COMMUNITY WATERSHEDS CLEAN WATER COALITION, INC. PO Box 484, Bedford, NY 10506 newyorkwater.org November 15, 2013 CWCWC name change announcement Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition has officially changed our name to Community Watersheds Clean Water Coalition to reflect an expanded mission to protect all NYS watersheds. Our CWCWC logo and website newyorkwater.org remain the same. Since inception in 1997 to protect the Croton Watershed, our coalition of 50 member groups in NYC, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester Counties extended its mission to protect and improve all NYS watersheds when the prospect of fracking for gas in NYS became a priority environmental issue five years ago. CWCWC opposed fracking’s massive use of water for consumptive use, permanently contaminating and removing it from the hydrological cycle, opposed the fragmentation of forests and the highly toxic runoff from hard-packed well pads into neighboring forests, streams, wetlands, lakes, reservoirs and recharge areas. When NYS DEC issued its Final Strategic Plan for State Forest Management (SPSFM) containing sufficient detail for fracking to commence in NY State Forests, CWCWC’s environmental attorney James Bacon filed a petition in Ulster County State Supreme Court against NYS DEC declaring fracking in NYS Forests unconstitutional in violation of NYS Constitution Article XIV. CWCWC also challenged DEC’s analysis of its SPSFM as being contrary to SEQRA due to DEC’s deferral of substantive environmental review to DEC’s mineral division. On June 16, 2011, the Appellate Division, Third Department (Albany) issued a decision in CWCWC’s favor declaring its lawsuit does involve a constitutional issue under the forever wild clause of the NYS Constitution Article XIV. Although NYS DEC declared a prohibition on surface fracking in NYS Forests, sub-surface fracking is still allowed. Its legality has been underpinned by a NYS law passed by the legislature in 2005. Known as Compulsory Integration (CI), it allows the oil/gas companies to force an unwilling landowner into a so-called Spacing Unit, which then allows the company to drill beneath that property owner’s land. Attorney James Bacon presented CWCWC’s legal challenge to CI in his January 2013 testimony before the NY Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation and is prepared to sue on these grounds. CWCWC helped obtain a court injunction to stop water withdrawals from the Cohocton/Chemung River on top of the Corning Aquifer at Painted Post for export to Pennsylvania for fracking. A proper State Environmental Quality Review must be conducted. It is being appealed and we have submitted an amicus. CWCWC participated with other environmental groups to educate Westchester legislators on the dangers of radioactivity in fracking waste from the Marcellus Shale. Led by Legislators Peter Harckham and Catherine Borgia, Westchester unanimously passed a comprehensive law signed by the County Executive that prohibits spreading frack waste brine on roads, treating it in wastewater treatment plants, selling or disposing of it. Ravenswood, Queen’s gas-fired generating power plant draws 1.5 billion gallons per day of water from the East River and is NYS’s first water withdrawal permit application in the new NYSDEC water permitting program. CWCWC commented that NYSDEC should conduct a State Environmental Quality Review on this first permit, assess regional cumulative impacts, and install a closed cycle cooling system to greatly reduce water intake (up to 98% according to American Academy of Sciences) and thereby prevent the high fish and egg kill caused by its present once through system. CWCWC is concerned about radioactive Pennsylvania frack waste being received by NYS landfills, in particular the Hyland landfill in Angelica, and that this PA waste is classified only as industrial waste rather than Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) and that it is not reclassified as Technically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (TENORM) after it has been processed through the landfill facilities prior to disposal at a wastewater treatment plant. We are also concerned about the expansion of gas infrastructure, in particular Spectra’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline expansion to cross the Hudson River near Indian Point nuclear facility, intersect proposed West Point mega voltage transmission line in Verplanck, all near the Ramapo fault line. An organization has been formed to oppose it, Stop Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), with forums Dec. 11 and 12, RSVP at sape2016.org CWCWC continues to comment on harmful impacts on water supply in the Croton Watershed, recently on recently on Highgate/Woodlands in North Salems Croton Falls. Hudsonia’s Erik Kiviat conducted for CWCWC and submitted a biodiversity analysis of the property that concluded that the applicant’s biodiversity analysis was inadequate. We recommended the property be preserved as parkland. We publish bimonthly newsletters, host public events on the dangers of fracking and fossil fuels and on the advantages of energy conservation, efficiency measures, solar, wind and geothermal. CWCWC advocates ceasing fossil fuel extraction and burning that exacerbates global warming and climate change, and ceasing fracking, its ruin of Earth’s finite supply of fresh water and poisoning us with its waste. We advocate switching subsidies and dependency on fossil fuels to renewable energy, storage development, and smart transmission grids. Community Watersheds Clean Water Coalition, Inc. Marian Rose, founder, Fay Muir, president, David Ferguson, vice president, Suzannah Glidden, treasurer, Ann Fanizzi, secretary, Susan Leifer, George Klein, Jerry Ravnitzky Office: 914-234-6470, Please note new email CommWsheds@aol Mission: The Coalition strives to protect and improve the waters of NYC’s Croton Watershed as well as all New York State watersheds. We are an alliance of individuals and groups who believe that safe, clean and affordable drinking water is a basic human right. Coalition members: ADK Mohican * Audubon Society: Bedford, Bronx River/Sound Shore, Central Westchester, Hudson River * Bedford Barrow Commerce Block Association * Bedford Garden Club * Bronx Greens * Catskill Heritage Alliance * Chefs for the Marcellus * Church of Holy Apostles * Citizens for Equal Environmental Protection (CEEP) * Coalition for the Preservation of Rolling Greens * Concerned Citizens for Open Space * Concerned Residents of Carmel-Mahopac * Concerned Residents of Kent * Concerned Residents of Southeast * Council of Chelsea Block Associations * Croton Heights Community Association * Dickerson Mountain Preservation Association * Diocesan Missionary & Church Extension Society * Episcopal Diocese of New York * Federated Conservationists of Westchester County (FCWC) * Friends of the Great Swamp (FrOGS) * Friends of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater * Friends of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater - NYC * Goldens Bridge Community Association * Grass-roots * Grassroots Environmental Education * Hands Across the Border (HAB) * Hudson River Sloop Clearwater * Huntersville Association * INTERLOC * Jay Heritage Center * Junior League of Westchester-on-Hudson * Lake Dutchess Association, Inc. * Metropolitan Council on Housing * Putnam County Coalition to Preserve Open Space * Queens Civic Congress * Rusticus Garden Club * Sierra Club: Atlantic Chapter, Lower Hudson, NYC, Ramapo-Catskill Groups * Shorewalkers, Inc. * Southern Yorktown Homeowners’ Association * Teatown Lake Reservation, Inc. * Trout Unlimited: Croton Watershed and NYC Chapters * Westchester for Change * Westchester Land Trust * Yorktown Land Trust
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 23:55:40 +0000
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