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On election day voters were met by volunteers taking a survey to determine how Lansing residents feel about gas drilling in the town.  916 residents completed the survey, enough to insure a two or three point confidence interval, plus or minus. Lansing Town Drilling Committee member Tom Butler presented the results Tuesday at the November Town Board meeting.  The survey showed that 64% favor a ban on drilling in the town.

"It was important that the survey was as unbiased as possible," Butler told the board.  "All the survey administrators were told many, many times that they should not discus their own feelings with people taking the survey.  We didn't want their opinions.  We wanted the people filling out the survey's opinions."

33 volunteers administered the survey, which was completed by 45% of voters in all Lansing districts on election day (14% of all registered Lansing voters).  Butler says that the results were similar in all eight districts.  The survey was also made available on the Town Web site.  North Lansing and Lansingville, where most of the leases are held, had the highest percentage of registered voters who filled out the survey.  Yet the majority of those polled said they are against it.  The survey included three questions:

Do you favor High Volume Hydraulic Fracture ("fracking") gas development in the Town of Lansing?

68% of all respondents said no.  The highest opposition was in the village of Lansing, and the least in Lansingville, but there was not much of a percentage difference across districts.  17% of respondents favor drilling, and 15% were undecided.

Do you support stricter local laws to better control negative impacts associated with this type of gas drilling in Lansing?

85% support stricter laws.  6% said no, and 9% were undecided.

Do you oppose gas drilling using HVHF and would like to see it banned from the town?

The majority, 64%, said they support a ban.  18% said no, and 18% were undecided.

Butler told the Town board that the Committee asks that the Board factor in the Town resident’s responses as they work to prepare for drilling in NYS.  He noted that consistently across the town, the majority of residents who completed the survey favor the Town Board taking action to introduce stricter local laws to control negative impacts of drilling and ban drilling from the Town.

On Wednesday the Drilling Committee hosted a program on gas development myths and realities featuring A. R. Ingraffea, a Cornell University expert on hydrofracking.

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