My well is back but frackers want my water - and my air, my land, and my quiet enjoyment of my property

My well ran dry for about a month this just-past summer. That uncomfortable period was followed by a second month of begging the plumber to come and figure out what was wrong with the PUMP.

After Tropical Storm Lee deluged my area and caused historic downstream flooding and suffering, the plumber finally got here, with an escort of two guys who were gonna pull the pump and replace it at astronomical cost.

Turned out that there was just grit in the pump from the dry weeks. That was flushed out, and I now have hot showers and all the joys of plentiful (but carefully conserved) water from a shallow well drilled into a jumble of glacial debris, where the water fills the crevices between the boulders and pebbles not too far beneath the house.

That was last week. This week, angry Anschutz Inc. of Denver Colorado has announced that they are suing the Town of Dryden NY, that's where my house is, to try and overturn the recently-passed zoning ordinance amendment that says that gas drilling and related activities are not in accord with the town's zoning ordinance or its general plan.

I would speculate (because that's the wording one uses when desirous of avoiding a lawsuit for libel, slander and generally having one's mouth shut by the power of the almighty dollar) that this lawsuit is closely tied to the Dryden NY GOP's plan to get a pro-fracking town supervisor elected in November in order to liberate Dryden from the shackles of environmental protection and burdensome regulation.

Why would these (alleged) doofuses aid and abet a company and industry that want to take away MY precious and very limited clean water supply, clean air, and the quiet enjoyment of my property? How do these (possibly) naive fools think they have the right to hold the door open to let in the gasaholics to destroy my land's value and uses?

One of these (apparent) idiots has written that we in Dryden will be constrained to a life of "genteel poverty" if we do not jump for the golden ring of gas development. And yet he said to me, with witnesses, that he himself does not have a lease on his land in Ellis Hollow and does not plan to obtain one. This publicly-revealed hypocrite is working on behalf of a candidate and a lawless industry, while hoping to keep the shit off his own shoes?

I am already living in genteel poverty. If this man's reckless, irresponsible actions lead to the destruction of my water, air, land and the quiet enjoyment of my property, what will I have left? Genteel poverty is all I've got, and he wants to let Aschutz take even that away from me.

My well ran dry

Photo: rainwater harvesting.

My house gets water via a well; family lore says it is 70 feet deep. The house was built in 1950 and the well has never gone dry. In the hot dry days of 2010, the water supply got a bit shaky -- the faucet spat and coughed and the water was sulfur-smelly, but it kept on coming. I hose-watered a vegetable garden, new berry bush patches, new flowers around the front patio, a new bed of day lilies and perennials out near the road.

By mid-autumn 2010 I had forgotten all about my fears of the well going dry, further calmed by the copious water pouring out of the wetland woods behind my house all winter and spring 2011 -- enough to often form a small stream running across my backyard, the water pouring into my neighbors' front and back yard, their house surrounded by water, linked via a driveway isthmus to the road. Water shortage? Not here!

Last Sunday, in mid-July 2011, the water stopped flowing. I had done two loads of laundry and watered the small gardens and small trees and berry patches that I have planted over the past two years. I had bought a small cheap oscillating sprinkler to save myself some time (hubris enters the picture), had ratcheted down the settings so that it sprinkled very specific areas.

I was setting up the sprinkler in the patio to water the delicate flowers that get so super-heated, and suddenly the water flow began to cough and choke, and a blast of water blew out the plug on the end of the sprinkler - and then no more water. The well pump was on -- and did not go off. It was working madly to suck water up out of the ground and into my pipes and faucets and toilets - but the well was dry.

The plumber has been here twice and is fairly sure this is a dry well, not a leaky pipe under the house or a broken well casing (know all about that from gas fracking). He said that on the day I called their emergency line, FIVE other people called with dry wells. I have heard since that "many people" are reporting dry wells in this supposedly water-rich area, and farmers are in fear of losing their water supply.

My political voice keeps trying to break in here, about how is it that gas companies want our water to frack gas wells, when we don't have enough for our own uses -- but I'll stay calm and for the time being continue looking at this personal disaster with manifold household and day-to-day ramifications.

I'll eventually get around to water and gas fracking and Governor Cuomo saying that NY City's unfiltered water is more important than all our unfiltered wells upstate .... and right-wingers right here in Dryden NY saying that because we have all this "free" precipitation that "falls out of the sky every year," that means we have lots of "extra" water that can be used (permanently removed from the water cycle) for gas fracking, and no one will notice the loss!

But I will tamp down the rage and return to my situation of a household in midsummer suddenly without running water for the forseeable future. Like the guy who runs the Atlanta Sewer and Water District said in a talk at River Rally in May, "Try doing without it for an afternoon!"

Seems to me that climate change and my own personal necessity for adaptation have arrived on my doorstep: suddenly last Sunday. I am no consumer hog. I am getting an energy audit for my house so that I can further reduce my natural gas usage; I keep the house at 55-62F in the winter and don't have a/c or a dishwasher, and I put my laundry on the line whenever feasible. Trying to grow my own vegetables. Replacing lawn with native plants. Composting every last little scrap and recycling the rest. Trying to be good! But the "new normal" has caught up with me, and left me high and dry.

Wait a minute, did you catch me saying the words climate change? Those dirty wicked leftie words that mean I am part of some inchoate, foggy plot to destroy the American Way of Life? Oh darn it, "politics" -- though I call 'em FACTS -- have crept back in.

It's hot, it's late, the neighbors are shooting off big boomer firecrackers that could set the tinder-dry woods on fire, the police soothe me over the phone that they will come check it out but they don't, and my cats are miserable in their heavy fur coats. I am going to take the one-gallon shower that I have perfected.

Check back in for happy hints on water conservation and things I have learned in one short week about what happens when a house goes water-free in mid-summer. And there will be sudden dangerous outbursts of fact-based science commentary.

I hear it might rain Sunday night, or maybe Monday.

Cell Tower: Nature Needs Protection Not Degradation

Dryden Town Board
93 East Main Street
Dryden NY 13053

June 8, 2009

Dear Supervisor Sumner and Dryden Town Board members:

I am writing to thank you for the opportunity to express the concerns of the folks who live in the Hanshaw-Sapsucker area regarding the Verizon cell tower that has been proposed to be built on the Uhls’ property near the Ludgate Farms store. It has been an honor to take part in this process over the past several months and I thank you all for your polite and patient time and attention.

I and others remain convinced that this is the wrong place for a cell tower, and that the Dryden Town Board is within its legal rights to say No to this tower proposal, or to sideline it until after a county-level review process is established.

The bases for a refusal or postponement remain the same: that Dryden would not benefit in any appreciable way from this tower, and yet a Dryden neighborhood would have to bear the impacts, among them lowered property values of nearby homes; and also that a residential neighborhood with Unique Natural areas on both sides is not appropriate for a cell tower, according to your own town zoning criteria.

Below, I address our concerns about the gradual degradation that would soon begin to eat away at this area were a cell tower to be built at this location. I have struggled for weeks on how best to explain this concern to you, and at one point planned to develop a mini-environmental impact statement complete with every type of technical and legal bell and whistle. In the end I decided to simply draw for you a word picture of what we think would inevitably take place as a result of a cell tower being built in this area.

To cut to the chase, we think that a proposal would soon arise to have the area re-zoned for commercial use, with resulting lights, noise, additional traffic and further physical degradation of this quiet residential and valuable natural area.

At present, the wooded property owned by the Uhls serves as a buffer, link, corridor and habitat for wildlife to use between the Fall Creek Unique Natural Area and the Sapsucker Woods Unique Natural Area. Well-used wildlife trails match up across Hanshaw Road. Also, although not mentioned or evaluated in any report, a stream significant enough to merit a culvert under Hanshaw Road runs from the Uhls’ property toward Fall Creek.

It has been argued by some that this area is already degraded by residential development (see tax map attachment) and that thus a cell tower will not do any further damage beyond its immediate footprint. However, we argue that this is exactly the reason why no more development, such as a cell tower, should be added to this vulnerable area.

While cell towers are most appropriately located in already-developed commercial-industrial areas, it is also common that cell towers placed in a wooded natural area soon attract commercial and industrial development around them. Why? Because the very presence of a cell tower signifies that the area is of lower value and is open for development. A cell tower degrades by its very presence.

Do you really want to actively contribute to the decay of this area by saying Yes to a cell tower here? Do you really want to significantly and measurably lower the natural and human values of this area by saying Yes to a cell tower here?

With the half-finished roadway that lies just east of the Ludgate property and the intense residential developer pressure along both the Ithaca and Dryden sides of Sapsucker Woods Road, a cell tower built on the Uhl’s property would be the tipping point to degrade this area into a commercial zoned stretch with a gas station and small shops.

If that happened, the green link – already tenuous – between the two Unique Natural Areas would be irretrievably broken and destroyed. The water quality of the stream flowing off the Uhl’s property to Fall Creek would be degraded. Both the Dryden and Ithaca sides of Sapsucker Woods would be under attack from development. The green buffer so important to the Hanshaw-Sapsucker area would be riddled with holes that would grow rapidly, and the green continuity of the Sapsucker-Fall Creek area would be permanently severed.

Degradation is a slow but inevitable process, once it is set in motion. A cell tower here would be a mortal blow to this vulnerable boundary area. Saying No to a cell tower here means saying Yes to the possibility of a sustainable future for this area, instead of a future of degradation, decay and loss. Please say No to a cell tower in this location.

Sincerely yours,
Hilary Lambert
Nancy Morgan
Stephen Wagner
And other supporters of Friends of Hanshaw-Sapsucker

Cell Tower Siting Should be at the County Level

May 4, 2009

Dear Editor:

We write to encourage readers to tell their elected officials that cell tower siting in Tompkins County should be determined at the county level. A county-wide moratorium on cell tower siting would provide time to develop a task force for intermunicipal coordination of responses to cell tower siting requests from Verizon and other companies.

Why is this important to Tompkins County municipalities? Cell companies are playing off differences in municipal ordinances, siting towers inappropriately. Sites are proposed that degrade community and natural values, benefiting one user group or municipality over others. Meanwhile, large areas of Tompkins County have little or no basic cell coverage.

At recent Dryden Town Board meetings we learned that Verizon will neither discuss long-range planning and siting nor agree to meet community needs, although municipalities and the county have worked hard to accommodate cell company requirements.

We encourage Tompkins County to take the initiative to ensure cell tower coverage that is equable for all areas and protective of neighborhoods, land values and natural areas. We recommend the formation of a citizens group to assist with coordination and communication among the municipalities of TC.

Sincerely yours,

Hilary Lambert
Hanshaw Road
(Dryden resident)

Nancy Morgan
Hanshaw Road
(Dryden resident)