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Dirty Energy vs. Clean Power
Dirty Energy vs. Clean Power
The Past Battles the Future at Seneca Lake
Let’s amend the famous line from Joni Mitchell’s “Yellow Taxi” to fit this moment in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. There, Big Energy seems determined to turn paradise, if not into a parking lot, then into a massive storage area for fracked natural gas. But there’s one way in which that song doesn’t quite match reality. Mitchell famously wrote, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” As part of a growing global struggle between Big Energy and a movement focused on creating a fossil-fuel-free future, however, the residents of the Finger Lakes seem to know just what they’ve got and they’re determined not to let it go. As a result, a local struggle against a corporation determined to bring in those fracked fuels catches a changing mood not just in the United States but across the world when it comes to protecting the planet, one place at a time, if necessary.
It’s difficult to imagine a more picturesque landscape, a more tranquil locale, a more bucolic garden spot than the Finger Lakes region. Each year, it draws tens of thousands of tourists to gaze at the waterfalls in Watkins Glen, to kayak and canoe in its deep waters, to dine in its farm-to-table restaurants and enjoy the homespun hospitality of its bed and breakfasts. Lush vineyards rustle on tree-studded hillsides. Wine Enthusiast magazine gave it top honors last year, calling it “one of the most vibrant and promising wine regions of the world.” There are fruit and vegetable farms and sugar maples, too. In 2013, the state’s maple syrup production ranked second only to Vermont’s.
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We Are Seneca Lake: Josh Fox & Fracking Opponents Fight Natural Gas Storage Site in Upstate NY
We Are Seneca Lake: Josh Fox & Fracking Opponents Fight Natural Gas Storage Site in Upstate NY
On Wednesday, Josh Fox, director of “Gasland,” the documentary which exposed the harms of the fracking industry, was arrested along with 20 other people after forming a human barricade at a natural gas storage facility in upstate New York. The action was part of a long-standing campaign against plans by Crestwood Midstream to expand gas storage in abandoned salt caverns at Seneca Lake, a drinking water source for 100,000 people. We speak to Fox and air his new documentary short, “We Are Seneca Lake.”
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a new short film by Josh Fox, director of Gasland, the Academy Award-nominated documentary that exposed the harms of the fracking industry. Fox himself will join us next in our studio, but first, in this video, he explains why he arrested Wednesday along with 20 others who formed a human barricade at a natural gas storage facility in upstate New York, the action part of a long-standing campaign against plans by Crestwood Midstream to expand gas storage in abandoned salt caverns at Seneca Lake, a drinking water source for 100,000 people.
JOSH FOX: When Governor Andrew Cuomo banned fracking in New York state on December 17th, 2014, a lot of fracktivists in New York thought their problems were over. It was a tremendous victory, a precedent for other states, a landmark decision for public health and for the science on fracking.
But not every decision about fracking in New York was being made at the state level. FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, decides about pipelines, storage facilities and other interstate oil and gas infrastructure. Because FERC is in charge of so many projects, they’ve been heavily criticized for having a lack of public input and for simply being a rubber-stamp commission for the oil and gas industry. One of the decisions that FERC has under its control is the fate of Seneca Lake, New York.
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