Archive: Opinions

As a member of the Lansing Gas Drilling Oversight Committee I would like to respond to Ned LaCelle’s Letter on Dec. 2nd  titled “One View On Fracking”.  Ned had 3 main points:

1- The survey presented was a non-scientific survey, that did not separate the name of the individuals from the actual survey. The people canvassing and administering the survey just outside the polling places did not make an effort to keep the collection anonymous. So the 'results' can be deemed as a sampling of those who chose to vote, who chose to fill out a survey that did not keep their opinions in confidence. It DOES NOT represent a scientific sampling of the Town of Lansing residents' opinions.

Response:  The survey is not perfect. Prior to my presentation to the town board last month, I spoke about the survey with a well-respected statistician from the Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit. I asked her to comment on any weaknesses she could see in our survey. She noted it was not a random sampling but rather, as Ned says, of those who voted and chose to fill out the survey. When I presented the survey to the town board I was very clear that the survey was biased toward people who actually voted.

We were interested in tallying the opinions of as many people as we could within a reasonable amount of time, and an Election Day survey offered that opportunity. Forty five percent of the people who voted that day filled out the survey. That is an impressive number of responses. The statistician thought the sample size was very good, in fact much more than necessary for a valid sampling. The statistical error (95% confidence interval – typically called the margin of error) associated with the survey questions was ±2% to ±3% in all cases. The differences between yes and no answers were many times greater than this and are highly significant.

We did not make the survey anonymous because we wanted to be certain that no individual filled out more than one survey, and that all survey respondents were Lansing residents. We did make an effort to keep the results confidential, and we repeatedly stressed to all the volunteers administering the survey that they were not to offer their own opinions on the subject of gas drilling. In addition, we told those administering the survey to place the collected surveys face down in the boxes.  Completed surveys were not available for people to look at. A few people did not fill out the survey because they preferred to remain anonymous.  We would have preferred the survey to have been anonymous, but then we could have been accused of not taking precautions to prevent people from "cheating" by filling out more than one survey, or were possibly from a different town.

Even though the survey was not a completely comprehensive tally of all residents in the Town of Lansing, the results are very clear.  By a margin of 4 to 1, survey participants do not favor gas drilling using high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) and by a 3.5 to 1 margin, they would like to see it banned in the Town.  The results were consistent across all 5 voting districts, lending further support that these survey results are representative of the town resident’s sentiments regarding this issue.  The statistician with whom I spoke agreed that the results are quite clear, despite the sampling problems previously mentioned.  We contend that this survey, even with its short comings, is the best available representation of where Lansing residents stand regarding the HVHF gas drilling issue.

In addition these results are typical of what have been found among other towns in upstate New York.  Generally, 60% to 70% of residents across the region oppose this form of gas drilling in their towns. 

I have also spoken to two of the people who ran for Lansing Town Board positions in the last election and who went door to door during their campaigns. One could view the comments these candidates received as a more random sample of public opinions. Both candidates said that, by far, the number one issue they heard about from residents was gas drilling. The vast majority of people with whom the candidates spoke during the campaign were opposed to this form of drilling. 

Ned’s other two points:

2- The presenter A. R. Ingraffea, was informative and entertaining, but represents only one view from the scientific community. Many of Dr. Ingraffea's statements after he presented information were his opinions with leading suggestions. The suggestion that methane released from gas well exploration and development created more "greenhouse gases" and had greater effect than coal and other fossil fuels is a theory that is not agreed upon by other drilling and fracking scientists. ….

3- I was hoping that the Lansing Town Board would present another side from other scientists that may come to other conclusions.

Response:  Tony Ingraffea is a well-respected scientist in the field of hydrofracking and has been involved with the study of rock fracturing since the 1980’s.  He has also worked for gas companies and their associated industries for many years. Dr. Ingraffea is a world class expert on the subject, and an excellent speaker. 

I believe that the level of green house gas emissions associated with HVHF gas drilling will be debated and studied in much greater detail following the recent peer-reviewed publication of the paper Ingraffea co-authored with Robert Howarth and Renee Santoro. (http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf)  This is already happening and this is the way science is supposed to work. Ingraffea and Howarth were just listed by Time Magazine in their Person of the Year issue as 'People that Mattered' for their work related to shale gas development.

The statements of gas companies have been misleading when they claim that natural gas is a “clean fuel”.  They only account for the burning of the fuel in their advertisements etc. One must also factor in the full cycle of extracting, producing and burning a fuel when estimating the green house gas impacts of its use.  When estimates of these other contributions are included in the calculations, “clean natural gas” is not so clean. 

Regarding Ned’s comments on presenting another side of the story, our committee welcomes other viewpoints on this controversial issue. We are open to suggestions of names for future speakers with expertise related to the subject of HVHF gas drilling to bring to the town.

Tom Butler & the Lansing Gas Drilling Oversight Committee

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