Geneseo Public Hearing on Hydrofracking Moratorium Draws a Crowd
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- Written by BECKY MCKEOWN
GENESEO — The Geneseo Town Board held a public hearing about its proposed moratorium on hydrofracking tonight, drawing over 30 people to the meeting.
Every chair in the room was filled and many people sat on the floor or stood in the meeting room doorway. Of those who attended, 33 people voiced their support of the one-year moratorium on all natural gas and oil exploration, the development and/or operation of natural gas and oil production facilities, the transportation of equipment and materials used in such activities, as well as on the transportation of products resulting from such activities.
Attendee Billy Lloyd said that people sometimes assume owners of large amounts of land support hydrofracking, but that it’s not always the case.
“I’m fully in support of the moratorium, and thank you guys for all the effort you’ve put into it,” he said. “I have an ownership of about 3,000 acres in the town of Geneseo—ownership interest, not solely, but family land…I just want it to go on record that there are landowners who are very concerned about this and I fully support the moratorium.”
Gordon McClellan voiced his concerns about the town’s fragility.
“An issue that I think is important for us here is the salt mine,” McClellan said. “We’ve already had it collapse and had gas coming up from peoples’ wells before, and I’m not really sure how much more fragile we are with the salt mine around. I think we might have a little different situation than other people around.”
In addition to the 33 pro-moratorium attendees who spoke up, one man stated his views against the moratorium.
“We have wells in adjacent towns in Livingston County,” said Bob Reed, a consultant with the Alexander-based natural gas and oil exploration, development and production company Lenape Resources. “Every one of those wells has been hydrofracked. There are probably, I’d say, 400 wells in this county that have been operating since the early 1980s—some even beyond that time. Hydrofracking is a technology that has been around for years and has not been harmful to the environment.”
Reed said the only difference between the new horizontal type of hydrofracking and the old type is that the new type uses more water because there is more area of shale. Others at the meeting pointed out that the new form of hydrofracking has only been around for a few years, and therefore cannot be yet deemed safe in their opinions.
Town Supervisor Will Wadsworth stated that the moratorium will not ban the current system of hydrofracking, just the horizontal system.
The County is currently reviewing the moratorium. The Town Board must wait until they hear from the County before making a final decision.
