Ann Marie Buerkle, Safe Water and Farms

Skaneateles and Owasco lakes, gems among Finger Lakes, supply water to several hundred thousand people in the village of Skaneateles, the city of Syracuse and parts of Onondaga county, and Auburn and suburbs in Cayuga county. Skaneateles water is so clean that it requires only minimal treatment before use.

Ann Marie Buerkle has a summer cottage on Skaneateles lake, and she lives in Onondaga Hill. She depends on Skaneateles water at both places, and she enjoys the lake's pristine beauty during vacations. She was raised and her mother still lives in Auburn.

So, Buerkle has a stake in keeping the watersheds she and her family depend upon clean. It is comforting to know our water supply is safe because Ann Marie Buerkle has a stake in it. 

On the other hand, Buerkle tells us government oversight and regulations are unnecessarily burdening farmers,making it harder for farms to make a profit. We, instinctively, abhor the thought of government impeding farmers who work so hard for their livelihood and our food supply.

Surely the farmers in our watersheds are good stewards of their land, adjusting their farming practices and self-monitoring the surface water leaving their lands. Certainly they are aware that they could so easily contaminate the drinking water of Skaneateles water consumers and thousands more who depend on Owasco. They would never hazard a catastrophe. Would they?

We in Syracuse and Auburn can be totally confident that nobody needs to keep an eye on these watersheds and these farmers. Can't we?

Buerkle has repeatedly criticized the EPA. She would make more lenient the laws aimed toward farmers. She wants smaller government at any cost and she lets us know it at every "town meeting."

She pronounces on the Magic of the Marketplace! How many times have we heard Ann Marie soothe us with this phrase?  

But wait: a 2000 cow dairy farm at the tops of both the Skaneateles and Owasco watersheds, up the hill and not 3 miles from Ann Marie's summer cottage on Skaneateles lake, is leaking manure runoff into nearby streams and onward to both lakes, according to yesterday's Syracuse Post-Standard.  [Ann Marie Buerkle's camp on Skaneateles is near the upper right corner in the satellite image; Twin Birch Farms on Lacy and Benson roads is at the lower left.]

Let us hear from you, Ann Marie Buerkle. How do you reconcile your conflicting loyalties? Can we ever really trust you to protect our precious drinking water?

Then, if you do decide to justify protecting these water sources against certain farming practices, then how can you still support horizontal hydrofracking, potentially far more dangerous, and the damage more permanent, in your district or any district?

Ann Marie Buerkle: No Scientist, Part II

When questions about energy policy and the environment come up at Buerkle's town hall meetings, she brushes them off but not before pronouncing that "small"nuclear reactors are the wave of the future, and that "people" at SUNY School of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) say that hydrofracking is safe.

First of all, Blueskygirl is deeply suspicious that Buerkle doesn't have a clue about the half-life of plutonium, or that there is absolutely no safe way to store nuclear waste in the long term (thousands of years of guarded storage) [you might want to read Blueskygirl's posts on nuclear power here]; or that there are different kinds and intensities of hydrofracking, or about the magnitude of danger to the watersheds that horizontal high-volume hydrofracking presents.

If you are from upstate New York, then you know that ESF is a highly respected school, the only college in the United States focused on the study of natural resources and the environment. Blueskygirl has never heard of anyone from ESF who espouses horizontal hydrofracking. She invites information to the contrary.

The people of whom Buerkle refers regarding hydrofracking may actually be two energy consultants and a Syracuse University professor of earth sciences, all of whom participated on a panel about hydrofracking at ESF in March 2010:

David Palmerton, president of the private Palmerton Group, LLC., worked for the natural gas drilling industry before founding Palmerton Environmental Consulting Services.

Adam Schultz, an attorney and partner at Gilberti Stinziano Heintz & Smith, P.C., works with energy producers and natural resources extraction companies among others. His bio for the ESF panel said he, "works with...companies to understand their operations, plans and needs to develop a plan of action to secure, prosecute, and defend their right-to-build."

Palmerton and Schultz "both work closely with energy companies to secure, protect, and defend their interests in energy mining," according to ESF promotion for the energy panel.

Palmerton Group donates to ESF.

Donald Siegel, Syracuse University (but not ESF) professor, may be another source for Buerkle's ascertions. He was also on the March 2010 ESF panel. He stresses the clean burning nature of natural gas and generally takes the position that horizontal hydrofracking is safe because it hasn't been proven otherwise. Blueskygirl does not see him addressing the most fallible parts of large-volume hydrofracking: safely containing the fracking fluids through, and back out of, thousands of feet of pipe and cement casing to reach the Marcellus shale layer; storing and disposing of the huge amounts of contaminated fluids; the destruction of local communities; real long-term strategies for reducing our energy consumption. He is simply not accurate when he says there is no danger to watersheds. Take a day-trip to Dimock, or Bradford County PA, and see for yourself.

So, Buerkle, quit being the energy expert. Just come out and tell us who your "ESF people" are.

Is Your Water Safe?

Unclear whether The Yes Men or another imaginative group of 


conspirators did this superb action, which is up on a webpage connected


to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Your Health and Our Water

A timeline for contamination

New York City's is among the best urban water supplies in the world, and will remain so through summer 2011. After that, hydraulic fracturing ("hydrofracking") beneath the New York City aquifer may begin causing contamination of our City's water supply.

If, beginning in September 2011, you suspect your drinking water to be contaminated with chemicals involved in the hydraulic fracturing process, there are simple, economical tests you may perform to lay your concerns to rest.

One such test involves bringing a lighted match or lighter into close proximity to the water of concern. Water contaminated as a result of the hydraulic fracturing process is prone to burst into flames.

More precisely, water with chemical additives, injected into deep cracks in the earth as part of the hydraulic fracturing extraction process, may enter aquifers overlaying the drill site and, along with natural gas, emerge from your faucet; upon contact with flame, this mixture can combust in spectacular fashion. (This phenomenon has been observed widely in areas subject to hydraulic fracturing extraction processes, and may soon begin appearing in areas served by the aquifer above and adjacent to the Marcellus Shale—including all five boroughs of New York City.)

If Governor Cuomo issues a ban on hydraulic fracturing before June 1, 2011, contamination of the City's water supply will not occur. If you wish to take action on this, please visit:

• Official DEP "Get Involved" page
• United for Action campaign page
• "Kill the Drill" campaign page

Please also consider helping us to spread the word about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing by posting notices near water spigots throughout the City, and please send a link to this page to any friends or loved ones you consider at risk of hydraulic fracturing contamination today or in the near future.

Disclaimer: Although hydraulic fracturing contamination is linked to symptoms such as headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, hair loss, itching, and kidney failure, these symptoms are also correlated with exposure to radiation, coal fumes, common chemicals, and even some natural causes. Presence of these symptoms is thus in no way proof positive of exposure to chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process.

Help Spread the Word

To alert more New York City residents to the dangers of contamination posed by hydraulic fracturing in the City's Marcellus Shale / Catskills aquifer, please help us post the following notices:

(full-resolution here) 

[Blueskygirl thinks to get the best result copying this graphic to create your own stickers, 

it is wise to go to the original site:

http://www.nyc-dep.org/spreadtheword.html  ]

Instructions:

1. Download and print, or otherwise obtain, notices. We recommend printing at 6'x10' or 3'x5' on sticky-backed paper, in color if possible.
2. Post notices on tile or metal surfaces near any water spigot in New York City. Do not post notices on paint or wood, as removing the notices could damage the surface.

If you would like to join the DEP's Auxiliary Volunteer Water Testing Battalion and perform special, highly visible baseline tests of New York City water spigots, please write to us for instructions.

Resources for action against hydrofracking may be found at

• Official DEP "Get Involved" page
• United for Action
• "Kill the Drill" campaign page

Please also forward these pages to at-risk friends or loved ones.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

In Cato at the Town Hall Meeting last month, Ann Marie Buerkle dismissed a couple of serious concerns and the audience never got to ask followup questions.

• Asked about hydrofracking, Buerkle extolled the virtues of natural gas, like how it will solve all our energy problems forever. She explained with great authority that "someone" at ESF,  SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, said that hydrofracking was safe and, anyway, the gas is too deep to be reached economically up here in Central New York. If development goes forward in NY, it will be where the gas is close to the surface down by Elmira and Corning. 

            So long, Elmira and Corning.

• Asked to explain vouchers in Medicare reform, she told us that it wasn't a voucher system. A couple minutes later she called it a voucher system but  said that no one over 55, which was a large percentage of the audience that evening, would not see any change in their Medicare and so not to worry. 

            So long, under-55s.

Buerkle's assumption that everyone in the audience is happy to be self-serving doesn't, fortunately, apply to everyone. Virtually half of the voters back in November, the people who didn't vote for her, are concerned about issues that affect more than just themselves and their own back yards.