HISTORY IS MADE! Kathy Chase of Cooperstown, center, was the first Otsego County voter to cast a ballot under the state’s new early voting law. Polls opened Saturday, Oct. 26, at the county’s Meadows Office Complex, and early voting continues daily through Sunday, Nov. 3. For schedule, click here. (James Cummings/AllOTSEGO.com)
For several decades our nation’s environmental policies have, for the most part, been driven by emotion or what “seemed,” according to popular opinion, to be the “right” thing to do. As a result, many of those policies lacked a scientific basis and the unintended consequences are, like lost chickens, coming home to roost.
Mike Zagata, DEC commissioner in the Pataki Administration and a former environmental executive for Fortune 500 companies, lives in West Davenport.
New York State’s ban on fracking may well be such an example. There are some in the environmental community who use natural gas to cook or heat their homes, yet they demand that gas not come from fracked wells in Pennsylvania. Let’s take a closer look at what that means to the release of carbon and the impact on climate change.
The gas they demand comes largely from the Gulf of Mexico, about 1,200 miles to the south of New York. It is transported from the Gulf of Mexico to New York via pipeline at about 800 psi (pounds per square inch) of pressure.
To maintain that pressure inside the pipe the gas must be run through large reciprocating engines or turbines that compress it. This gas compression is done about every 40 miles along the pipeline at compressor stations and, guess what, natural gas is the fuel that powers the engines or turbines used to compress the gas to increase the pressure in the pipe.
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In other words, not all the gas that enters the pipeline from the wells in the Gulf of Mexico arrives at the other end of the pipeline – much of it is burned as fuel to maintain the pressure inside the pipe and move the gas along the pipeline.
To maintain the pressure along the 1,200 miles the gas is being moved, it takes about 30 compressor stations. To move the gas from Pennsylvania to New York, a distance of about 80 miles, it would take two. Therefore, if we divide 30 by 2, we can quickly see that it takes about 15 times more gas for fuel to power the engines/turbines to move the gas in the pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico than it would take to move it from Pennsylvania to New York.
The people who oppose using the fracked gas from Pennsylvania are contributing to the 15-fold increase of released carbon by demanding we burn more gas than necessary to transport the gas they are using and thus are driving climate change. How’s that for irony?
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Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), California’s largest utility, has announced it is utting off power to about 1.5 million Californians. How can that be, and what drove them to do that?
We’ve all read about California’s catastrophic wildfires, but how many of us understand what triggered them? It was a combination of things, including population growth and home construction being allowed in a fire-dominated ecosystem. However,
good intentions may have been the primary cause.
Every time the U.S. Forest Service, the state’s Forest Management Agency of PG&E, attempted to manage the forest and brush by reducing the fuel load, they were sued by a well-intentioned advocacy group. That too went on for decades allowing the accumulated fuel of dead and dying wood to build up.
When fire came, and that was certain to happen, it came with a vengeance. Entire communities were consumed.
As a result, PG&E was sued as a spark from one of its electric transmission lines may have ignited one of the fires. The groups that sued PG&E to keep the company from removing that fuel were, however, not held to be responsible. That may change going forward.
A year has passed and we’re now into another fire season. To avoid being held culpable for any fires this year, PG&E made a pre-emptive move. They cut off power to about 1.5 million customers. The lack of science-based forest management policy has indeed come home to roost for those affected Californians.
For New York to fulfill its rush toward renewable energy sources, including solar and wind, it must think about how to avoid having the “chickens” come home to roost. The “chickens” will be the expanded electric transmission lines that will
be needed to move the electricity generated by all the new wind and solar farms.
What new unintended consequences will we be asked to face as a result?
Stay calm! That’s not a real ghost, but an image superimposed on the hallway by our photographer, Ian Austin, outside Room 217 at the Worcester Inn, which is among the selections on this year’s I Love New York “Haunted History Trail.” Innkeeper Jim Buelow believes a longtime pal, Dennis Enright, who passed away in the room last year, is hanging around, flushing the toilet to say hi. Waitress Stephanie McAdams says she’s seen Dennis’ image looking out the window over the parking lot from time to time. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO..com)
Hannah Bergene made a point of attending last week’s Harvest Festival at The Farmers’ Museum for a good reason: She didn’t want to miss the roasted corn on the cob, a fest favorite. At right is her CCS classmate Henry Bauer. Hannah, who works at PaperKite Creative in Cooperstown, said she’s just passed her one-year anniversary since leaving the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce, where she was the go-to contact for a number of years. (Jim Kevlin/www.AllOTSEGO.com)
Capt. Paula Wikoff and husband Terry pause next to Pirate Smell de Feet, The Glimmerglass Queen’s mascot. For people intending to enjoy Otsego Lake this fall, the one-hour cruises are a prime opportunity. Details in Summer Dreams; see below. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO,.com)
An intent Elizabeth Reynolds, Oneonta, scales the climbing wall at Cooperstown’s Clark Sports Center, which will be receiving the Otsego County Chamber’s 2019 Quality of Life Award Thursday, Aug. 22, at a Summer Soiree at the sports center. Also that evening, ISD Tech, also profiled in this week’s Freeman’s Journal and Hometown Oneonta, will receive the chamber’s Environmental Stewardship Award. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)
A herd of 75 buffaloes broke loose at a Town of Sharon farm and spent a week wandering around the towns of Roseboom and Cherry Valley, before their herding instinct caused them to gravitate home Tuesday. At the Proper farm on Honey Hill Road, Roseboom, the herd ate the second hay cutting, which the family planned to use to pay their property taxes for the year. Also, when Frank Proper was shaving Saturday, he looked in the mirror to see a big bull bison staring through the bathroom window. (Photo courtesy of Lucy Proper)
You may have been observing Coopertown’s first new house in six years rising art the corner of Delaware and Walnut. It turns out Simple Integrity’s Josh Edmonds is building a home that will cost only $254 a year to heat, he may have looked at some bungalow house plans as it is unlikely to heat an entire house for that amount, we’ll have to wait and see. Take a tour of the futuristic house in this week’s Hometown Oneonta and Freeman’s Journal. Also, maybe it’s a good thing marijuana legalization is stalled in Albany, because today’s pot isn’t your grandfather’s pot: It’s much more potent and dangerous. See this week’s editorial on Page A4
In the midst of the back-and-forth about the future of the former CVS property at 100 Main St., Cooperstown’s Rena Lull shared a copy of the December 1984 edition of Town & Country magazine, which featured a shopping tour of the downtown by the former Mary “Cissie” Busch Hager, who was also featured in the cover photo and a feature story on the Hager family of Cooperstown. The variety of shops downtown was impressive. Clockwise from upper left are The Gazebo gift shop; The Market Place deli; Around the House, doll house miniatures, antique toy replicas and Christmas ornaments; Augur’s Bookstore; Terrace Café; Church & Scott pharmacy; the Baseball Hall of Fame; Bland’s Sporting Goods; The Short Stop coffee shop; Straws & Sweets, handmade candles, wicker baskets and party decorations; Schneider’s Bakery, and the Red Nugget Ice Cream Saloon. It HAS been 35 years, but only the Hall of Fame and Schneider’s remain downtown, and Church & Scott at the south end of town. (AllOTSEGO.com photo)
With Cooperstown All Star Village and Dreams Park welcoming youth teams Friday, the “Summer Dreams” supplement will be published weekly in Hometown Oneonta & The Freeman’s Journal through the summer. This week, the Hall of Fame’s new exhibit, “Shoebox Treasures,” is featured, plus restaurant reviews and things to do.
Pick up this week’s edition of Hometown Oneonta or The Freeman’s Journal for exclusive photos and details of the head-on collision on Route 20 at Kelly’s Corners, Springfield Center, last evening, where a Sharon Springs man was killed and a deputy sheriff broke both his legs. Also in this edition, an exclusive article on Buzz Hesse’s rediscovery of Onaquaga, the headquarters of the Iroquois Confederacy on the Susquehanna. And much more …
Dropping the presidential address to graduates at SUNY Oneonta’s 130th Commencement Saturday, May 11, new President Barbara Jean Morris continued to signal she’s open to new approaches. Earlier in the week, she’d issued a 13-word mission statement, replacing a 407-word one, and communicating it to the campus community through an e-mailed video. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)
Representing the rest of the Susquehanna SPCA residents, Baby can’t restrain her excitement as Staffworks President Anita Vitullo, left, announces she will match donations to the $2 million “Shelter Us” fund drive dollar for dollar up to $250,000. Board member Merilyn Gould, there with fellow board member (and husband) Peter, couldn’t quite get Baby to settle down. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)
Anthony Eardley, former Oneonta Stallion football player, has qualified to compete on the TV show, “American Ninja Warriors.” Filming begins Monday. Meanwhile, he’s working out in his parents’ backyard at 1 Tilton Ave. (Ian Austin /AllOTSEGO.com)
