Catskill Mountainkeeper is a member based advocacy organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the long term health of the six counties of the Catskill Region. Up to date news about gas drilling, boating, bears, stories, and more.
Catskill Mountainkeeper is still online in 2025!
Catskill Mountainkeeper’s mission is to protect our region’s forests and wild lands; safeguard air and water; nurture healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities; empower environmental justice communities; and accelerate the transition to a 100% clean and just energy future in New York State and beyond.
Established in 2006, Catskill Mountainkeeper is the strongest advocate for the Catskill region. Working with a network of concerned citizens and strategic partners, Mountainkeeper’s programs protect and promote our region’s extraordinary natural heritage, while promoting smart development that supports local communities and grows our economy in a sustainable way.
Over the past decade and a half, we have worked to protect our region’s pristine wild areas and open spaces from threats ranging from fracking to outsized development projects to the invasion of dirty and dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure, while building ecotourism, supporting farmers, and standing behind local businesses to support local communities and to build a stronger sustainable economic future.
Mountainkeeper works to fend off threats to the region’s natural heritage, pristine beauty, and abundant natural resources, including our beloved Catskill Park and the watershed that provides drinking water for many millions of people in the New York City area. Because economic sustainability is a big component of conservation, Mountainkeeper’s programs also seek to support the region’s twin economic drivers of tourism and farming.
All our work is made possible through the dedication of our activists, supporters, and partners, who provide critical funds and people power to drive our programs.
See also: People’s Stories
People’s Stories
Andi Gladstone. Fracking Poses Risk of Cancer Epidemic. 20 Jan 2012. Ithaca Journal.
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 44, I was shocked. I had no family history and was a non-smoking, non-drinking, jogging vegetarian. I was, however, exposed to environmental toxins during puberty, a period of life that is now designated as a “period of vulnerability” for breast cancer. The introduction of hydrofracking in New York threatens to create more stories like mine…To permit hydrofracking, which opens countless portals of toxic contamination… puts all New Yorkers at greater risk of sitting in a doctor’s office, like I did, and hearing the devastating news that changes one’s life forever.
Gladstone lives in Danby. She was the founding executive director of the Ithaca Breast Cancer Alliance and is the current executive director of the New York State Breast Cancer Network.
See also: Marcellus Shale Background Information.
The Marcellus Shale – America’s next super giant
Down in Texas the big gas companies are talking about northeast Pennsylvania and New York as the place to be. The Catskills and the Delaware River Valley sit on top of Marcellus Shale. Marcellus Shale lies under much of northern Appalachia 6,000 to 8,000 feet below the surface; the pores in the shale contain large quantities of natural gas. The shale layer becomes thicker from west to east beginning at about 50 feet in Ohio to more than 100 feet thick in central PA and NY. Geologists have known about the gas here for years but now with the new technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, recovering the gas is now the big new “Shale Play” as the industry refers to it. We are seeing the “land men” knocking on doors to obtain gas leases for various companies, with Chesapeake leading the charge in our area (mostly the Delaware River Valley in PA, Sullivan and Delaware counties). Community groups are forming on both sides of the issue from landowner associations to better negotiate a lease to groups fighting drilling altogether.
What does this all mean to the average resident? It means that landowners, towns, counties and regional organizations have a very short time to come up to speed with all the issues involved with gas exploration. As a new “shale play” we don’t have a history in this particular formation but we certainly have a history with gas exploration and the complexity of the issues involved.
See: N.Y. Democrat Fires Back at Obama Admin in Fight Over Shale Drilling>
See: This Website is a Crash Course In Fracking
See: Catskill Citizens | More Damning Evidence About Fracking
See: Hydrofracking in New York State: Poll Shows No Consensus
See: Incite: An independent advocate for the environment. | Gas Pains
