Say NO To “Fracking”

August 4, 2010
By Bill McCabe — As published in Hudson Valley News

During the six years that I served in the Dutchess County Legislature, I consistently supported efforts to require the testing of private wells at the time of transfer of property. Such a county law would give some degree of consumer protection to homeowners with private wells similar to those served by public or community water supplies. For me, the quality of our drinking water is a basic issue of public health. The County Legislature did, in fact, pass a well testing law but could not muster enough votes to over-ride a veto by County Executive Steinhaus.
Numerous communities in Dutchess (including sections of Hyde Park, East Fishkill, Clinton, LaGrange, Beekman, and Wappinger) have experienced pollution of private wells by carcinogenic chemicals, and the potential remains for other incidents. If we know a well is polluted, we can mitigate the problem and preserve public health. Knowledge and experience urge us to take measures to avoid disasters.

Now a new but related issue arises which also demands our use of knowledge and experience, namely the technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which is the use of high pressure to drill wells a mile deep in the ground to release natural gas from shale. Energy companies including Halliburton, of Cheney and Gulf Coast fame, have been exerting tremendous pressure to obtain permits to drill thousands of these wells in an area of southeastern New York State west of the Hudson known as the Marcellus Shale. Wells have been proposed from Sullivan County and the Southern Tier region, through the Catskills, and into central New York, including the New York City watershed that supplies drinking water to millions of New Yorkers.
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SOCIAL SECURITY: ALIVE AND WELL

September 15, 2010

By Bill McCabe -- As published in The Hudson Valley News 9/15/10
Last month marked the 75th Anniversary of the Social Security Law for American society. Millions of the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the widowed, and the orphaned in( from Nov 18) our country have been able to maintain the dignity and their lives directly from the provisions of the Social Security programs as envisioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Social Security and Medicare (passed in the Johnson Administration) are two highly successful government programs that are integral to the health and well-being of the American people. These programs are well-run, efficient, and cost-effective, and when the recently passed reforms in health care insurance are fully implemented, Americans will finally be entitled to a comprehensive, basic health and retirement safety net comparable to rest of the industrialized nations of the world.

Social Security, Medicare, and Health Care Insurance Reform have all been made into law by Democratic Congresses during the Administrations of Democratic presidents (FDR, Johnson, and Obama) with little Republican support and with much Republican opposition. So many of the same arguments used today to criticize Obama’s health insurance reforms were used to oppose Social Security in the 1930’s and Medicare in the 1960’s.

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