TRR photo by Fritz Mayer More than 400 area residents gathered in the Liberty High School auditorium for a forum on gas drilling on June 27.

Limits of local control

Roads, noise, pollution and gas-drilling safety discussed

By FRITZ MAYER

LIBERTY, NY—If you’re a property owner who decides not to sign a lease with a gas drilling company, no one can force you to do so. But if 60 percent of the property owners of the acreage surrounding your property sign drilling leases, the gas company that holds the leases can apply to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for drilling rights to your land. And, under current law, the gas company will be able to take gas from under your property via horizontal drilling. You will be compensated for the gas, but you won’t be able to stop it. That’s according to a Binghamton lawyer, Robert Wedlake, who has negotiated gas drilling leases in Broome and Delaware counties.

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Speaking power to power

Senator Lisa Baker wants secret drilling fluids revealed; agency oversight

By TOM KANE

HARRISBURG, PA - In a letter sent on June 20, state senator Lisa Baker urged Kathleen McGinty, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), to seriously review the recent expansion of gas drilling activities in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

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Townships may join UDC

By TOM KANE

RIVER VALLEY - Damascus Township is considering joining the Upper Delaware Council (UDC). The neighboring township of Berlin may also do the same.

“We’ve been talking to the Berlin Township supervisors who we heard were considering joining,” said Damascus Township Supervisor Chairman Jeff Dexter. “We are considering it. We feel that we need to hear from our residents about it. If they want it, I think they need to come to us and ask.”

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Other stories in this issue:

• ‘Eddy’ escapes serious harm in ditch dive
• ‘Billy the Kit’: Neglected feline finds a forever friend
• DARE to continue despite state cutoff
• Eldred Class of 2008 moves on
• Satisfying the need
• Lease prices may be slipping
• Making the electric meter go backwards
• New Bethel playground
• Retail recycling
• Drilling rigs, damaged roads
• Venturing forth

A D V E R T I S E M E N T S