The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that Noel van Swol died in a car accident. The accident occurred on County Road 128 near North Branch on October 15 at 4:38 p.m. Officials said an autopsy was scheduled for October 16 to determine if he was killed by the crash or whether there were other health factors involved.

van Swol, who was president of the Sullivan-Delaware Property Owners Association (SDPOA), was an outspoken supporter of landowner rights and appeared at numerous meetings in Sullivan County and elsewhere extolling the virtues of gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

He believed that fracking could be done safely and he invested a lot of time and energy in pursuing the goal of drilling in New York State. A sentence on the SDPOA reads, “Bill Graby and Noel van Swol have personally put up all the money for engineering studies, spread sheets and organizational matters. There is no charge for people who list their property with the coalition.” The organization claims to represent owners of 70,175 acres of land who want to lease their land for gas drilling.

Most recently van Swol wrote a “My View” column for the October 11 issue of The River Reporter saying, “The unexpected adoption of pro-natural gas resolutions by the towns of Delaware and Fremont struck Sullivan County’s liberal political establishment like a thunderbolt. This was a major political victory for local property owners.”

The Long Eddy resident was also a fierce critic of the inclusion of the Upper Delaware River into a Wild and Scenic River System to be managed by the National Park Service (NPS)in cooperation with local municipalities. In a document dating back to 1986, reporter Tom Rue wrote that van Swol was one of a number of NPS opponents who turned out to a meeting and shouted loudly and made noise that prevented any individuals from offering testimony about the plan for the proposed River Management Plan.

Rue wrote, “After about 90 minutes, van Swol took the speaker's microphone and announced, ‘We're going to suspend the rules and run a democratic meeting here.’" He then delivered remarks and introduced other unscheduled speakers.

van Swol was also a critic of the merging of the Delaware Valley, Narrowsburg, Jeffersonville-Youngsville school districts into the Sullivan West Central School District in 1999, and was voted onto the Sullivan West school board in a wave of voter disenchantment with the merger in 2006. Later that year, he called for and eventually received an investigation by the NYS Attorney General into whether there were voting irregularities in the voting that resulted in the merger.

Mary Scheutzow, president of the Sullivan West school board, said, "He was such a force in the community, it’s hard to believe he’s gone.” Early in the last decade disputes among members of the board were legendary, but over the past several years, the board has worked smoothly together. Scheutzow said, “He was a good board member. Of course there were differences, but always with respect.”

The district issues a statement saying, "The Sullivan West School District is shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of school board member, Noel van Swol on Monday. Mr. van Swol, a retired educator, was a long-serving member of the Sullivan West Board, first elected in 2006.

"He was a strong voice in the community and the District," said Sullivan West Superintendent Dr. Nancy Hackett. "His intellect, resolve and insight will be greatly missed."

Retired Sullivan West superintendent Dr. Ken Hilton reflected:

“As former social studies teachers, we had long conversations that included our passion of teaching Civics and the democratic process."

He was 70 years old and is survived by his mother.