There was another village board meeting in Oxford this week. The board has been contemplating enacting a moratorium on natural gas development, which would be the only one in Chenango County.

This past week there was a village meeting in Oxford, New York, Chenango County. Readers will recall Oxford is the only community in Chenango County considering one of those Slottje cookie cutter moratoriums on natural gas development. There was a nine month moratorium proposed and the board was scheduled to vote on it this past week. The meeting was, in fact, moved to the school because so many people were expected to show up and they did, but many were not even from Oxford as activists showed up from places such as Plymouth, Coventry and other areas.

The village board protocol for the meeting allowed one person supporting natural gas to give a five minute presentation and another person against natural gas development to speak for the same amount of time.

Irving Hall gave the presentation on the reasons why the board should enact a moratorium. This moratorium, like Binghamton’s, is completely irrelevant. Oxford already has a strict zoning ordinance actually prohibiting much of what might be classified as natural gas development, of course. Moreover, because the state isn’t even issuing permits yet, there is no legal basis for a moratorium, as the judge in Binghamton’s case clearly stated. Moratorium advocates like Hall are simply trying to make a political statement and jump on the bandwagon of natural gas opposition with this

http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/lets-table-the-natural-gas-...