Hydrofacking and city hall

In an ideal world, one would take turns governing and being governed. So, I decided to take a trip down to City Hall to see how things were going. Rumor had it that hydrofracking was on the table for discussion.

The first issue was a presentation of a petition to the council to stop accepting tanker trucks full of hydrofrack water into the municipal water treatment system. The woman presenter spoke of the dangers of hydrofracking. They include brackish water (salt), suspended metals and in some cases radio nucleotides. For evidence, she urged the council members to view the movie "Gasland." She also submitted a petition to the council.

Then an opportunity for comment was offered. After the mayor asked again if anyone wanted to speak to the whole council, this was the only time to do so. So, seizing the opportunity, I decided to do an impromptu comment on the matter of energy depletion. I stated I didn't know all the issues behind hydrofracking but from what little I did know, it sounded like a really bad thing. (I also offered to add my name to that petition). However, I wanted to state how it was important to let people know that there are alternatives to home heating. I suggested that heat pumps might be a reasonable alternative to burning natural gas and incentives (or at least lack of penalties) should be in place to encourage their use. They would reduce the need for energy and also potentially stimulate the local economy due to a local company selling them plus there would be a need for local labor to install them. To the mayor's credit, he did point out that some government buildings were heated in this way.

Then, on to scheduled business. The next gentleman named Terry Cuddy got more specific on what he wanted the council to do. He wanted, with the support of a long winded petition, to stop the practice of the city accepting hydrofracking water for processing. Reaction by the council members was to have a closed door session. No resolution was introduced nor voted upon but it did show the council was taking the matter seriously. I also found a major mystery to me was solved. Turns out the Green Drinks I host is at the same time this organization meets. Not that it's a bad thing. However, it might mean Green Drinks may go to another time.

Other issues were brought up and voted upon that probably would qualify as "regular business". Among them, initiatives to encourage tourism. Also, a new program to put "Trisha" on the road to sell businesses the idea of having their activities in Auburn.

After the meeting, I met with Gilda from the city council. She seemed very bright and very responsible which was refreshing to see. Apparently she felt really strongly against the Iraq war. That alone scored major points with me! I think she feels as I do, that the best way to affect government change is from within. So, we started talking about the issues.

I learned a few things. Potentially the most interesting finding was how much money the gas companies offer the city to truck in their water! In some cases, hundreds of thousands. So, the temptation is understandably great to process some waste water to make the city budget balance a bit better. However, what was more interesting was finding out sampling is only taken from specific locations at specific times for what goes in the processing plant. No monitoring, specific to hydrofracking contamination, is done on the output. Very interesting that they have that restriction. Other issues are that the Owasco lake outlet is used both for releasing treated water and also for clean water. I suggested that rules, being what they were, may not sit well with the public. Although the city needs to comply with DEC and EPA rules, it might also be wise that the city verify water quality using an independent source such as a university since there are many people (myself included) that don't totally trust the influences of government. Even if not official, it would probably lend credibility to monitoring. The GIS program at CCC also has access to satellite remote sensing data. I suggested that data could be gathered now to used to monitor environmental changes. Right now, we could establish a baseline.

I also talked a bit about my renewable experiments (of course). She also listed some renewable activities Auburn is doing such as using digesters for methane and experimenting with using dried sewer sludge pellets as a possible power source rather than being trucked to another landfill as is currently the practice. She sensed that I might have some good ideas so she told me of an organization called "Ignite". This organization (or maybe another one) is helping the city review under used properties that could be cleaned up with the assistance of grants (perhaps for brownfield locations). If so, it sounds like a very good organization to be involved with. So, on her advice, I'll probably be checking it out.