

Press & Sun-Bulletin - Steve Reilly - August 10, 2010

"It's really disappointing that the process would work this way," said Wes Gillingham, program director for the environmental group, Catskill Mountainkeeper ...

Fracking for Natural Gas and Oil May Have Broken the Law

Environmental Working Group -August 6, 2010

"This industry has proven time and time again than they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves," affirmed Wes Gillingham with Catskill Mountainkeeper. ...
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Thursday, August 5, 2010

Bill McKibben storms Barnfest

TRR photo by Sandy Long
Children perform to the Woody Guthrie tune, “This Land is Your Land,” singing, “This land is our land. It’s not a gasland. Think of our future. It’s all in our hands. From the Delaware River, to the Catskill forests, we need our land to be drill-free.” (Click for larger version)

Bill McKibben storms Barnfest

Author/activist stokes crowd to ‘Get to Work’ on 10/10/10

By SANDY LONG

ROSCOE, NY — Acclaimed author and international organizer on climate change, Bill McKibben stepped up onto a small stage framed by apple trees against a cloud-studded blue sky on July 31, and told hundreds of people perched on the rolling lawn, “I’ve been all over the world and I would not trade New York State. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth. This fight that you’re in will be up and down. We have to take on the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable industry there ever was.”

McKibben was speaking at Barnfest, an event organized by Catskill Mountainkeeper (CM) to celebrate life in the Catskills and increase awareness of issues related to natural gas exploration while raising funds in support of CM’s ongoing work. Artwork created from recycled materials and services donated by supporters throughout the area were auctioned during the day. Locally produced food and live music by the Stoddard Hollow Band and renowned folk performers Jay Ungar and Molly Mason blended beautifully in the idyllic setting.

CM executive director Ramsay Adams said the organization has been overwhelmed with local spirit and energy. “If we’re going to create a grass-roots constituency to protect this great place, it’s got to be community, from the ground up,” he said. “We’ve got issues: gas drilling, casinos, loss of farms to deal with. Like Bill’s work on climate change, we need to focus our energy to think globally while acting locally.”

With a quick apology for “being a downer,” McKibben stressed the importance of addressing Marcellus Shale development in terms of its relationship to the global issue of climate change. “We need to be clear about what it is we’re fighting and what is at the root of it,” he said. “We will not win this battle until we come to terms with the fact that fossil fuel is quickly destroying the planet. We’ve raised the temperature of the earth about one degree so far.

“In the last six weeks, NASA told us that we’ve come through the warmest six months, the warmest year and the warmest decade on record. Everything frozen on Earth is melting. Fourteen countries have set new temperature records. Climatologists have made it clear that unless we get off fossil fuel right away, we will see the temperature rise five degrees in the course of this century. If one degree melts the Arctic, we’d better not find out what five or six degrees does.”

McKibben lamented the continuing failure of the U.S. government to act. “It is not enough to sit down with our political leaders and tell them that the planet is coming to an end,” he said. “We have to figure out a way to tell them that their careers are coming to an end unless they do the right thing.

“The only way to do that is to build a movement. You’ve got the start of a good movement here. But if it’s only about the problems around the Marcellus Shale, then it’s not going to matter. If we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere, even the most wonderful organic farmers won’t be able to do a damn thing, because if it rains 30 days in a row, or doesn’t rain for 30 days, then you can’t grow anything.”

The broader movement McKibben refers to—350.org—gained serious momentum in January 2008. “We were both horrified and elated when our greatest climatologist, Jim Hansen, put a number on our peril, which allows us a way to organize across language barriers,” said McKibben. 350 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity, according to Hansen. The atmosphere is currently at 390 ppm.

McKibben and others organized their first worldwide action in 2007, called Step It Up. That was followed last year by an event conducted on October 24 that produced 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries in what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” The movement is a force to be reckoned with as people across the globe register events on the website for this year’s Global Work Party scheduled for 10/10/10. At press time, 1,057 actions in 118 countries had already been scheduled.

“People will put up solar panels and put in community gardens so that we do not need to rely any longer on fossil fuel,” McKibben said. “We’ll send a sharp political message when we put down our shovels, pick up our cell phones and call our political leaders to action to hammer out some legislation, to say, ‘I’m getting to work; what about you?’

“If we’re not able to do it in the next few years, the consequence will be a world fundamentally altered, unable to deliver anything like the beauty and meaning and integrity of the world we inherited. There are no guarantees of victory, but all over the world, people of good conscience will keep fighting as long and as hard as they can.”

Earlier, award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo urged continued commitment. “Every now and again, we get a chance to come together as a community, and gas drilling happens to be that lousy thing that’s bringing us all together,” he said. “It’s important that we don’t tear ourselves apart over this. If we’re divided, we’re done. People have put themselves out there in a big way to change this, from the bottom up. Everyone has something to offer.”

Following his talk, McKibben reflected. “Sometimes I get worn out and despairing, but around the world, every place we go, there are thousands of people, young people especially, who are ready to go to work.”

Visit 350.org and catskillmountainkeeper.org for more information

TRR photo by Sandy Long
Bill McKibben addresses a crowd of several hundred who attended Catskill Mountainkeeper’s second annual Barnfest in Roscoe, NY. (Click for larger version)
TRR photo by Sandy Long
Actor Mark Ruffalo, event host, introduces Craig and Julie Sautner, of Dimock, PA, who display a bottle of murky water drawn from their well. The Sautners attribute the contamination to gas drilling activities and told the crowd, “Don’t let them do to you what they did to us.” Ruffalo became involved following a visit to Dimock. “What really kicked it off was seeing how those people were living there, with poisoned well water, and the way the gas companies were dealing with them. My wife, Sunrise, and I have three kids. It’s their future, their water that we’re fighting for.” (Click for larger version)




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Bill McKibben storms Barnfest

TRR photo by Sandy Long
Children perform to the Woody Guthrie tune, “This Land is Your Land,” singing, “This land is our land. It’s not a gasland. Think of our future. It’s all in our hands. From the Delaware River, to the Catskill forests, we need our land to be drill-free.” (Click for larger version)

Bill McKibben storms Barnfest

Author/activist stokes crowd to ‘Get to Work’ on 10/10/10

By SANDY LONG

ROSCOE, NY — Acclaimed author and international organizer on climate change, Bill McKibben stepped up onto a small stage framed by apple trees against a cloud-studded blue sky on July 31, and told hundreds of people perched on the rolling lawn, “I’ve been all over the world and I would not trade New York State. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth. This fight that you’re in will be up and down. We have to take on the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable industry there ever was.”

McKibben was speaking at Barnfest, an event organized by Catskill Mountainkeeper (CM) to celebrate life in the Catskills and increase awareness of issues related to natural gas exploration while raising funds in support of CM’s ongoing work. Artwork created from recycled materials and services donated by supporters throughout the area were auctioned during the day. Locally produced food and live music by the Stoddard Hollow Band and renowned folk performers Jay Ungar and Molly Mason blended beautifully in the idyllic setting.

CM executive director Ramsay Adams said the organization has been overwhelmed with local spirit and energy. “If we’re going to create a grass-roots constituency to protect this great place, it’s got to be community, from the ground up,” he said. “We’ve got issues: gas drilling, casinos, loss of farms to deal with. Like Bill’s work on climate change, we need to focus our energy to think globally while acting locally.”

With a quick apology for “being a downer,” McKibben stressed the importance of addressing Marcellus Shale development in terms of its relationship to the global issue of climate change. “We need to be clear about what it is we’re fighting and what is at the root of it,” he said. “We will not win this battle until we come to terms with the fact that fossil fuel is quickly destroying the planet. We’ve raised the temperature of the earth about one degree so far.

“In the last six weeks, NASA told us that we’ve come through the warmest six months, the warmest year and the warmest decade on record. Everything frozen on Earth is melting. Fourteen countries have set new temperature records. Climatologists have made it clear that unless we get off fossil fuel right away, we will see the temperature rise five degrees in the course of this century. If one degree melts the Arctic, we’d better not find out what five or six degrees does.”

McKibben lamented the continuing failure of the U.S. government to act. “It is not enough to sit down with our political leaders and tell them that the planet is coming to an end,” he said. “We have to figure out a way to tell them that their careers are coming to an end unless they do the right thing.

“The only way to do that is to build a movement. You’ve got the start of a good movement here. But if it’s only about the problems around the Marcellus Shale, then it’s not going to matter. If we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere, even the most wonderful organic farmers won’t be able to do a damn thing, because if it rains 30 days in a row, or doesn’t rain for 30 days, then you can’t grow anything.”

The broader movement McKibben refers to—350.org—gained serious momentum in January 2008. “We were both horrified and elated when our greatest climatologist, Jim Hansen, put a number on our peril, which allows us a way to organize across language barriers,” said McKibben. 350 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity, according to Hansen. The atmosphere is currently at 390 ppm.

McKibben and others organized their first worldwide action in 2007, called Step It Up. That was followed last year by an event conducted on October 24 that produced 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries in what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” The movement is a force to be reckoned with as people across the globe register events on the website for this year’s Global Work Party scheduled for 10/10/10. At press time, 1,057 actions in 118 countries had already been scheduled.

“People will put up solar panels and put in community gardens so that we do not need to rely any longer on fossil fuel,” McKibben said. “We’ll send a sharp political message when we put down our shovels, pick up our cell phones and call our political leaders to action to hammer out some legislation, to say, ‘I’m getting to work; what about you?’

“If we’re not able to do it in the next few years, the consequence will be a world fundamentally altered, unable to deliver anything like the beauty and meaning and integrity of the world we inherited. There are no guarantees of victory, but all over the world, people of good conscience will keep fighting as long and as hard as they can.”

Earlier, award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo urged continued commitment. “Every now and again, we get a chance to come together as a community, and gas drilling happens to be that lousy thing that’s bringing us all together,” he said. “It’s important that we don’t tear ourselves apart over this. If we’re divided, we’re done. People have put themselves out there in a big way to change this, from the bottom up. Everyone has something to offer.”

Following his talk, McKibben reflected. “Sometimes I get worn out and despairing, but around the world, every place we go, there are thousands of people, young people especially, who are ready to go to work.”

Visit 350.org and catskillmountainkeeper.org for more information.

TRR photo by Sandy Long
Bill McKibben addresses a crowd of several hundred who attended Catskill Mountainkeeper’s second annual Barnfest in Roscoe, NY. (Click for larger version)
TRR photo by Sandy Long
Actor Mark Ruffalo, event host, introduces Craig and Julie Sautner, of Dimock, PA, who display a bottle of murky water drawn from their well. The Sautners attribute the contamination to gas drilling activities and told the crowd, “Don’t let them do to you what they did to us.” Ruffalo became involved following a visit to Dimock. “What really kicked it off was seeing how those people were living there, with poisoned well water, and the way the gas companies were dealing with them. My wife, Sunrise, and I have three kids. It’s their future, their water that we’re fighting for.” (Click for larger version)




Posted by at No comments:

Bill McKibben storms Barnfest

Bill McKibben storms Barnfest

Author/activist stokes crowd to ‘Get to Work’ on 10/10/10

By SANDY LONG

ROSCOE, NY — Acclaimed author and international organizer on climate change, Bill McKibben stepped up onto a small stage framed by apple trees against a cloud-studded blue sky on July 31, and told hundreds of people perched on the rolling lawn, “I’ve been all over the world and I would not trade New York State. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth. This fight that you’re in will be up and down. We have to take on the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable industry there ever was.”

McKibben was speaking at Barnfest, an event organized by Catskill Mountainkeeper (CM) to celebrate life in the Catskills and increase awareness of issues related to natural gas exploration while raising funds in support of CM’s ongoing work. Artwork created from recycled materials and services donated by supporters throughout the area were auctioned during the day. Locally produced food and live music by the Stoddard Hollow Band and renowned folk performers Jay Ungar and Molly Mason blended beautifully in the idyllic setting.

CM executive director Ramsay Adams said the organization has been overwhelmed with local spirit and energy. “If we’re going to create a grass-roots constituency to protect this great place, it’s got to be community, from the ground up,” he said. “We’ve got issues: gas drilling, casinos, loss of farms to deal with. Like Bill’s work on climate change, we need to focus our energy to think globally while acting locally.”

With a quick apology for “being a downer,” McKibben stressed the importance of addressing Marcellus Shale development in terms of its relationship to the global issue of climate change. “We need to be clear about what it is we’re fighting and what is at the root of it,” he said. “We will not win this battle until we come to terms with the fact that fossil fuel is quickly destroying the planet. We’ve raised the temperature of the earth about one degree so far.

“In the last six weeks, NASA told us that we’ve come through the warmest six months, the warmest year and the warmest decade on record. Everything frozen on Earth is melting. Fourteen countries have set new temperature records. Climatologists have made it clear that unless we get off fossil fuel right away, we will see the temperature rise five degrees in the course of this century. If one degree melts the Arctic, we’d better not find out what five or six degrees does.”

McKibben lamented the continuing failure of the U.S. government to act. “It is not enough to sit down with our political leaders and tell them that the planet is coming to an end,” he said. “We have to figure out a way to tell them that their careers are coming to an end unless they do the right thing.

“The only way to do that is to build a movement. You’ve got the start of a good movement here. But if it’s only about the problems around the Marcellus Shale, then it’s not going to matter. If we keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere, even the most wonderful organic farmers won’t be able to do a damn thing, because if it rains 30 days in a row, or doesn’t rain for 30 days, then you can’t grow anything.”

The broader movement McKibben refers to—350.org—gained serious momentum in January 2008. “We were both horrified and elated when our greatest climatologist, Jim Hansen, put a number on our peril, which allows us a way to organize across language barriers,” said McKibben. 350 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity, according to Hansen. The atmosphere is currently at 390 ppm.

McKibben and others organized their first worldwide action in 2007, called Step It Up. That was followed last year by an event conducted on October 24 that produced 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries in what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” The movement is a force to be reckoned with as people across the globe register events on the website for this year’s Global Work Party scheduled for 10/10/10. At press time, 1,057 actions in 118 countries had already been scheduled.

“People will put up solar panels and put in community gardens so that we do not need to rely any longer on fossil fuel,” McKibben said. “We’ll send a sharp political message when we put down our shovels, pick up our cell phones and call our political leaders to action to hammer out some legislation, to say, ‘I’m getting to work; what about you?’

“If we’re not able to do it in the next few years, the consequence will be a world fundamentally altered, unable to deliver anything like the beauty and meaning and integrity of the world we inherited. There are no guarantees of victory, but all over the world, people of good conscience will keep fighting as long and as hard as they can.”

Earlier, award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo urged continued commitment. “Every now and again, we get a chance to come together as a community, and gas drilling happens to be that lousy thing that’s bringing us all together,” he said. “It’s important that we don’t tear ourselves apart over this. If we’re divided, we’re done. People have put themselves out there in a big way to change this, from the bottom up. Everyone has something to offer.”

Following his talk, McKibben reflected. “Sometimes I get worn out and despairing, but around the world, every place we go, there are thousands of people, young people especially, who are ready to go to work.”

Visit 350.org and catskillmountainkeeper.org for more information.

TRR photo by Sandy Long
Bill McKibben addresses a crowd of several hundred who attended Catskill Mountainkeeper’s second annual Barnfest in Roscoe, NY. (Click for larger version)
TRR photo by Sandy Long
Actor Mark Ruffalo, event host, introduces Craig and Julie Sautner, of Dimock, PA, who display a bottle of murky water drawn from their well. The Sautners attribute the contamination to gas drilling activities and told the crowd, “Don’t let them do to you what they did to us.” Ruffalo became involved following a visit to Dimock. “What really kicked it off was seeing how those people were living there, with poisoned well water, and the way the gas companies were dealing with them. My wife, Sunrise, and I have three kids. It’s their future, their water that we’re fighting for.” (Click for larger version)
TRR photo by Sandy Long
Children perform to the Woody Guthrie tune, “This Land is Your Land,” singing, “This land is our land. It’s not a gasland. Think of our future. It’s all in our hands. From the Delaware River, to the Catskill forests, we need our land to be drill-free.” (Click for larger version)
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