Search Results for: Walter Hang

12 results found

Walter Hang’s Letter to DEC Commissioner Grannis Regarding Additional Natural Gas Hazards | Toxics Targeting

Environmental activist Walter Hang wrote directly to New York’s DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis, challenging assumptions in the state’s drilling review process. The letter dissected regulatory language and risk modeling, urging caution before permitting high-volume fracturing. Sometimes oversight begins not with a lawsuit, but with a pointed letter.

Source: Toxics Targeting (2010) Read More

Plan to send fracking wastewater near Keuka Lake is abandoned | stargazette.com | Star-Gazette

$Plan to send fracking wastewater near Keuka Lake is abandoned | stargazette.com | Star-Gazette$

A contentious plan by Chesapeake Energy to convert an abandoned gas well in Pulteney, New York, into a deep-well wastewater disposal site near Keuka Lake is officially dead—though the company left the door open for similar facilities in the future. The proposal, which would have handled more than 180,000 gallons of Marcellus Shale fracking waste per day, drew opposition from local residents, Pulteney Town Supervisor Bill Weber, U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, and Walter Hang of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting, who argued that grassroots resistance in the Finger Lakes influenced decisions before the EPA and the New York DEC.

Source: Ithaca Journal (2010) Read More

Ignitable Drinking Water in Candor, NY, Above Marcellus Shale

This video documents a well in Candor, NY—above the Marcellus Shale—where drinking water can be ignited, raising urgent questions about regulatory oversight and underground contamination (Spill #0811696). Referencing Walter Hang’s 2010 letter to the NYS DEC and watchdog reports criticizing decades of insufficient enforcement, the footage situates the incident within a broader pattern of state-level regulatory failure and mounting public protest.

Source: YouTube (2009) Read More

Gasland’ Filmmaker Takes on Cuomo and ‘Dot.FlatEarth’

Debates between hydrofracking proponents and critics intensified during the Gasland era, with Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting arguing that existing regulatory frameworks could not ensure safe natural gas extraction. Industry experts and academics countered with calls for improved oversight and technological safeguards, while environmental filmmakers and investigative journalists amplified evidence of methane leakage, cement failure, and groundwater contamination.

Source: Dot Earth | New York Times (2012) Read More

Watchdog: New York State Regulation of Natural Gas Wells Has Been “Woefully Insufficient for Decades.”

Watchdog reporting scrutinized New York’s regulatory approach to natural gas development as the state weighed whether to permit high-volume hydraulic fracturing. New York–based Toxics Targeting examined the Department of Environmental Conservation’s own spill database, identifying 270 documented cases over three decades involving fires, explosions, wastewater releases, well contamination, and ecological damage tied to gas drilling — many still unresolved. The findings challenged repeated assurances that existing regulations were sufficient to safeguard public health and the environment.

Source: Democracy Now! (2009) Read More

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Comment on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) sent to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) during the public comment period closing 12/31/09.

As the EPA advanced climate-related findings and regulatory steps, including endangerment determinations, greenhouse gas emissions from energy systems entered formal regulatory territory. The shift signaled that climate science was no longer advisory — it could trigger enforceable standards.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2009) Read More

Incite: An independent advocate for the environment. | Gas Pains

Incite offered commentary and analysis independent of party lines, scrutinizing environmental decisions tied to energy development. As drilling debates hardened into ideological camps, independent voices aimed to unpack data, challenge assumptions, and keep public focus on long-term ecological stakes.

Source: Audobon Magazine (2010) Read More

Politicians choose sides in Marcellus Shale drilling debate

As drilling expanded across the Marcellus region, elected officials split along economic and environmental lines. Promises of jobs and tax revenue competed with warnings about water contamination and landscape fragmentation. The shale boom reshaped not only terrain, but political alliances.

Source: Press & Sun-Bulletin: pressconnects.com (2009) Read More

Obama Admin Rejects Timeout for Natural Gas Drilling in N.Y., Pa.

President Obama and federal officials declined calls to seek a temporary halt on Marcellus Shale drilling in the Delaware River Basin pending a cumulative environmental impact study, despite appeals from Rep. Maurice Hinchey and environmental advocates. The dispute exposed tensions between economic development and watershed protection, with critics arguing that comprehensive risk assessment should precede regulatory approval in order to safeguard the basin’s Special Protection Waters.

Source: The New York Times: Greenwire (2010) Read More

Leaked EPA Documents Expose Decades-Old Effort to Hide Dangers of Natural Gas Extraction

Efforts by lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to better police the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” have been thwarted for the past 25 years, according to an exposé in the New York Times .

Source: Democracy Now! (2011) Read More

Full Steam Ahead: Albany Rally 3/24/11 Requesting Governor Cuomo to Expand Scope of draft SGEIS per Executive Order No. 41

Bring everyone you can find as well as your biggest signs and banners. After the rally, we will march to the Governor’s office on the Second Floor of the Capitol to let him know we support his policy that New York’s “watersheds are sacrosanct.”

Source: Walter Hang (2011) Read More

Pit Pollution

Reports of pollution from open waste pits highlighted risks associated with storing drilling byproducts on-site. Wildlife mortality, groundwater concerns, and surface runoff raised questions about containment practices. Waste management remains one of the less visible — yet consequential — aspects of shale development.

Source: Earthworks (2004) Read More