MAR '11 - The Nyack Villager

In this issue
Departments
3 REPORTER AT LARGE
• Water that burns
• Year of Edward Hopper
• Nyack Saturday Night
• Will Upper Nyack secede?
• Streetscape Update by Carol Fleischmann
• Rep. Engel again scores 100%
• Household Recycling 2 page 19
Spring arrives at
11:21pm March 20
MARTIUS
REPORTER
at large
Water that burns
The toxic effects of natural gas drilling
5 LETTERS to The Nyack Villager
10 EVENTS IN MARCH Art & entertainment this month
16 COMMUNITY NOTES What else is happening in March
20 CALENDAR Highlights in March
21 OP-CALENDAR PAGE useful local phone numbers
23 HOUSES OF WORSHIP in the river villages
Columns
8 REMEMBER THE DAYS Bullets fly on Elysian Avenue by Jim Leiner
9 UNDER EXPOSED Consider Martius by Shel Haber
12 WILDLIFE NEWS Travis Brady on a sweet time of year
18 HOME TOWN LAW Peter Klose, Esq. on starting a business
19 THEY GOT WHAT?! Donna Cox on current trends in real estate
22 MENTAL HEALTH NOTES Daniel Shaw on the control paradox
Features
6 SUMMER FUN IS COMING More Summer camps to choose from
17 FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD J.R. Tillotson on Dublin style fish & chips
On our March cover
Baby Willow in a basket
Photograph by Shel Haber, © 2011 The Nyack Villager, Nyack, NY
Consider Martius
see page 9
A sweet time of year
see page 12
The Nyack Villager
March, 2011 Vol. 15, No. 10
Mailed on or near the first of each month to every residential address in eight river villages—Upper Nyack,
Nyack, Central Nyack, South Nyack, Grand View, Upper Grandview, Piermont and Palisades NY.
On the Internet at www.nyackvillager.com
E-mail news releases to us at info@nyackvillager.com Deadline for our April issue is March 15.
Please include a contact name and telephone number
+
+
Beer Batter
Fish & Chips
see page 17
More Summer camps
page 6
“It’s happening all across America—rural
landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative
offer from an energy company wanting to
lease their property. Reason? e company
hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the Saudi
Arabia of natural gas. Halliburton developed a
way to get it out of the ground—a hydraulic
drilling process called fracking—and suddenly
America finds itself on a precipice of becoming
an energy superpower.”
So begins the Sundance commentary on
Gasland, a documentary by filmmaker Josh
Fox, who received just such a cash offer in the
mail, setting him off to discover what happens
on the front lines of the industrial process
known as fracking. What he finds is a desolation
of “... toxic streams, ruined aquifers,
dying livestock, brutal illnesses, & kitchen
sinks that burst into flame. He learns that all
water is connected and perhaps some things
are more valuable than money.”
For the full story visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/21/gasland-documentary
shows_n_ 619840.html
In the meantime, some data:
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a way to extract
natural gas from deep wells by injecting
water, sand and chemicals into the Earth. e
pressure fractures surrounding rock and opens
fissures enabling natural gas to flow.
What they don’t have to tell you:
Each frack uses between 80 and 300 tons of
chemicals. Companies engaged in natural gas
drilling need not disclose which chemicals are
in use. Among the chemical compounds scientists
have identified in fracking operations
are benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.
The Halliburton Loophole
A provision in the 2005 Bush-Cheney Energy
Bill specifically exempts hydraulic fracturing
from the Safe Drinking Water Act. e provision
takes the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) completely out of the picture.
continues on page 4
The Nyack Villager March, 2011 3