Want to tell the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency your thoughts on gas drilling in New York? Today's your last chance, and there are hundreds of people lined up to speak before you.
The EPA's public hearing on the topic of hydraulic fracturing, which was postponed due to fears that the venue was too small to accommodate all the people who wanted to speak, finally held its first two sessions in Binghamton on Monday. Today will be another two sessions, one starting at noon and at 6pm. (Check out the agenda for the both hearings below, and live coverage of the hearing from the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin above.)
Hundreds of people attended the first day of the hearing, and it made national news. CNN was there. So was Bloomberg. As was the Wall Street Journal.
Reporters covered the crowds outside, which were civilized, and, to some, surprisingly small. The Gannett papers took notice of the various slogans being employed, which inevitably have some unfortunate double entendres:
"Kids can't drink gas" and "Protect our water. Stop fracking America," were some of the signs carried by opponents. Supporters, including union workers eager for jobs, carried signs that said "Yes to science, no to paranoia" and chanted "Pass gas now!"
The Times Herald-Record's Steve Israel was there, too, with his own description of the crowd:
On one end of the street where the Environmental Protection Agency's public hearing on fracking will begin at noon stood a few hundred anti-drilling people. They held signs saying, “Protect Our Water Stop Fracking America.” They listened to speakers like Josh Fox, the Honesdale, Pennsylvania director of the film, “Gasland” say, “the restoration of the EPA's mission is to stop fracking now.” A few hundred feet away separated by a few dozen police officers, TV crews from places like CNN and a crew from Norway stood a few dozen [pro drillers. They held signs like, “America's energy Natural Gas.”
At least some attendees reported that there weren't as many people there as expected, according to WICZ Fox TV:
While they might not agree on the issue of drilling, people who attended both the afternoon and evening sessions in Binghamton say they don't know what the big concern was all about. "I think it was way overhyped, this was setup for a media circus and that's really what it's been. I never thought there would be that many people at SUNY Binghamton either," said Daniel Fitzsimmons.
In the end, about 200 spoke on Monday, and only hundreds, rather than thousands, showed up, according to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin:
Crowd estimates seemed off Monday morning as folks from across the region descended upon The Forum in Binghamton for the state Environmental Protection Agency’s public meeting about hydraulic fracturing. Initial estimates indicated approximately 8,000 people would attend the event. By 2:30 p.m., only about 700 people were in attendance. For a brief time, it appeared as though there were more police, emergency personnel and media camped outside The Forum.
The Press had excellent coverage of the people inside trying to speak, too. Apparently, there was a giant, scary clock enforcing their speaking time to two minutes on the dot:
Speakers made their way down one of two aisles to a podium at the front of The Forum's seating area. In front of them, on a stage about 4-feet high, stood the moderator. On one side of him was a table for the EPA panelists; on the other side, a table for a pair of stenographers and their laptops. Behind them, dropped down from the ceiling, was a 12-foot high, 25-foot wide screen displaying an enormous digital clock, whose sole purpose was to count down the precious seconds stakeholders had to make their case to the EPA. "It was nerve-racking," Town of Binghamton resident Yvette Akel said of the clock. "All of a sudden I looked up and there were 30 seconds left, so I thought, 'Oh, I better wrap it up quick.'"
One of the speakers was New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey, whose remarks were widely quoted around the internet. Here they posted in their entirety on his website. Here's a snippet:
There are numerous reports of water contamination related to hydraulic fracturing in states across the country. Despite the fact that EPA is in many ways precluded from taking regulatory action in response to these reports, I strongly believe EPA must investigate them, along with the responses from industry and states, to understand what is being done to keep water supplies safe.
