Dick Downey says anti-gas and anti-development types just love using the word sustainable but sustainability for them consists mainly in saying no and that’s not sustainable.

In a flurry of letters to the editor last week, an anti-development group operating from my upstate New York backyard called Sustainable Otsego unfurled its banner in support of its candidates. It read, “Fracking Is Bad“ … in spite of the fact that 90% of all new wells in the USA are fracked (yes, your car is…

Vic Furman says challenging the fractivist agenda demands one not be intimidated and be willing to speak up when no one wants to listen, and allow no one to silence them.



This is Part II of my report on Binghamton’s 2nd annual Global Frackdown, which was held last Saturday, October 19, at the Martian Luther King Promenade.  The event was microcosm of our battle with the fractivists, who are invariably noisy, rude, self-centered and ever focused on accusing others…

Chris Denton says New York Southern Tier residents are gambling with their future if they support the gambling question on the ballot in November, which, if passed, will give Gov. Cuomo the excuse he needs to halt natural gas development rather than just sit on it.

Governor Cuomo has announced more than once that he strongly supports casino gambling in upstate New York. He has gone so far as to alter the language on the ballot to make the Constitutional Amendment appear as a jobs bill…

Dimock, the myth that won’t die for fractivists, enjoyed a brief resuscitation this week when a reporter who’s written more words on the subject than perhaps any other, tried in vain to breathe some new life into the patient.

Shakespeare’s famous play Much Ado About Nothing is a tale of how gossip, rumor and the overhearing of conversations always leads us to the wrong conclusions. Dimock, Pennsylvania, to the chagrin of those who live there and know the truth, has been the source of…

Jeff Heller asks what’s wrong with New York State? Environmentalists, or rather fake environmentalists, have captured the state and at least one of its political parties, to the detriment of its citizens and its followers.

What the heck has happened in New York State? What’s wrong with our state? Here we sit on top of one or two of the richest shale plays in the world, and all we’re doing is watching all the other states (roughly thirty!) take advantage of their opportunities. No one…

Bob Tiberio says Gov. Cuomo seems lost in space, while the people of Upstate New York, the final shale gas frontier, stare into the stars hoping the galaxies will finally smile upon them someday and they’ll be rescued from the science fiction of fractivists.



Houston, we have a problem… with New York. The countdown to prosperity in upstate is on hold. The liftoff of shale gas development has been delayed by a fog of misinformation and false warnings of tornados on…

Energy-related carbon emissions in the US continue to decline as a consequence of natural gas development and conversions of power plants to gas.

There is ever more evidence natural gas, most of which is produced using hydraulic fracturing these days, is leading to lower energy-related carbon emissions. The latest report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued yesterday, is chock-full of data demonstrating how and why U.S. carbon emissions dropped another 3.8% in 2012…

MDN has been closely following the fiasco at Heinz Endowments as purists there apparently reassert control after an errant effort at reasonableness. This compendium of three MDN stories lays it out.

Anti-drillers have been nervous that one of the big-money spigots for funding their so-called research into the dangers of fracking was about to be shut off. In an on-going soap opera that began a couple of months ago, the “longtime head” of environmental grant making for the Heinz…

Global Frackdown? Nah..Time to Drill for Natural Gas Now

Vic Furman says the crass nature of the Global Frackdown reveals its hypocrisy and the money behind it. It’s time to drill for natural gas now in Upstate New York.

Yesterday, in case you didn’t notice and you probably didn’t, there was supposed to be a worldwide event called “Global Frackdown.” It was organized by Food and Water Watch, a special interest group that operates on an annual budget of over $11.5 million and…

Washington County has an economy that can only be described as a Phoenix and it all results from natural gas development driving multiple economic sectors.

The evidence of what natural gas development does for an economy continues to mount. There's no better place to see it graphically than Washington County, Pennsylvania where the Commonwealth's shale gas success began. Washington County is the southwestern corner of the Keystone State, near Pittsburgh, on the Ohio County border. It…

Drilling bans have gotten some mileage here and there but, as Attorney Ken Kamlet writes on his blog, the battle has only just begun because these bans run afoul of the Commerce Clause, which means Federal courts, not state ones, may ultimately decide the issue. 

Attorney Kenneth S. Kamlet, of the Binghamton law firm of Hinman, Howard & KattelI, has written a fascinating piece on the…

A new research report prepared for investors indicates the Marcellus Shale is a huge success story from both a production and profit perspective, leading the way among all shale plays.

Yesterday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch put out their latest version of the Global Energy Weekly (GEW) and it includes some powerful information about what’s happening in the Marcellus Shale play, where production is building while other plays have been battered by low prices. It’s a research report…

Is New York State now so urban that Upstate/Western New York is a secession candidate? Jeff Heller does some wishful thinking before acknowledging reality – that downstate polices are forcing upstate folks out.

Is it possible Abe Lincoln foresaw the ridiculous political situation in New York ? Could he have anticipated that 5% of the land mass of the state would have total control over the other 95%? Could he have anticipated that demographically, under “one man, one vote”, it would…

Bob Tiberio says fractivist misinformation tends to stick unless the facts are told in a simple way that fills the gap created by the false information. Just saying “you’re wrong” seldom works.

“The end of the world will surely come, in eighteen hundred and eighty one.” That well-known prophecy of doom is often attributed to one Ursula Southeil, a 16th…

Good morning,

 First time posting however I have been checking in on the site for info on what is happening and what others are facing. Background on us, we have a small farm in Noble Cty. Oh. We are HBP with an Oxford lease. Most Oxford leased landowners have horror stories of their leases being altered by Oxford, items deleted, signatures appearing on forms never before seen by the landowner etc.. Oxford and their agents were well trained in the art of deception. That deal is done.…

Jim Willis notes fractivists seem always able to grab attention for their outrageous statements, no matter how credibility challenged they may be. The latest example, from western Pennsylvania, involves some well known names with zero credibility, but there they are; in the middle of the story.

We know everyone likes a good story, so… Once upon a time there were four fractivists: Craig Stevens (from Dimock, PA, he of the little brown jug that supposedly contains contaminated drinking…

finally got a call, outfit wants to buy minerals . can anyone help with any info at all on this .

Anyone trying to understand the truth about hydraulic fracturing needs to read reports and stories about it with an eye for what’s left out, because that’s often where the truth is to be found. 

Jon Campbell authors a blog called Politics on The Hudson and recently reported on a “study” published by from New York Environment,…

Some perspective on where shale gas has been and how far it’s come is provided through the pen of a UK author who has toured Dimock and knows the truth.

Although the majority of UK residents have only heard of shale gas recently, I’m in year six of the journey. That means not only have I heard it all before as the various myths I have previously refuted here show, I’ve also seen how the shale story has evolved.

I first reported on the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania in August,…

New York City has been stealing water from Delaware County for more than half a century and now it wants to steal its natural gas as well, along with its future.

I’m a landowner and lifelong resident of the Deposit area of Delaware County. My husband and I own 55 acres where we live with our two, soon to be three, little boys. Delaware County landowners and taxpayers have been struggling to be heard by New York City for more than 50 years, but the last five years have been the most…