Can You Hear the People Speak?

The people of Candor value their small town atmosphere. On a sunny day you can walk around the Village in less than an hour – including pauses to enjoy the views of the river, listen to birds, or stop by the farmer’s market to buy locally grown produce and locally crafted wares. It’s the sort of town where “children are cherished and raised to be good citizens, where businesses are responsible to their neighborhoods, where government is responsive to its citizenry and where neighbors strive to maintain the civility that a rural life requires.”

It is the sort of town that seeks to balance a “logical and efficient use” of natural resources with the desire to protect open space, historical sites, agricultural soils, and the aquifer which supplies everyone with fresh water.

At least it was until last week. On November 10 the town board voted to radically change wording of the proposed update to the Town Comprehensive Plan, the document that will guide development for the next decade or so. Prior to the board meeting, town supervisor Bob Riggs called the chairman of the planning board Art Cacciola into his office and insisted that language in the comprehensive plan be changed to specifically include development of oil and gas resources and, in particular, express support for the technology of fracking.

Cacciola explained that the plan needs to be generic and not that specific, as no one knows what technology will be available in the future. He also explained that the plan did not specifically name any natural resources, as advised by the Executive Director of the NY Planning Federation. Furthermore, Cacciola said, “the Executive Director said we should not include anything in the plan which is currently illegal, such as fracking.”

Apparently the town supervisor is as immune to common sense and sound advice as he is to comments from the public. That evening, after inserting his own language into the Comprehensive Plan, Riggs asked the town board to approve the newer, frackier version supporting gas extraction. [He also told Cacciola that he’d no longer be chairman of the planning board and asked for his resignation. Cacciola declined and intends to serve out his term.]

Later in the evening Riggs used the new, fracked-up version of the Comprehensive Plan to justify approval of a resolution supporting the industrialized drilling and LPG fracking of a well in the town of Barton.

Just as happened at the October town board meeting, a majority of the people who showed up to comment were against the gas-fracking resolution. “It was clear that the public comments were just for show,” said one person (who asked not to be identified). “They knew they were going to vote for the resolution.”

“My biggest concern,” said the Candor resident, “is the vast amount of scientific evidence that this activity (industrialized gas drilling and fracking) is dangerous to human health and the environment. Our town board is not seriously considering that evidence. I feel that we’re being railroaded by people who have made up their minds and are not willing to look at new research.”

And herein lies the problem. Many of those who spoke against the fracking resolution are the same age as the children of the town board members. They are the young people who are buying homes and farms in town, who are coming back to raise families of their own. They want a safe, healthy place for their children to grow up, like the town they knew. And no one is listening to them.

How to Insert Drilling into Slumbering Rural Towns

Last month, Candor Town Supervisor Bob Riggs told our town planning board to revise the town's Comprehensive Plan. Because, as he stated to the local reporter, "... about two years ago we voted on [and passed] the resolution about natural gas development in the town and in my opinion if you read what we approved alongside the comprehensive plan, it’s in conflict. Those two things ought to be consistent." 

His solution? If a mostly pro-drilling town board passes a resolution crafted by outsiders (Joint Landowners Coalition) and pushed by board members who have leased their land for gas drilling (conflict of interest), then of course the planning board should change the Comprehensive Plan to align with this "new reality".

At issue: the planning board didn't write the Comprehensive Plan all by itself. It was a community effort that took more than a year and involved town-wide meetings. Also at issue: at the core of the Comprehensive Plan is the people's desire for a small town environment. A survey of the residents showed that they like open space; that they moved to Candor for the beauty and privacy it affords. 

So when the planning board and community members met and drew up a comprehensive strategy, these were the goals they included in this document that would guide town planning into the new century: 

• to protect public health, safety, welfare and morals 
• to preserve open spaces 
• to preserve and enhance small town/rural qualities and values 
• to encourage and promote the development of new employment opportunities especially in enterprises that enhance and do not compromise the rural, small town nature

They prefaced the entire document with a mission statement that concludes, "... we are committed to being stewards of our children and the elderly and of the precious finite resources that must be shared with future generations." After a decade the plan was updated, and new goals added that included protecting the aquifer, open spaces, land use patterns, rural character, soils and agricultural land.

But with the recent Court decision upholding a town's right to determine where and whether drilling may occur within town limits, there's renewed pressure on rural, un-zoned towns to declare that they are willing to be fracked. Big towns, too, as Tom Wilber points out in his recent post. 

So last month a couple of us attended the Candor Planning Board's workshop meeting to see what their process would entail. We asked whether they would do a community survey. Their response: why? They suggested that industrialized unconventional drilling would fit under "light industry". Given the freedom to revise, without community input, the majority of the members on Candor's planning board would toss the Comprehensive Plan under the fracking bus.

What they don't see on their drives to Pennsylvania, and what they aren't hearing from folks who are getting royalty payments, is that drilling is a Large Industrial Activity. It is not compatible with beauty and privacy, clean water, fresh air, and the sound of sweet birds singing. 

• Unconventional industrialized gas drilling contaminates drinking water. At least four states confirm this. 
• Unconventional industrialized gas drilling can make the earth shake beneath your feet. Just last weekend Oklahoma had 11 earthquakes caused by injecting drilling wastewater into disposal wells. As any NY geologist will tell you, we've got faults beneath our feet.
• Unconventional industrialized gas drilling is dangerous. Wells explode. Compressors explode. Pipelines explode. Methane leaks into homes and fields.

Somehow these things don't jive with the "peaceful rural living" that brings residents to our town.

Small Towns Embrace Pro-Drilling Resolutions

Candor, NY

Last month two towns to the west of me, Van Etten and Spencer, NY passed resolutions stating that the towns supported gas drilling. Van Etten’s resolution was simple – a single sentence stating that the town has “decided to allow gas drilling in the Town of Van Etten.” Spencer’s is lengthier, commending the state’s leadership in developing a “comprehensive” statewide drilling program, stating their confidence in the state’s development of “safe” and “responsible” gas development, and all but promising to ignore any citizen petitions for moratoria or bans.

It is, word for word, the same resolution that will be considered by our town board at their next meeting on June 12. It’s already on the agenda: “Review/approve Planning Board recommendation on a resolution supporting natural gas development in the Town of Candor”. But, unlike previous resolutions, this one has not been posted for citizens to read prior to the meeting.

Last month our town supervisor, Bob Riggs received an email from the Tioga County Landowners Group urging the town to adopt the “pro-drilling” resolution.

The thing is, Riggs said in a phone interview Monday morning, while he feels that the board is mostly pro-drilling, he thinks this resolution is being rushed. The driving force, he says, is a news article in which Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens was quoted as saying that local land-use rules will “continue to be a consideration” in the permitting process for gas drilling.

Riggs admitted that the only ones who contacted him about considering the resolution were the head of the landowner’s group and another individual who doesn’t live in the town.

When asked whether the town is ready for drilling, Riggs noted that Candor does have a road use agreement and that the planning board has been reviewing a wellhead protection plan for the village. But the town has not yet completed a checklist of actions that will help prepare for industrialized drilling. That checklist comes from TING, a non-partisan county taskforce that developed a thick binder of information meant to guide towns through actions that will protect the town’s infrastructure and environment once drilling commences.

People move here for the small town, rural atmosphere

Neither has the town determined whether drilling is compatible with the Town Comprehensive Plan. That plan seeks to preserve the rural character of Candor, encourage small business and light industry, and maintain or improve property values – goals that conflict with large-scale industrialized shale gas drilling.

A few towns to the west, another town council is considering the same resolution. Theirs came in a thick envelope from Southern Tier Economic Growth, a Chemung county economic council that in 2011 received close to 75% of its funding from taxpayer dollars. And yes, the resolution was, word for word, identical to the one that Candor is considering; that Spencer passed; that went out to every town in Steuben county.

A council member in one of the Chemung county towns currently considering the resolution speculates that this resolution as a response to the growing movement to ban drilling. Towns don’t want to become embroiled in lawsuits by landowners angry that they can’t lease their land. On the other hand, he said, “if it can be proven that this resolution encourages drilling to come into a town, and if problems result, then towns could be sued for that. This resolution opens towns up to more lawsuits than if we do nothing.”

The other problem he sees is that people voting on this resolution have a vested interest in seeing drilling happen in their town. “Elected officials who have leases should not be voting for this kind of resolution,” he said. “Indeed, they should recuse themselves from voting on any of these issues where they have a financial stake in the outcome.”