A new Siena College poll claims that more residents support hydrofracking now than oppose it. The sample is quite small and
42% support hydrofracking; 36% oppose
should not be considered the last word by any means. 822 respondents is not necessarily significant. In addition, the survey has a margin-of-error of 3.4%. The survey was also confined to registered voters. Siena is reporting that among registered voters 42% support hydrofracking; 36% oppose and 22% had “no opinion.”
The Democrat & Chronicle reports that in Upstate fracking is opposed, “45 percent to 39 percent.” (I could not find this data on the Siena Poll.)
What might account for the change in sentiment in the Southern Tier area, the place that is most likely to be impacted by fracking?
The answer may lie with the aggressive PR campaign the oil companies have been running. These companies have run a full blown media campaign including newspaper ads (and opinion letters), radio and TV commercials. They have also enjoyed the support of talk radio which notoriously like to hide its linkage between advertising revenues and “editorial” commentary.
The companies have only been partially successful however as the data shows. A 42% support is not even half the residents. While the number is higher than the opposition it is not a majority.
However, the oil companies will keep trying. They wave the carrot of lower taxes and jobs, both unproven theories, but persuasive sounding. What is vital to keep reminding people is this: if the oil companies will not reveal the content and composition, in its entirety, of the fluid to be pumped into the ground then they are hiding something. The claim of “corporate secret” is insufficient to stand against the public’s need to know. If there is the potential for poisoning of the aquifers then the citizens must be informed to make a reasonable judgment. Advertising claims of safety are not enough.
Of more importance for the long term is that all Americans have to stop encouraging oil companies all together. The age of fossil fuels as an energy source is over. Climate change is the result of fossil fuels and the future of the species, OUR species, is at stake. Letting oil companies produce more of the same old bad stuff, whatever the method, is harmful and dumb.
Written by: Pete Tonery
Tags: fracking new york, new york state, siena poll, hydrofracking, fracking, upstate, oil companies, climate change,
7 Comments
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Excellent info Jordan… Why do you think the public is okay with this (if they are?). Is it lack of information or they just don’t care (yet)?
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Adam: Assuming the poll data is accurate (a big assumption), I think there are a few factors in play:
1. Your suggestion of a “lack of information” is certainly a major factor. Shale gas development is an incredibly complex process, not only in terms of science and technology, but in terms of its impacts on state and local economies, social justice issues, and the quality of life in (largely) rural areas. It’s very difficult–especially for ordinary citizens attempting to stay informed about a multitude of public policy issues–to get a comprehensive handle on any one of those impact areas, let alone the whole package. Most experts can’t even do the latter. It’s what I call the “too many hats” problem, and it leaves people vulnerable to concerted misinformation campaign (the subject of my next point).
2. The gas industry–following the lead of so many other industries whose activities pose a serious threat to public health and the environment–engages in aggressive “doubt-mongering.” The strategies are well-developed and sophisticated, and they have a very traceable history extending back to tobacco and forward through acid rain, ozone depletion, climate change, DDT, and other controversial issues. If you want to get a handle on how this works, the best place to begin is Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, MERCHANTS OF DOUBT). Note that the gas industry has hired the same PR firm–Hill & Knowlton–that the tobacco industry hired to design its doubt-mongering campaign.
3. The gas industry, as Pete Tonery’s original post notes, spends BIG $ flooding the various media markets with advertisements featuring half-truths, distortions, and outright lies. If you’re interested in the data on this, one good place to begin is Common Cause’s 2011 study “Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets: Expenditures of the Natural Gas Industry in New York to Influence Public Policy—Part II – Lobbying Expenditures.” Focusing on the fight over 2 moratorium bills introduced in the 2009-10 NYS Legislature session, Common Cause calculated that the industry spent roughly 4 times the amount of money on lobbying (which the researchers defined as including advertising) as did opponents of the bills ($2,143,525 versus $726,382). So New Yorkers were inundated with a huge flood of ads focused around just this one skirmish. And, of course, the industry was able to set up a full-scale lobbying operation in Albany focused on a single issue, while most environmental and other advocacy groups have had to spread their limited resources over many issues, not just fracking.
For a different perspective–one highlighting the robustness and national importance of the fight against fracking at the local level in NYS–see Ellen Cantarow’s informative piece in THE NATION: http://www.thenation.com/article/171334/fight-against-fracking. Unfortunately, this part of the story has gotten remarkably thin coverage in the mainstream media.
[NOTE: Adam, if you have any interest in taking this rather long response (and perhaps my previous comment re Pete’s piece) out of the comment thread and combining it with your query into a full-on blog post, please feel free. Though I’d appreciate a look at it before it goes live.]
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One other thought about the validity of Sienna’s poll. An alternative, albeit very informal, way to gauge the public mood on this issue might be to look at the volume of negative public comments submitted to the DEC on its environmental impact statement (SGEIS) and recently proposed regulations (these are two separate documents and two separate processes). The public had an opportunity to comment on 2 iterations of SGEIS in the past several years, flooding the DEC with more than 80,000 overwhelmingly negative comments (in the case of the 60,000 comments on the 2nd version of SGEIS, the ratio was 10-1 negative to positive). The deadline for commenting on the regs is today (Jan. 11th) at 5pm, so we don’t have anything like a final tally. What we do know, however, is that the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club has collected and will be delivering around 200,000 negative comments. That number doesn’t include the undoubtedly large number of negative comments generated by Sandra Steingraber’s fabulous “30 Days of Fracking” effort (http://www.thirtydaysoffrackingregs.com/), or any other public comments that fall outside those two efforts. It’s also worth noting that the public comment period for the proposed regs was extremely short (30 days) and inconvenient (initiated right before Christmas).
To make sense of these numbers, we need to put them in historical perspective. The previous record for public comments on a proposal under consideration by the DEC was set in 2011, when the agency received around 800 comments for the proposed expansion of a cement plant in Albany County. So, for SGEIS, we’re looking at 100x the previous record. For the proposed regs, at least 250x, and probably much more. Bear in mind that these comments are overwhelmingly negative. It’s not an exact science, by any means, since a negative comment doesn’t necessarily mean an outright rejection of fracking. But the sheer volume of negative comments does constitute a sort of straw poll on the public’s uneasiness about shale gas development in NYS.
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Thanks for all the input, Jordan! Fracking didn’t seem to come up in the State of State speech yesterday. It could have overshadowed the many other messages he was trying to communicate, but I was surprised it didn’t get a mention.
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I am pretty sure he brought it up, but it was in the context of “we have not decided yet.” At least that what I thought the Governor said.
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A correction to my previous comment: the 200,000 figure is inclusive of the Sandra Steingraber’s “30 Days of Fracking” campaign, as well as several other commenting campaigns. Here’s the breakdown (from Chip Northrop’s blog: http://blog.shaleshockmedia.org/2012/12/14/how-to-read-the-fracking-regulations/):
Delaware Riverkeeper Network: 250 30 Days: 23,187 Citizens Action New York: 1844 Food and Water Watch: 15,333 Signon.org: 13,335 CREDO: 76,158 Catskill Citizens: 23,924 Sierra Club: 4600 350.org: 2400 Working Families Party: 4000 Artists Against Fracking (Causes): 21,921 Artists Against Fracking (web): 425 In hand: 2107 New Yorkers Against Fracking create your own: 1054 New Yorkers Against Fracking simple: 1188 Center for Biological Diversity: 3350 Greenpeace: 3637 Earth Justice: 3602
And this just in from Tom Wilber’s indispensable blog (http://tomwilber.blogspot.com/2013/01/activists-attack-fracking-plan-with.html):
“While there is bound to be a percentage of comments that are redundant or irrelevant, the agency will still have to read them, sort them, and respond appropriately by Feb. 27. That means that staffers will have to read and sort some 4,000 comments a day. That’s 400 an hour, six a minute, and one every 10 seconds. That’s assuming a 70-hour workweek with no breaks to answer the phone, eat or go to the bathroom. And then there are the ones that will require thoughtful analysis and perhaps, if taken in good faith, warrant change to the draft document. In addition to the boxes of comments, the agency will have to respond to ‘some very detailed technical comments’ from environmental groups, including the National Resource Defense Council, Earthjustice, Riverkeeper, Catskill Mountainkeeper, and Sierra Club being submitted this afternoon, said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney with Earth Justice. ‘Failure to comply with these requirements is grounds for legal challenge,’ Goldberg said.”
Renee: in response to your musings on Cuomo’s silence, as far as the Guv goes, it’s the same old line (paraphrased from his spokesperson): “We need to let the science take its course rather than letting politics or emotion decide the issue”–or something to that effect. Too many problems with that claim (which Cuomo has made repeatedly since taking office) to take on here, but the main one is the most obvious: the DEC hasn’t DONE the science but has nevertheless proposed the regulations of a process for which it hasn’t even completed its environmental assessment. As Helen Slottje recently remarked, that’s “irrational, arbitrary, capricious, and illegal.” In fact, the Slottje’s will be pursuing a legal challenge to the whole process. More on that soon…
You’re spot on in highlighting the corporate advertising blitz but less so in your evaluation of “what is vital” with respect to the poisoning of aquifers, which, it’s important to stress, is just one of many dangers associated with shale gas development. Revealing the contents of proprietary fracking fluids is certainly crucial for public health and environmental monitoring, but from the perspective of evaluating the safety of the process, we already know–even without knowing the particular proprietary formulations of 100s of fracking fluids–that the frack fluids contain all sorts of toxicants, including carcinogens, neurotoxins, and endocrine disruptors. We know this largely from the research of Theo Colborn, who used Material Data Safety Sheets and EPA accident reports to identify 600 or so chemicals used in all stages of fracking. We also know that fracking wastewater contains, in addition to these chemicals, naturally occurring radioactive substances, heavy metals, and hydrocarbons. Moreover, we know that shale gas development generates dramatic increases in ground-level ozone, airborne silica dust, diesel fumes, and VOCs, all of which are hazardous to human health and the environment. And we know that shale gas, due largely to fugitive methane emissions, has a much larger greenhouse gas footprint than coal on a 20-year time scale, and is about on par with coal on a 100-year time scale. We also know that permanently removing enormous quantities of water from the hydrologic cycle causes serious harm to aquatic ecosystems. In short, while having access to the recipes of proprietary frack fluids would be extremely helpful for those tracking the effects of fracking, we already know that the process is dangerous to human health and the environment, whether or not we know what those proprietary mixtures are.
You write that “if the oil companies will not reveal the content and composition, in its entirety, of the fluid … then they are hiding something.” Well, that goes without saying. Holding something secret, by definition, means you are hiding something. Better to be more pointed: “if the gas and oil industry claims that the process is so safe (a claim they make in most of their ads), then why are they so secretive about what they’re injecting into the ground in such enormous quantities?”