Love it or leave it

To the editor:

Tom Shepstone’s comments before the Wayne County Oil and Gas Task Force (The River Reporter, May 20-26) trouble me. Why do some big land owners, whose families have lived in this region for generations, seem bent on exploiting their legacy for immediate gain without caring enough for what’s left to future generations? You’d think they would be the folks in front of the movement to delay gas development until its safety is better understood. The land and gas aren’t going anywhere.

Instead, they demand full speed ahead with development. They parrot gas industry claims that drilling is proved safe, but anyone who reads the news knows that’s not true. So caution falls to the people who moved to this region more recently because they found it to be beautiful, quiet and bucolic, a good place to live, raise families, retire.

About leases, Shepstone says, “Who is going to pay the taxes on the land they own without that money?” The obvious answer is: Whoever can afford to pay their taxes, just as it has always been. What gives him the right to own land he can’t afford and then endanger his neighbors in order to pay his taxes? How did he pay his taxes before? What has changed? Who will pay my taxes when he has ruined my land value?

The ready answer is: times are hard. Well, times have always been hard in this region. There is a history of boom and bust: logging, canals, tanning, bungalows, hotels and now gas, all going strong and then going broke. That’s why land has remained cheap. Big landowners are frustrated. They have a love/hate relationship with their property. They apparently feel that love is unrequited by profitability. Now, like spurned spouses, they want out. Why haven’t they gotten a divorce, departing this unsatisfying marriage by selling the land to someone who sees its value and will protect it? Like bitter partners, they will remain in the marriage, seizing all the money, and making the unhappy land pay for former suffering by rendering it useless and unappealing to future suitors.

Allan Rubin

Cochecton, NY

A lesson from the Gulf

To the editor:

It may seem like a stretch to equate the Gulf of Mexico with the Upper Delaware River, but in light of the recent disaster in the Gulf, it’s hard not to. As a ruptured pipe from an accident that took 11 lives continues to spew millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters off Louisiana, big energy corporations prepare to hydrofracture natural gas wells here in the Northeast. We’re told how safe it is and how there is no real evidence of accidents affecting human health while a litany of horror stories pour in from around the country where gas drilling has been taking place.

What it boils down to is this: if a corporation that posts billions of dollars in profits can’t handle an industrial accident at five thousand feet below the surface of the Gulf waters, what assurances do we have that the companies responsible for natural gas drilling in this area will be able to identify, much less rectify, a hydro-fracking accident below the surface of the earth?

Say “no” to natural gas development

To the editor:

Several responses to advocates of natural gas development:

You say: “It can be done safely.” I say: “Tell that to the folks in Louisiana—soon to be Florida and up the Atlantic Coast.”

You say: “Accidents happen. That should not preclude proceeding with striving toward energy independence.” I ask: “Anyone remember the energy independence cry in 1972? If we were seeking true energy independence we could have had it by now. Putting people on the moon and bringing them back is a monumental accomplishment. We met that goal. Is energy independence more difficult to achieve than going to the moon?”

As for farmers: isn’t it reasonable to assume that farmers have respect for their land and animals? Why would any farmer want to chance ruination based on gas development if there were other more suitable ways to survive? Why haven’t we figured out how to help the farmer prosper and, at the least, make a living? Our fine minds brought the Internet to the world. Why haven’t we brought solvency to our dairy farmers?

Land rights: So let me get this straight: I own land and refuse to sign a lease. My neighbors own land and sign leases. If 60 percent of my neighbors sign, the law in New York permits the gas company to frack and drill horizontally under my land? How does this principle protect land rights?

To make matters more incongruous—I lease, you didn’t. As a result of gas development on my land, we both suffer water contamination. I signed consenting to this known risk. You didn’t take the risk, didn’t get paid; yet, your land became an industrial wasteland as did mine. Is that what you mean by protecting landowner rights?

Say no, no, and no again to natural gas development. If you really care about the future of our youth—prove it.

Modern poetics

To the editor:

I was very impressed by the article written by Jonathan Fox in the “Currents” section of the May 6-12 issue of The River Reporter (“TGIF– poetically speaking”). He is virtually the only journalist or reporter I can think of who has the courage and honesty to question the automatic classification of so much nonsensical verbiage as “poetry.” No wonder our nation is overwhelmed by “poets” as young as seven years of age—many of whose works have actually been published as the creations of wunderkinder. Forget rhyme (or reason); what used to be called “a narrative” or “prose” or a combination of both is now being identified as “poetry.” All one has to do is write several sentences in an inexplicable arrangement of lines that visually imitate a verse or stanza and it’s revered as a poem, even though there isn’t even a pretense of cadence or meter, much less a mellifluous or euphonious quality when read aloud.

That Mr. Fox challenged the fervently expressed (but often inaccurate) opinions of Ms. Laura Moran was admirable, but that he made his point in such a carefully thought-out, gentlemanly way was what makes this feature very gratifying reading—probably what Ms. Moran would describe (even if reluctantly) as “modern poetry.”