Joint Landowners Coalition sues NYS over hydrofracking delay

BINGHAMTON — The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York, Inc. (JLCNY) on Friday announced the filing of a lawsuit against New York state over its inaction on hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking).

The Binghamton–based JLCNY filed the lawsuit on behalf of its 70,000 members, the coalition said in a news release.

The JLCNY describes its mission as one to “foster, promote, advance and protect the common interest of the people as it pertains to natural gas development though education and best environmental practices,” according to the news release.

Hydrofracking produces fractures in the rock formation that stimulate the flow of natural gas or oil, increasing the volumes that can be recovered, according to the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pumping large quantities of fluids at high pressure down a wellbore and into the target rock formation create the fractures, the EPA site says.

The Kark Family Trust, LADTM, LLC of Colesville and Schaefer Timber & Stone, LLC of Deposit are also included as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, according to the JLCNY.

The JLCNY describes the Kark Family Trust and Schaefer Timber & Stone as “landowners whose properties were the subject of drilling permits but were unable to develop their minerals because of the state’s failure to complete the SGEIS after more than a half decade.”

SGEIS is short for supplemental generic environmental-impact statement.

The lawsuit seeks an order compelling the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to finalize the SGEIS.

The order would also include a determination that the DEC referral of the SGEIS to the New York State Department of Health was “arbitrary and capricious,” an abuse of discretion, and an improper delegation of the DEC’s SEQRA lead-agency responsibilities.

SEQRA is short for State Environmental Quality Review Act.

In addition, a determination that Governor Cuomo is an “interested agency” for purposes of SEQRA review because of his “direct intervention” in the SGEIS process. JLCNY also wants the court to order Cuomo to share his records related to the SGEIS process for “public scrutiny.”

The plaintiffs also want an order determining that the New York governor is acting “without jurisdiction by orchestrating the delay and interfering with the DEC’s independent decision-making authority,” according to the JLCNY news release.

It is apparent to the world that Gov. Cuomo is “dragging out” the SGEIS process for his “political purposes” instead of focusing on his upstate New York constituents, many of whom “struggle to survive in the worst economic conditions in our nation,” Dan Fitzsimmons, president of the JLCNY, said in the release.

“We want to see our communities thrive through the blessing of this American energy revolution,” Fitzsimmons said.

The Lakewood, Colo.–based Mountain States Legal Foundation and attorney Scott Kurkoski, of Levene Gouldin & Thompson, LLP of Binghamton, are representing the JLCNY, the coalition said in its news release.

The attorneys have requested March 7 as the date to argue the Article 78 petition in the New York State Supreme Court in Albany County, according to the JLCNY.

The Mountain State Legal Foundation describes itself as a “nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system,” according to the JLCNY news release.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com