Don’t underestimate the insurance problems

To the editor:

I read your article in the September 11 issue regarding insurance mortgages and gas. As someone who has been an insurance professional for 32 years, I believe the information given to you regarding insurance on residential properties is not accurate.

It is a dangerous thing for someone to give up their property to a gas drilling operation without making damn sure their insurance company will pay for any contamination, or lawsuits that arise from drilling. They might want to get that in writing.

People need to read their policies, and discuss with their agent several things.

1. If my insurance company is aware that I will be having huge trucks, many unknown employees, a 400-foot-tall tower drilling gas with a million-gallon open-water pit on my land, will they consider that an increase in hazard?

There is an exclusion in many New York State homeowner policies that does not cover damages caused by any substantial change or increase in hazard, if changed or increased by the insured person.

Here are a couple more very common exclusions in a homeowner policy:

2. Contamination, including the presence of toxic, noxious or hazardous gasses, chemicals or liquids or solids in the air, land or water serving the insured property is not covered. You need to contact your insurance company and see what they say about this.

3. Losses caused by soil conditions, including chemicals or compounds in the soil are not covered.

Everyone read your insurance policy and look for what is not covered on your policy.

Unless you can get your insurance company to pay for any of the above, it’s not covered. And if it’s not covered, the homeowner is responsible for it.

The contamination will be carted away

To the editor:

It is a shame that Mr. Riley did not understand what was said at my meeting. Let me refresh his memory. The gas drilling goes 6,000 feet deep, way past the aquifer (drinking water).

There is no contamination there. What was said was that the fracking process was contaminated, which is water and chemicals. Fracking means the water to purge the system after drilling.

What was said at the meeting was that fracking water needs to be put in a sealed container and carted away when the purging is completed.

This is the only process that is a threat to the environment. If it is carted away there is no threat. The DEC has mandated that the companies do so.

I understand Dave Riley is an environmentalist and does not want any intrusion to the land, and so am I.

The people that own the land have rights also. They have the right to make money off their property to pay their taxes. The DEC has determined that the process is safe and there is no proof otherwise. Neither Mr. Riley nor anyone else should have the right to try to tell or mandate regulations on property they don’t own, as long as the process is safe.

Four more years laughing their way to the bank

To the editor:

John McCain promises to veto every single earmark when he becomes President. Does he know that Governor Palin submitted $197 million in earmarks? This is more on average, per person, than received by Pennsylvania, or any other state. Citizens of her little town received 50 times more federal pork than the average American. How’d she do it? She hired a DC lobbyist. So when McCain promises change, he must be referring to his VP.

The past seven years have shown that Republicans uncontrollably borrow and spend. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget ((www.whitehouse.gov/omb)), Bush’s 2009 $3.1 trillion budget is made up of 23 percent ($730 billion) defense/security, 21 percent ($644 billion) Social Security, 20 percent ($632 billion) health care, eight percent ($260 billion) interest on the debt and 27 percent ($842 billion) other.

For nearly a decade under Bush’s watch, Republicans pushed the number of earmarks to new heights. Now, with Democratic control of the House, sponsors of earmarks are forced to disclose all key details of their earmarks publicly. This has cut earmarks in half in the past two years.

Even if every earmark approved last year, a total of $15.3 billion, were eliminated, it would cut 0.5 percent of federal spending and less than four percent from the deficit. Exxon earned $11.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, $10.9 billion in the first quarter of 2008, $11.68 billion in the second quarter of 2008. This totals $34.28 billion in just nine months. Do we want four more years of Republicans helping big corporations laugh all the way to the bank?

Palin victimized

To the editor:

Isn’t it wonderful how the political left in this country have come out so viciously against Sarah Palin? The very people who preach from their high pulpit about tolerance and women’s rights are doing and saying everything that they can to try and destroy this honorable woman. The tolerance crowd is the most intolerant among us. Agree with her politics or not, the attacks against her from the radical left have been disgusting at best. Where is the National Organization of Women to defend her against these unwarranted and untrue attacks? Oh yeah, they only want liberal women to achieve political success. How disingenuous. How completely predictable and laughable they are.

As a conservative and a proud member of the vast right wing conspiracy, I am no fan of the maverick reputation of John McCain, but with his choice of Sarah Palin for VP, he has finally earned my support. Sarah Palin has not been spoiled by that cesspool that is Washington DC out-of-touch politics. She brings a fresh perspective that has been missing from our political candidates for a long time: small town America. And that’s why the hatred and mean spiritedness is so loud from the left. She appears to be enough to help John McCain defeat the anointed one, Barrack Obama, and the Marxist path that he wants to lead our great country down.