There are rumors floating around, spread by the New York State Department of Labor (DOL), to the effect the Southern Tier of New York is on the path to growth and revitalization, a comeback if you will. Sadly, it’s not the case. The Southern Tier has regained but a tiny fraction of 20,800 jobs it’s lost over the last decade and needs natural gas development. Make no mistake about it.

Earlier today, we received a little blurb from one of our regular readers and commenters extolling the revival of the Southern Tier, as proclaimed by the New York State Department of Labor, and suggesting everything was alright and there was no need for natural gas development. This reader, who we welcome to our pages because he engages and discusses rather than rants, is one of those folks who announces their neutrality a little too much to be believed, and somehow always ends up aiding the opposition view. Still, he’s civil, and that’s to be admired in this debate. So, we respectfully disagree.

This reader/commenter challenged Nicole’s Thirty Days of Silliness and Scare from the Natural Gas Opposition post and her contention the Southern Tier was dying and in danger of economic collapse. He offered the following:

And some interesting stats:

Three years after the official end of the “Great Recession” in the U.S., the Southern Tier’s economy continues to slowly recover from the lingering effects of the downturn. From 2010 to 2011, the overall private sector job count in the Southern Tier (Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga and Tompkins counties) increased by nearly 1,200, or 0.6%, to just under 210,000. The three counties in the region with the fastest private sector job growth in 2010-2011 were:

• Chenango (+8.0%)
• Schuyler (+4.8%)
• Chemung (+2.2%)
• All three counties grew faster than the state (+2.0%) and nation (+1.8%) in 2011. *

Job losses were centered in natural resources, mining and construction (-800), leisure and hospitality (-700)

The Southern Tier’s higher education system is a key contributor to the region’s economic success.

http://www.labor.ny.gov/stats/sou/index.shtm

Well, these statistics immediately caught our eye, as the reader can imagine. We decided to check them out and found there was a lot more to them. The Southern Tier is in deep trouble and needs natural gas development.

http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/rumors-of-a-southern-tier-r...