This morning, the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club held a press event at City Hall in NYC, in which they called on Governor Paterson to withdraw the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) on a gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling being prepared by the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). About 100 people were in attendance, along with a nice gaggle of media folks.

The DEC issued the dSGEIS last fall and opened things up for public comment – and public comment was overwhelming – and overwhelmingly negative!

There are many reasons for the negative public reaction to this horrible document. The dSGEIS refuses to address the cumulative aspects of thousands of wells pumping tens of billions of gallons of water combined with toxic chemicals into the ground. It ignores the problems hydraulic fracturing has caused elsewhere, pretending that there are no problems except where there is an accident. It fails even to recommend strict controls necessary to protect the health of the people living near the drilling sites, or the water that those people, and anyone living downstream, use to drink, cook and wash.

I could go on forever, but you get the point.

In addition to the 100 or so attendees, there were elected officials from all levels of government, including three members of Congress (Reps. Michael Arcuri, Eric Massa and Jerrold Nadler), at least two state Assembly members (Deborah Glick & Brian Kavanagh), and several New York City Council members (I talked with Environmental Protection committee chair James Gennaro, Speaker Christine Quinn and newcomer Margaret Chin). Assembly member James Brennan (who will reintroduce a very good bill) sent a representative, as did Assembly member Richard Gottfried and state Senators Eric Schneiderman and José Serrano. Statements from some of these elected officials (more may be added as I get them) after the jump:  read more »