from Hudson Valley Earth First!
On Thursday, May 29th, Hudson Valley Earth First! (HVEF!) converged and disrupted the 9th annual Northeast Power and Gas Markets Conference New York Marriott Downtown in New York City. Hudson Valley Earth First activists were protesting the Public Service Commission’s (PSC) recent decision to grant Competitive Power Ventures LLC (CPV) a permit for the building of a fracked gas Power plant in Orange County NY. Audrey Zibelman, the chairman of the PSC gave keynote address this morning titled “Challenges Facing the Northeast Power and Gas Markets” where protesters interrupted her speech with chanting and dropping leaflets on the tables where corporate representatives were sitting that read, “markets peak, pipelines leak: stop fracking now”.
This protest will serve as a reminder to the PSC and the oil and gas industry at large that despite their permits, community resistance to fracking, its associated infrastructure and the industrialization of our region(s) will be met with unwavering opposition and direct action. This will be the REAL challenge facing northeast Power and gas markets.
Inside this Capitalist Conference on “Energy Investment” and Gas Markets, New York State’s sovereignty against fracked gas is again being violated. “Green” capitalists, with the approval of the Public Service Commission (PSC), are constructing yet another piece of infrastructure to use and/or transport fracked gas from Pennsylvania. The energy produced from this facility is completely UNNECESSARY and DESTRUCTIVE, as well as intimately tied to the Spectra, Rockaway, Millennium and other pipelines transporting dirty gas through our state and our city carrying with it a deadly cocktail of contaminants, including but not limited to: Benzene, xylene, methanol, radon and toluene, all known carcinogens. Aside from the integrity of our city’s water being destroyed, this powerplant is being built atop an indigenous burial ground, endangered species habitat, a sole source aquifer and inside of one of New York’s pristine agricultural districts. If projects like these continue throughout our state, and throughout the world, no source of human and nonhuman sustenance will go unscathed, and the ecocidal march of Capitalist expansion will consume us further
“This campaign has been going on for almost two years, but now it’s getting serious,” said April Rogers, another member of HVEF! “If trucks show up, we’ll be there to stop them!”
Hudson Valley Earth First! Is part of a regional network of Earth First!ers from across the Marcellus Shale, actively involved in direct action to stop shale gas development. Members of HVEF! have been working with community organizers and residents in Wawayanda and Minisink for more than 2 years to resist fracked gas infrastructure in Orange County.