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March 1 update: Martins introduces bill to protect L.I. drinking water
More than a dozen local residents gathered outside the district office of State Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) in Garden City Park on Feb. 17 to show their support for a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in the extraction of natural gas.
Fracking involves the injection of millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand into shale rock formations at high pressure to break apart the rock and release trapped natural gas.
The attendees included Patti Wood, of Grassroots Environmental Education; Patricia Katz, of Reach Out America; Rabbi Randy Sheinberg, of Temple Tikvah in New Hyde Park; Rabbi Sheila Goloboy, of the Port Washington Jewish Center; and Paul Auerbach, of the Long Island Interfaith Alliance.
The rally was organized by Food and Water Watch, a national nonprofit organization that works to ensure food, water and fish are safe, accessible and sustainably produced. According to the group’s website, fracking poses a “great threat” to New York state’s drinking water, and there are numerous cases of water contamination near fracking sites.
“This is the most important environmental issue faced by our state,” said Sam Bernhardt, a Long Island organizer for Food and Water Watch, adding, “Long Island is certainly implicated — the state has proposed shipping toxic and radioactive wastewater to our wastewater treatment plants.”
In September 2009, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation issued the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement for potential natural gas drilling activities in the Marcellus Shale formation, which included a list of potential Long Island wastewater treatment facilities that could process fracturing waste, if specified upgrades were implemented. That list includes five Long Island wastewater treatment plants, including those in Glen Cove and Bay Park.
Although fracking does not currently take place in New York, Bernhardt said, local leaders should take steps — and implement legislation — to ensure that it never does. During the rally, the group presented a petition with 1,800 signatures, asking Martins to support a legislative ban on the process. The group also delivered a letter signed by 31 small business owners in Martins’s district, making the same request, as well as several other letters signed by community groups and religious leaders.
