Appalachian Basin
A Very Encouraging Message from the JLCNY
Jan. 07, 2012
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We just received this articulate and very encouraging letter from the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York regarding New York State’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement. We are reprinting it verbatim, because little else needs to be said. The EID Marcellus team supports the efforts of the JLCNY and all of the New York State residents who have worked non-stop over the last four years. Keep up the great work!
January 7, 2012
Dear Friends and Landowners,
Next Wednesday, January 11, 2012, is a critical day for us. Wednesday marks the day the NYS DEC finally closes the comment period on the SGEIS. As landowners, we have been fighting for our rights to develop our minerals safely and responsibly for four years. If we can ramp up the fight, we just might be looking at our watershed moment.
We have exciting plans for next Wednesday. We will be delivering to the DEC in Albany over 11,000 letters of support – signed individually by so many of you – to endorse our SGEIS comments. And key JLCNY members will be sharing highlights of those comments at press conferences around the state that day. These comments are smart and highly technical. They are the culmination of an analysis and search for best practices that took hundreds if not thousands of hours on behalf of many of you who travel to well sites, meet with experts, and roll-up your sleeves and pull together the best information we can get.
As they say “we’ve come a long way baby.” But we need your help more than ever if we are to win back our rights. Just today, we learned Long Island legislator, NY Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Robert Sweeney, will be the lead sponsor of a new bill to extend NY’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing until June 2013. It is expected to be introduced into the Legislature shortly.
We cannot let down our efforts. We have to stop these energy-using hypocrites from pulling the strings that run our lives into the ground. How many of us know someone – even maybe ourselves – who have lost or soon will lose the land we cherish – due to jacked-up taxes and so few ways to make a living? Or moved away to find work? While below our feet waits the key to prosperity and energy independence.
Your Support
We need your financial support to make sure our voice is heard in Albany, to fund our critical education sessions, to continue to hold events, print signs, make phone calls, and find experts to get us the best information available – in short, to make sure we have a voice.
A Look Back
How have we gotten through these four years? Because of you – your hard work, your faith, your never-give-up spirit. Most of all – your generous giving. Thank you for helping us uphold our landowner rights by advancing natural gas exploration in our region to the extent we have. Let’s face it: we are not quitters. We must be made of Teflon. We know how to make our own decisions, fight for what’s right, and support each other. Thank God for that.
What We’re Up Against
Do you know opposition groups to natural gas development receive millions of dollars in funding from foundations, nonprofit organizations, even government grants? I know because I have knocked at the doors of these foundations. They told me hydraulic fracturing is the best thing that has happened to their bank accounts. They have money pouring in that they dole out to defeat us.
They spread misinformation, they use fear, and even employ extremist tactics to intimidate and sway individual opinions. These groups who are making money by fighting us are hijacking our rights to drill on our own lands. This is land some of us have been on for generations, paying our taxes and being responsible stewards of for decades. They are stealing opportunities away from our children to stay in the area but can’t because there are no jobs and no economy.
As for those urbanite anti-gas folks who want to control our destiny? They are doing better than ever economically. In Manhattan, they had an 85 percent occupancy rates in their hotels this year, the best in years – all told a record 50 million visitors to NYC. They don’t feel the sting of the down economy like upstate landowners do – because they have always called the shots – and we have always taken an economic backseat. But we have the biggest source of wealth the state has ever seen below our feet. Maybe that potential power shift is bothering some of them?
If we want a future for our communities and our children and grandchildren, we have to take control of our own destiny with our own money, time and efforts.
I want to ask you a favor. Will you put an envelope in your wallet or purse labeled “land owners rights fund” and the next time you go to buy a meal, go to a movie, buy a cup of coffee or basically purchase anything that is not a necessity, take that money (or even just a couple of bucks) and put it in your envelope, keep adding to it for a short while, and then send it to us to help us protect our rights? Can you do this today? If everyone donated $10 per month on a consistent basis, we could have the resources we need to WIN.
Remember this: we are the landowners of upstate New York. We have rights and we demand those rights be acknowledged. We are determined to continue the fight until they are. Can you help us today, and commit to sending what you can every month, to ensure we can fight for our rights, and win this struggle? Thank you and God bless each and every one of you.
Happy New Year!
Most Sincerely,
Dan Fitzsimmons, President
Joint Landowners Coalition
PS: click here to find the donate button on the left side of the JLCNY Homepage – having your support before Wednesday would be especially appreciated!
PPS: If you prefer to send a check in the mail, please do it today! Any amount helps – if you can send $200 please do it. If you can send $100, $50, $25, even $10, it all helps. If you can send a few dollars a month I would appreciate it more than you know! Here’s our address:
Joint Landowners Coalition of New York, Inc.
PO Box 2839
Binghamton, NY 13902
DF/sbo
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A copy of the letter can be downloaded here: JLCNY Letter 1/6/12.
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