The news that the state Department of Environmental Conservation is taking another three-month extension on issuing rules to allow “fracking” in New York means more folks in my town will be losing their homes — and more still may lose hope.
In recent years, the town of Conklin has been hit by more than a few blows. The first was a major flood in 2006; the second, felt across the nation, the 2008 financial collapse. The third was another major flood last year that ravaged our town. Combined with the 2006 flood, some 250 homes were destroyed.
But our own state leaders have put another obstacle to Conklin’s dreams: the ongoing moratorium on natural-gas development, which leaves our community missing out on a host of opportunities.
This, when just one mile from our town sit the three most productive gas wells in Susquehanna County, Penn.
In 2008, unemployment in New York state was just 4.7 percent. Today, it’s 8.2 percent, well above the national average — and it’s a lot higher here in the Southern Tier.
In Conklin and neighboring towns, decent jobs are hard to find. With the rising costs of groceries, health-care and gasoline, it’s a constant struggle to keep homes and farms in the family.
So many locals ask why our state keeps putting the brakes on an industry looking to invest here.
For almost four years now, landowners, operators and laborers alike have been awaiting the state’s release of its final rules for natural-gas development. That the state missed its own Nov. 29 deadline for action — a year since the last public hearing on the draft rules for drilling —means delay that will directly lead to more foreclosures on my residents and neighbors trying to hang on to generations old-family properties.
This is not being “short-sighted” as Gov. Cuomo said not long ago on the Fred Dicker radio show. People around here want clear action on a state responsibility — we’ve already had years of expert study.
Here in Conklin we only have to look next door for evidence of what we’re missing — to Windsor, right across the Susquehanna.
Relatively small investments in natural-gas infrastructure development are already helping communities in New York. In Windsor, a new compressor station is providing new revenues for schools and decreasing the burden felt by taxpayers — some $30 million in new revenue and a tax-rate decrease of 5.8 percent, to be exact.
Recently, Leatherstocking pipeline expressed interest in developing a new natural-gas distribution line in Windsor. The local school district alone could save as much as $220,000 a year by using local, cheap natural gas for heat. Indeed, all residents will have the chance to save money heating in the winter for the foreseeable future.
The difference between Windsor and Conklin couldn’t be starker — and it just scratches the surface of what delaying investment in New York has meant. Plenty of other communities would like to see these same localized benefits come to their town — for Conklin, it could mean our survival.
Unfortunately, Albany’s stall on fracking has put a chokehold on development. Companies seeking to invest here and across Upstate New York opted to invest hundreds of millions, billions even, elsewhere.
Our state is at an economic and energy crossroads. The failure to take action on natural gas is making our whole region look more like Conklin, when our future could look more like Windsor.
New York state has invested almost four years and 10,000 taxpayer-paid man-hours in studying something that’s being done safely all across the rest of the country.
There’s still a real chance to adopt the draft plan, with some of the strongest safeguards in the nation, and allow safe natural-gas drilling here.
Will Gov. Cuomo ever lead? We’re counting on him to move New York ahead, not backward.
Jim Finch is the Conklin town supervisor.